From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Feb 2016 · Haymarket Books

About this ebook

The author of Race for Profit carries out “[a] searching examination of the social, political and economic dimensions of the prevailing racial order” (Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow).
 
In this winner of the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize for an Especially Notable Book, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor “not only exposes the canard of color-blindness but reveals how structural racism and class oppression are joined at the hip” (Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams).
 
The eruption of mass protests in the wake of the police murders of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York City have challenged the impunity with which officers of the law carry out violence against black people and punctured the illusion of a post-racial America. The Black Lives Matter movement has awakened a new generation of activists.
 
In this stirring and insightful analysis, activist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor surveys the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and the persistence of structural inequality, such as mass incarceration and black unemployment. In this context, she argues that this new struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader push for black liberation.
 
“This brilliant book is the best analysis we have of the #BlackLivesMatter moment of the long struggle for freedom in America. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor has emerged as the most sophisticated and courageous radical intellectual of her generation.” —Dr. Cornel West, author of Race Matters
 
“A must read for everyone who is serious about the ongoing praxis of freedom.” —Barbara Ransby, author of Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement
 
“[A] penetrating, vital analysis of race and class at this critical moment in America’s racial history.” —Gary Younge, author of The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream

Ratings and reviews

One would have to be quite insane to waste their time denying something that isn't even real.

Tells the uncanny truth about racism in America. If only people would stop denying it

About the author

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes on Black politics, social movements, and racial inequality in the United States. Her articles have been published in Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society, Jacobin, New Politics, the London Guardian, In These Times, Black Agenda Report, Ms. magazine, International Socialist Review, Al Jazeera America, and other publications. She is assistant professor in the department of African American Studies at Princeton University.