11 Books That Examine the History of Racism in America11本审视美国种族主义历史的书

2021-11-30 07:19卡丽·奥利维娅·亚当斯
英语世界 2021年11期
关键词:酷刑新奥尔良弗格森

卡丽·奥利维娅·亚当斯

For those searching for answers following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police and the resulting unrest across the nation, its important to understand the history and context of racism in the United States. The University of Chicago Press has identified 11 books that it has published that provide a primer on police violence, educational inequity, and other forms of institutional racism. These books come from a variety of perspectives and disciplines, including education, history, medicine and sociology, but they all have similar missions: to better inform our opinions, offer insight into the perspectives and lives of others, and to give voice to those who have often been silenced.

The Torture Letters: Reckoning with Police Violence

Laurence Ralph

In The Torture Letters, Laurence Ralph chronicles the history of torture in Chicago, the burgeoning activist movement against police violence, and the American publics complicity in perpetuating torture at home and abroad.

Citizen Brown: Race, Democracy and Inequality in the St. Louis Suburbs

Colin Gordon

The 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson1, Missouri ignited nationwide protests and brought widespread attention police brutality and institutional racism. But Ferguson was no aberration2. As Colin Gordon shows, the events in Ferguson exposed not only the deep racism of the local police department but also the ways in which decades of public policy effectively segregated people and curtailed3 citizenship, not just in Ferguson but across the St. Louis suburbs.

Tacit Racism

Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Duck

In Tacit Racism, Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Duck illustrate the many ways in which racism is coded into the everyday social expectations of Americans. They argue that these interactions can produce racial inequality, whether the people involved are aware of it or not, and that by overlooking tacit racism in favor of the fiction of a “color-blind” nation, we are harming not only our societys most disadvantaged—but endangering the society itself.

Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells, Second Edition

Edited by Alfreda M. Duster, with a new foreword by Eve L. Ewing and a new afterword by Michelle Duster

Ida B. Wells is an American icon of truth telling. Born to slaves, she was a pioneer of investigative journalism, a crusader against lynching4, and a tireless advocate for suffrage, both for women and for African Americans. This engaging memoir, originally published in 1970, relates Wellss private life as a mother as well as her public activities as a teacher, lecturer, and journalist in her fight for equality and justice.

Remembering Emmett Till

Dave Tell

Take a drive through the Mississippi Delta today, and youll find a landscape dotted with memorials to major figures and events from the civil rights movement. Perhaps the most chilling are those devoted to the murder of Emmett Till, a tragedy of hate and injustice that became a beacon in the fight for racial equality.

Beyond the Usual Beating: The Jon Burge Police Torture Scandal and Social Movements for Police Accountability in Chicago

Andrew S. Baer

Chicago police commander Jon Burge decades-long tenure on the Chicago police force was marked by racist and barbaric interrogation methods, including psychological torture, burnings, and mock executions—techniques that went far “beyond the usual beating.” After being exposed in 1989, he became a symbol of police brutality and the unequal treatment of nonwhite people, and the persistent outcry against him led to reforms such as the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois.

Murder in New Orleans: The Creation of Jim Crow5 Policing

Jeffrey S. Adler

Using the history of New Orleans crime, Adler shows how the vicious response to African American crime occurred even as such violence plunged in frequency—revealing that the citys cycle of racial policing and punishment was connected less to actual patterns of wrongdoing than to the national enshrinement of Jim Crow. Rather than some hyperviolent outlier6, Adler argues, this Louisiana city was a harbinger of the endemic racism at the center of todays criminal justice state. Murder in New Orleans lays bare how decades-old crimes, and the racially motivated cruelty of the official response, have baleful7 resonance in the age of Black Lives Matter.

Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicagos South Side

Eve L. Ewing

Rooting her exploration in the historic African American neighborhood of Bronzeville, Asst. Prof. Eve L. Ewing of Chicagos School of Social Service Administration reveals that black communities see the closing of their schools—schools that are certainly less than perfect but that are theirs—as one more in a long line of racist policies. She argues that the fight to keep them open is yet another front in the ongoing struggle of black people in America to build successful lives and achieve true self-determination.

The Color of Mind: Why the Origins of the Achievement Gap Matter for Justice

Derrick Darby and John L. Rury

American students vary in educational achievement, but white students in general typically have better test scores and grades than black students. Why is this the case, and what can school leaders do about it? In The Color of Mind, Derrick Darby and John L. Rury answer these pressing questions and argue that we cannot make further progress in closing the achievement gap until we understand its racist origins.

Building the Prison State: Race and the Politics of Mass Incarceration

Heather Schoenfeld

Reframing the story of mass incarceration, Heather Schoenfeld illustrates how the unfinished task of full equality for African Americans led to a series of policy choices that expanded the governments power to punish, even as they were designed to protect individuals from arbitrary state violence. To reduce the number of people behind bars, Schoenfeld argues that we must transform the political incentives for imprisonment and develop a new ideological basis for punishment.

The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills

David A. Ansell, MD

When detailing the many things that the poor have not, we often overlook the most critical—their health. The poor die sooner. Blacks die sooner. And poor urban blacks die sooner than almost all other Americans. In The Death Gap, David A. Ansell gives a grim survey of these realities, drawn from observations and stories of his patients in Chicago.

對于那些寻找乔治·弗洛伊德被警察杀害缘由以及后来引起全国骚乱答案的人们来说,了解美国种族主义的历史和背景很重要。芝加哥大学出版社筛选出自己出版过的11本书,作为了解美国警察暴力、教育不平等和其他体制性种族主义的入门读物。这些书涵盖了不同的视角和学科,包括教育学、历史学、医学和社会学,但它们的使命相似:更好地影响我们的观点,让我们了解他人的视角和生活,并为那些经常被禁声的人发声。

《酷刑信:反抗警察暴力》

作者:劳伦斯·拉尔夫

劳伦斯·拉尔夫在《酷刑信》中记录了芝加哥酷刑的历史,介绍了反抗警察暴力的激进主义运动的迅速发展,并且指出,之所以酷刑在国内外长期存在,美国公众难辞其咎。

《公民布朗:圣路易斯郊区的种族、民主和不平等》

作者:科林·戈登

2014年,迈克尔·布朗在密苏里州弗格森被杀,引发了全国范围的抗议活动,并引起了人们对警察暴行和种族主义体制性不公的广泛关注。但弗格森并非特例。正如科林·戈登所揭示的那样,弗格森的事件不仅暴露了当地警察局根深蒂固的种族主义,也暴露了几十年的公共政策是如何在实际中隔离人民和限制公民权的,这不仅发生在弗格森,在圣路易斯全县郊区都是如此。

《心照不宣的种族主义》

作者:安妮·沃菲尔德·罗尔斯和韦弗利·达克

安妮·沃菲尔德·罗尔斯和韦弗利·达克在《心照不宣的种族主义》一书中阐述了种族主义在美国日常社会中的种种表现。他们认为,无论相关人员是否意识到这一点,它们会共同导致种族的不平等,而且,对心照不宣的种族主义视而不见,而支持美国无种族歧视的谎言,这不仅伤害了美国社会中最弱势的群体,而且还给社会本身带来了隐患。

《为正义而战:艾达·B.韦尔斯自传》,第二版

阿尔弗丽达·M.达斯特编辑,伊芙·L.尤因作新版序言,米歇尔·达斯特作新版后记

艾达·B.韦尔斯是美国“说真话”的代表性人物。她出身于奴隶家庭,是调查性新闻报道的先驱,是反对私刑的斗士,也是妇女和非裔美国人选举权的不懈倡导者。这本引人入胜的回忆录初版于1970年,讲述了韦尔斯作为一名母亲的个人生活,以及她作为教师、演讲人和记者为争取平等和正义而进行的公开活动。

《纪念埃米特·蒂尔》

作者:戴夫·特尔

如果你在今天驾车穿越密西西比三角洲,你会发现一处景致,这里有很多民权运动主要人物和事迹的纪念碑。也许最令人不寒而栗的是那些埃米特·蒂尔遇害事件纪念碑,那是由仇恨和不公正酿成的悲剧,成了争取种族平等的灯塔。

《虐囚:乔恩·伯奇警察酷刑丑闻与芝加哥警察问责社会运动》

作者:安德鲁·S.贝尔

乔恩·伯奇在芝加哥警察部队担任警察指挥官数十年,其间最出名的就是动用种族主义的野蛮审讯手段,包括心理折磨、灼烧和模拟处决——这些手段远远“超出了通常意义的刑讯”。其劣跡在1989年被曝光后,他便成了警察暴行和歧视有色人种的象征,民众对他持续的抗议促成了伊利诺伊州废除死刑等改革。

《新奥尔良谋杀案:警方执法中的种族歧视》

作者:杰弗里·S.阿德勒

即便非裔美国人的犯罪率大大下降了,但对这类犯罪还是以残暴的方式应对。作者阿德勒用新奥尔良的犯罪活动历史,揭示了这种残暴应对模式是如何形成的——新奥尔良对有色人种的执法和惩罚这一整套程序,与其说与实际的不法行为模式有关,不如说是与美国上下对种族歧视习以为常有关。阿德勒认为,路易斯安那州的这座城市不是极端暴力的特例,而是当今刑事司法中心种族主义猖獗的先兆。《新奥尔良谋杀案》揭示了数十年的犯罪活动史和警方受种族主义驱使的残暴执法在这个“黑命贵”的时代依然触目惊心。

《校园里的幽灵:种族主义和芝加哥南区学校的关闭》

作者:伊芙·L.尤因

芝加哥大学社会服务管理学院的助理教授伊芙·L.尤因将她的研究植根于历史悠久的非裔美国人社区布朗兹维尔。她透露,黑人认为关闭黑人社区学校——虽然这些学校不那么完美,但那是属于他们的学校——是众多种族主义政策中的又一项。她认为,争取保留这些学校是美国黑人为创造理想的生活和实现真正自主而进行斗争的另一条战线。

《心灵的颜色:为什么找出成绩差距的根源对于实现正义至关重要》

作者:德里克·达比和约翰·L.鲁里

美国学生的成绩各不相同,但白人学生通常可以获得比黑人学生更好的考试分数和成绩等级。为什么会这样?学校领导又能对此做些什么呢?德里克·达比和约翰·L.鲁里在《心灵的颜色》一书中回答了这些紧迫的问题,并提出,除非我们了解其种族主义根源,否则我们无法在消除成绩差距方面取得进展。

《建设监狱国家:种族与大规模监禁的政治》

作者:希瑟·舍恩菲尔德

希瑟·舍恩菲尔德复述了美国大规模监禁有色人种的故事,说明了非洲裔美国人尚未达到完全平等的现状和由此引发的一系列政策措施,尽管制定这些政策是为了保护个人免受专制国家暴力的影响,却扩大了政府惩罚的权力。舍恩菲尔德认为,为了减少入狱人数,我们必须改变监禁的政治动机,并建立一种新的量刑思想基础。

《死亡鸿沟:不平等是如何杀人的》

作者:戴维·A.安塞尔,医学博士

在谈及穷人的诸多匮乏时,我们往往忽略了最关键的东西——他们的健康。穷人的寿命短。换句话说,黑人的寿命短。城市里贫穷的黑人比几乎其他所有美国人的寿命都短。在《死亡鸿沟》一书中,戴维·A.安塞尔基于他在芝加哥接诊病人的评论和叙述,审视了这些残酷的现实。

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