As Black Lives Matter protesters continue to march throughout the country demanding changes to our police forces, we look back at history and ask: How did racial discrimination within our police forces start?
In his book, The Condemnation of Blackness, historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad examines the history of blackness in the U.S., focusing particularly on the history of the Northern states in the years after the Emancipation Proclamation, where Black men were, and continue to be, incarcerated and killed by police officers at higher rates than White men. For many Whites – conservatives and liberals alike – Black incarceration was proof of Black inferiority. Why else in the land of opportunity would these men fail? Dr. Muhammad looks at how these ideas have shaped our social policies, cities and country.
Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad’s book is The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America.[IndieBound|Amazon|Audible]
