N*gga Theory: Race, Language, Unequal Justice, and the Law

by Jody David Armour, Abdullah (Introduction), Krasner (Foreword by)

Overview

"A MUST-READ FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN UNDERSTANDING AND DISMANTLING MASS INCARCERATION." —Chesa Boudin, District Attorney of San Francisco

America's criminal justice system is among the deadliest and most racist in the world and it disproportionately targets Black Americans, who are also disproportionately poor, hungry, houseless, jobless, sick, and poorly educated. By every metric of misery, this nation does not act like Black Lives Matter.

In order to break out of the trap of racialized mass incarceration and relentless racial oppression, we, as a society, need to rethink our basic assumptions about blame and punishment, words and symbols, social perceptions and judgments, morality, politics, and the power of the performing arts.

N*gga Theory interrogates conventional assumptions and frames a transformational new way of thinking about law, language, moral judgments, politics, and transgressive art—especially profane genres like gangsta rap—and exposes where racial bias lives in the administration of justice and everyday life.

Professor Jody Armour (Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism) calls for bold action: electing progressive prosecutors, defunding or dismantling the police, abolition of the prison industrial complex. But only after eradicating the anti-black bias buried in the hearts and minds of millions of Americans and baked into our legal system will we be able to say that Black Lives Matter in America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781940660684
Publisher:	Los Angeles Review of Books
Publication date:	08/18/2020
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jody David Armour is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Law at the University of Southern California. He has been a member of the faculty since 1995. Armour's expertise ranges from personal injury claims to claims about the relationship between racial justice, criminal justice, and the rule of law. Armour studies the intersection of race and legal decision making as well as torts and tort reform movements.

A widely published scholar and popular lecturer, Armour is a Soros Justice Senior Fellow of The Open Society Institute's Center on Crime, Communities and Culture. Armour earned his AB degree in Sociology at Harvard University and his JD degree with honors from Boalt Hall Law School at UC Berkeley. Prior to joining USC, he was an associate at Morrison & Foerster, Kirkpatrick and Lockhart and taught at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall, Indiana University and the University of Pittsburgh.

Armour currently teaches students a diverse array of subjects, including Criminal Law, Torts, and Stereotypes and Prejudice: The Role of the Cognitive Unconscious in the Rule of Law. He is the author of Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism: The Hidden Costs of Being Black in America and N*gga Theory: Race, Language, Unequal Justice, and the Law.

Melina Abdullah is Professor and former Chair of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Southern California in Political Science and her B.A. from Howard University in African American Studies. She was appointed to the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission in 2014 and is a recognized expert on race, gender, class, and social movements. Abdullah is the author of numerous articles and book chapters, with subjects ranging from political coalition building to womanist mothering.

One of the nation's leading progressive District Attorneys, Larry Krasner serves as DA for Philadelphia, having campaigned on the platform to radically reform elements of the criminal justice system to reduce racialized mass incarceration.

Table of Contents

Foreword Larry Krasner iii

Introduction Melina Abdullah vii

Prologue Nigga Theory: A Song of Solidarity 3

Chapter 1 Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity in Blame and Punishment 37

Chapter 2 Moral Luck in the Social Production of "niggas" 65

Chapter 3 Law in the Social Construction of "niggas" 87

Chapter 4 The Midwifery Properties of the N-word 125

Chapter 5 Metaphysical Theatre and Nigga Theory in Nine Acts 149

Chapter 6 How Race Trumped Class in 2016 161

Chapter 7 Condemning "niggas" 177

Chapter 8 Nigga Theory and Praxis: Where the Rubber Meets the Road 189

Conclusion Coda 215

Acknowledgments 227

Notes 229

Index 259

What People are Saying About This

Frank Wilderson III

"He's brilliant and a kindred spirit. Amazing."

Christina Jackson

Forthcoming. Christina is a public urban sociologist whose work deals with urban inequality and activism.

Salamishah Tillet

Forthcoming. Salamishah's research considers black film, literature, and pop culture. She is the co-founder of A Long Walk Home, Inc.

foreword - Larry Krasner

"This hopeful and aspirational book reminds us to see individuals and their lives, including the details, however unexpected. He lets us see how within his beloved black community the politics of division do sweeping harm that no amount of success can shake."

introduction - Melina Abdullah

"When Jody Armour invited me to write the foreword, his brilliance, commitment, and deep love for our people took precedent over my own discomfort with the N-word.His work has challenged me to be deeply introspective, to grapple with my identity, my beliefs, and my outward praxis. It has forced me to question and to grow."

"This volume is not about the word, but about the imposed dichotomy between 'black people' and 'n*****s.' It is about the strategic and ethical decision to align with n****s, especially when we have the option to be seen as 'good Negroes'.”

Editorial Reviews

"This hopeful and aspirational book reminds us to see individuals and their lives, including the details, however unexpected. He lets us see how within his beloved black community the politics of division do sweeping harm that no amount of success can shake."

Foreword - Larry Krasner

As a chief prosecutor, Jody pushes us to accept that the time has come to repair the broken criminal justice system and undo the harm caused to communities by ending the cycle of over-policing and over-incarceration that has destroyed communities. Prosecutors can be a force for good, for reform, for dismantling this system of racial injustice and mass incarceration. Justice is making sure that we treat people fairly within our criminal justice system, that we have one standard of justice regardless of creed or color or sexual orientation, that we recognize the flaws in our criminal justice system and try to correct them and, that we stay the course to right the wrongs of the past to create a justice system that we all believe in. Jody’s narrative shines a light on these issues and reminds us all that when we invest in people — as mothers, daughters, husbands, brothers, and fathers — we can help them thrive and create safer and healthier communities for everyone.

Baltimore City State’s Attorney - Marilyn J. Mosby

"This book is revolutionary."

Editor-in-Chief at The Appeal - Matt Ferner

"N*gga Theory demands moral consistency that has been lacking in popular and academic narratives of mass incarceration."

Opinion Writer at The Philadelphia Inquirer - Abraham Gutman

"He's brilliant and a kindred spirit. Amazing."

Chair of African American Studies at University of California-Irvine and author of Afropessimism - Frank Wilderson III

"When Jody Armour invited me to write the foreword, his brilliance, commitment, and deep love for our people took precedent over my own discomfort with the N-word. His work has challenged me to be deeply introspective, to grapple with my identity, my beliefs, and my outward praxis. It has forced me to question and to grow. This volume is not about the word, but about the imposed dichotomy between 'black people' and 'n*****s.' It is about the strategic and ethical decision to align with n****s, especially when we have the option to be seen as 'good Negroes'.

introduction - Melina Abdullah

"N*gga Theory explores and applies the transformative practice of radical empathy with the most demonized members of society to guide us out of the current morass of mass imprisonment and racial oppression, and forward into a more just society."

Professor of Law and Leo J. O’Brien Fellow at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles - Eric J. Miller

This is not beach reading. After three decades of judging, I’m ready to go back to law school and take Professor Armour’s classes.

New York State Supreme Court (Ret.) - Justice Emily Jane Goodman

Jody’s masterpiece should be a mandatory read for every police leader

Director of Policing Strategies at LEAD Bureau - Chief (Ret.) Brendan Cox

"A battle cry to unite African Americans divided by class"

Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Juvenile Justice Clinic and The Racial Justice Clinic - Lara Bazelon

"A powerful exploration of race, class, and justice, particularly criminal justice, in today's America."

Former Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court - James F. McHugh

"N* Theory is movement, N* Theory is Jody, N* Theory is a Twitter handle, N* Theory is what Jody shares with us and lives and then, of course, it's the book. It's a spectacular exploration of concepts in both tort and criminal law mixed with reality."

Robert C. Packard Trustee Chair in Law and Professor of Law, Economics and Political Science at USC - Ed McCaffery

Real change like he calls for in N*gga Theory will happen only when we all get a lot more uncomfortable with the true state of our legal and carceral systems.

King County Prosecuting Attorney - Dan Satterberg

N*gga Theory is a provocation, a poem, a lyric urging racial solidarity with every body caged in the American penal state, even or especially those classified as ‘violent offenders.’ Through riveting personal narrative and rigorous interdisciplinary research, Jody Armour gives us the transgressive penal theory necessary in this racially troubled era.

Professor, author of The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women’s Liberation in Mass Incarceratio - Aya Gruber

This critical and timely work, and the important personal and professional experience Professor Armour brings to it, is invaluable as we look to build a new paradigm that recognizes the humanity of every individual, regardless of wrongdoing. It is this starting point that will promote a truly just system that heals people and communities.

Founder and Executive Director of Fair and Just Prosecution - Miriam Aroni Krinsky

N*gga Theory is a provocation, a poem, a lyric urging racial solidarity with every body caged in the American penal state, even or especially those classified as ‘violent offenders.’ Through riveting personal narrative and rigorous interdisciplinary research, Jody Armour gives us the transgressive penal theory necessary in this racially troubled era.

Professor Aya Gruber

★ 2020-08-10
An acclaimed law professor’s case against the systems and mindsets that undergird mass incarceration of Black men.

As the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Law at the University of Southern California, Armour is one of the era’s most distinguished legal scholars. His book Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism: The Hidden Costs of Being Black in America (1998) is a seminal text in critical race theory that anticipated many conversations that are now central to the Black Lives Matter movement. In this book, he lays out his own branch of legal and social theory that challenges not only mass incarceration, but also legal and moral arguments promoted by many self-described “progressives.” He’s particularly critical of the “New Jim Crow narrative” deployed by Black and White reformers that emphasizes unjust sentencing of nonviolent drug offenders. An emphasis on criminal justice reform toward nonviolent criminals appeals to the sensibilities of White liberals and the Black middle class, Armour notes, but ignores the majority of Black criminals imprisoned for violent offenses. The author keeps “attention trained on serious, violent, and guilty wrongdoers,” whom he says are demonized by conservatives, by many progressives, and by members of the Black middle class who cling to the “politics of respectability.” By calling his argument “Nigga Theory,” Armour says that he seeks to harness “the ironic uses of the N-word to assert solidarity with Black criminals whom the word seeks to vilify.” The book’s call for “compassion for all wrongdoers” and for resistance to “reveling in the retributive urge” extends beyond violent Black criminals to other convicted people for whom many on the left have sought “draconian” punishments. Armour’s scholarly bona fides are on full display in the book’s ample footnotes, citations of case law, and sophisticated analysis of legal concepts such as mens rea. Yet this is not an esoteric tome written for academics; the author writes in a poetic rhythm that effortlessly blends complex legal theories with rap lyrics and his own personal biography. One is just as likely to encounter Jay-Z or Ice Cube in Armour’s pages as they are to find Karl Marx or W.E.B. Du Bois.

A tour de force argument against entrenched attitudes regarding prison reform.

Kirkus Reviews