Ramsey County Law Library Blog

Antiracist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi.

The last book that we’ll review
Is called Antiracist Baby.
This book, like the others in our series,
Is available at the Law Library.

Although this is a children’s book
The lessons also apply to adults
Kendi has written nine suggestions
For readers to review and consult.

The illustrations are colorful
Reflective of our universe
The lessons within gently explain how
To appreciate cultures that are diverse.

We pass these lessons on to our children
So that they can help transform
Our society to one where antiracism
Is not unexpected or rare, but the norm.

Kendi explains that we all make choices
Some are bad, while some are good
We can learn from our mistakes, and make
Better choices in adulthood.

The final pages pose questions for parents
To start the conversation,
To teach their children to be antiracist
And to practice antiracism.

Ibram X. Kendi has some excellent advice
For raising the next generation.
Let’s help build a world that is antiracist
With this book as our inspiration.

Ibram X. Kendi, Antiracist Baby, New York: Penguin Random House, 2020.  Illustrations by Ashley Lukashevsky.

Her Voice in Law, now available at the Ramsey County Law Library

Her Voice in Law:  Vocal Power and Situational Command for the Female Attorney, by Rena Cook and Laurie Koller, Chicago, IL: ABA Publishing, 2020.

This very interesting and practical book is about a woman’s voice and how it resonates during trial.  An attorney’s voice is a powerful tool – it is how she connects with the audience, tells the client’s story, and convinces the jury to favor her client.  The book walks through the techniques women attorneys can use to improve their vocal skills, use these skills to be better advocates in court, and then apply these skills when communicating with clients and colleagues.

In the five chapters of this books, each one addresses a different aspect of how a woman can improve the quality of voice and subsequently, improve her presentation in court.  The first chapter address the physical aspects of speaking and projecting.  The following chapters discuss emotions and tone in her voice that can be used to capture and hold the interest of the audience.  One chapter discusses body movement and body language to supplement what her voice, words, and emotions are trying to convey.  Finally, the authors point out that these techniques are applicable to non-work situations as well.

The premise of this book is that it isn’t just the content of the spoken word that is important – her speaking voice is important, too.  The book presents so many practical strategies for improving one’s voice – this book is highly recommended to everyone who is interested in improving their oral communication skills.

This book was recently added to the Ramsey County Law Library and is available for check out.

Locking Up Our Own and the New Jim Crow are available at the Ramsey County Law Library.

Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman, Jr. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017)

This Pulitzer Prize winning book closely examines race relations in Washington, D.C. from the sixties through the nineties and describes parallel stories from locations outside of D.C.  The stories explain how Black America supported schemes that resulted in high incarceration among Black people.  The reasons include early Black opposition to the decriminalization of marijuana and surging gun possession due to Black views that guns were needed for collective self-defense. These, and other factors described by the author, laid the foundation for how drug addiction and crime have assailed Black America.

In the second half of the book author Forman describes the consequences of decades-old systems that result in mass incarceration of Black people.  Drug sentences and mandatory minimums, the crack epidemic, the War on Drugs, aggressive police strategies (and pretext policing), and the disparate social and economic impacts of incarceration all factor into the disparagement of Black men.

In his epilogue, Forman describes a decline in crime after 2014 in Washington, D.C., but it leaves in its stead a devastating impact on the Black community.  He concludes that mass incarceration is a system that was “constructed incrementally, and it may have to be dismantled the same way.” (p. 238)

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (Tenth Anniversary Edition, The New Press, 2020)

If Forman’s book describes the history of mass incarceration, Michelle Alexander’s book provides an incisive and rigorous study of the criminal justice system’s impact on current Black America.  In fact, in Locking Up Our Own, Forman references Alexander’s book and states it “played a crucial role in providing advocates with a framework for understanding, and a rhetoric for criticizing, the War on Drugs.” (p. 220)   Alexander explains how and why a disproportionate number of Black men versus White men are incarcerated.

In her introduction to the tenth anniversary edition, she states that the 2010 work (the original edition) is even more relevant today due to the passage of time and predictability of patterns that she identified earlier including: the establishment of a caste system derived from mass incarceration; its collateral consequences; and economic and social exclusion.  Alexander states that this system is “invisible to the naked eye but functions nearly as effectively as Jim Crow laws once did.” (page xxvii)  For change to occur, society must address mass incarceration. Alexander also notes Martin Luther King, Jr.’s warning that racial indifference fosters a culture in which racism thrives.

You can find these books, as well as the other books in our summer reading series at the Ramsey County Law Library.

The Condemnation of Blackness and The Color of Law.

The Condemnation of Blackness by Khalil Gibran Muhammad is a scrupulously researched book that documents statistics, “scholarly papers”, and discourse through American history to try and answer the question: How did we come to think of race, and specifically African Americans, as synonymous with crime?

His book examines decades of effort by researchers and social scientists who influenced popular thinking to conclude that the troubles associated with African Americans – poverty, crime, reduced lifespan, were the result of the inherent inferiority of Blacks to their White counterparts. This research became widely accepted because it appeared to be based on neutral and unbiased statistics. However, while the statistics themselves might have been neutral, the specific selection, interpretation, and subsequent conclusions certainly were not. Fredrick Hoffman, one of the first researchers to publish such a biased report linking excessive criminal behavior to Blacks, expressed this idea by stating that crime would increase “until the negro learns to respect life, property, and chastity, until he learns to believe in the value of personal morality in his daily life…”

Hoffman’s book and those by other social scientists pushed the narrative that increased policing was necessary to deal with the “criminal activity” of Blacks. And while these original reports were written more than a century ago, the attitudes and inherent biases that were fostered are still evident today. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice investigated the Ferguson Police Department for the killing of Michael Brown. In defending itself, the department claimed that the community problems were not the fault of the police department, but rather “reflect a pervasive lack of ‘personal responsibility’ among ‘certain segments’ of the community.”

Similarly, Richard Rothstein explains in The Color of Law, that local governments, as well as state and federal government agencies used flimsy excuses (that Black families wanted to live in Black neighborhoods, that they couldn’t afford to live in pricier areas, segregation was a way to limit criminal behavior) to create segregated neighborhoods in cities. These methods to create segregated neighborhoods varied. In cities where new construction created new neighborhoods, contractors received subsidies and tax relief for building White-only neighborhoods. Public housing was built to intentionally segregate mixed neighborhoods. Real estate agents worked with cities to redline neighborhoods that restricted who could purchase houses. Banks refused to fund loans to African Americans.  And so on.  Unfortunately, the result perpetuated a system that actively promoted separation of the races supported at all levels of government.

An area that may be of particular interest to readers is in the very last section of the book.  Here, the author answers frequently asked questions about his research and conclusions.  Many questions were about his research and the historical context (“Why did leaders whom we consider liberal promote segregationist policies?” and “How can I remove a restrictive covenant from my deed?”), but other questions are more provocative, and unfortunately, very familiar: “Don’t Black people have to take responsibilities for their own lives? Isn’t the real reason why [they] can’t escape the ghetto is that so many are single mothers who can’t or don’t raise their children properly?” His answers to these questions are thoughtful and well-reasoned, and one of the many reasons why you should read this book.

If you are interested in seeing how these restrictive covenants have been applied closer to home, the University of Minnesota project, Mapping Prejudice is an interactive map of Minneapolis that displays properties with racially restrictive language in the property deeds. The time-lapse map shows the gradual increase of properties with restrictive covenants from 1910-1955, and an interactive map allows the user to zoom in on specific lots and see the actual language included on the deed. The project is the first-ever comprehensive visualization of racial covenants for an American city.

Both of these books can be borrowed from the Ramsey County Law Library.  Hope to see you soon!

Khalil Gibran Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, crime, and the making of modern urban America, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019.

Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A forgotten history of how our government segregated America, New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2017.

So you want to talk about race by Ijeoma Oluo and The Myth of Race: The Reality of Racism: Critical Essays by Mahmoud El-Kati

So You Want to Talk about Race, by Ijeoma Oluo (Seal Press, 2019)

Ijeoma Oluo directly challenges white people in this commendable book about racism.  She offers a clear discussion of race from a Black perspective.  She also looks beyond race and the factors that contribute to inequality—what race looks like in the context of dominant white society and how we are all products of a racialized society.  This, states Uluo, “affects everything we bring to our interactions.”  She describes how ineffectively white people perceive how Black people are impacted personally, economically, and politically by a racist society.  Oluo personalizes her experience with examples that offer clear understanding of racist behavior.  With a specific chapter for white people entitled “I Just Got Called a Racist, What Do I do Now?” Oluo’s simple response is “do the work.”  At the same time, she offers concise explanations that foster change and understanding.

The Myth of Race: The Reality of Racism:  Critical Essays, by Mahmoud El-Kati (Papyrus Publishing, 2014)

In his short book of essays, author Mahmoud El-Kati, a former history professor at Macalester College, states that “racism is prejudice plus power.”  This definition offers a platform for action, dialog and the ability to change power relationships.  El-Kati embellishes the definition with historical context (including the origins of white supremacy), theories that explain the deconstruction of “race,” and the idea that “race” is actually a false concept that is legitimized by power.  The power of “race,” under this scenario, sanctions the right of exploitation of one group over another.  El-Kati states that to get rid of “race,” the myth of racism should be a critical part of our educational curricula and a part of teacher training.  He also emphasizes that the myth of race cannot be solved “unless there is a healthy dose of the scarcest commodity in America — moral courage.”

These books are available at the Ramsey County Law Library.