Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People

by Ben Crump

Overview

Genocide—the intent to destroy in whole or in part, a group of people.

TIME's 42 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2019

Book Riot's 50 of the Best Books to Read This Fall

As seen on CBS This Morning, award-winning attorney Ben Crump exposes a heinous truth in Open Season: Whether with a bullet or a lengthy prison sentence, America is killing black people and justifying it legally. While some deaths make headlines, most are personal tragedies suffered within families and communities. Worse, these killings are done one person at a time, so as not to raise alarm. While it is much more difficult to justify killing many people at once, in dramatic fashion, the result is the same—genocide.

Taking on such high-profile cases as George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and a host of others, Crump witnessed the disparities within the American legal system firsthand and learned it is dangerous to be a black man in America—and that the justice system indeed only protects wealthy white men.

In this enlightening and enthralling work, he shows that there is a persistent, prevailing, and destructive mindset regarding colored people that is rooted in our history as a slaveowning nation. This biased attitude has given rise to mass incarceration, voter disenfranchisement, unequal educational opportunities, disparate health care practices, job and housing discrimination, police brutality, and an unequal justice system. And all mask the silent and ongoing systematic killing of people of color.

Open Season is more than Crump’s incredible mission to preserve justice, it is a call to action for Americans to begin living up to the promise to protect the rights of its citizens equally and without question.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062375094
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	10/15/2019
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	395,123
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Through a steadfast dedication to justice and service, renowned civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump has established himself as one of the nation’s foremost lawyers and advocates for social justice. He has worked on some of the most high-profile cases in the U.S., representing the families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Stephon Clark, among others. He has been nationally recognized as the 2014 NNPA Newsmaker of the Year, the National Trial Lawyers Top 100 Lawyers, and Ebony Magazine Power 100 Most Influential African Americans. In 2016, he was designated as an Honorary Fellow by the University of Pennsylvania College of Law. He is the founder and principal owner of Ben Crump Law.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Racism Kills 19

2 Police Don't Shoot White Men in the Back 31

3 Stand Your Ground 55

4 The Conspiracy to Discriminate 71

5 Creating the Criminal 83

6 Killing Them Softly 103

7 Voter Suppression 123

8 A New Form of Segregation 145

9 Caught Up in the System 169

10 Criminalization and Enslavement of the Poor 185

11 Environmental Racism 197

12 A Tale of Two Americas 211

Conclusion: We Rise, We Rise, We Rise 225

Acknowledgments 239

Notes 243

Editorial Reviews

09/23/2019

Civil rights attorney Crump, who has represented the families of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, delivers a forceful debut exposé of America’s “legalized system of discrimination.” Defining “colored people” as “Black and brown people, and people who are colored by their sexual preference, religious beliefs, or gender,” Crump contends that “what transpires between the United States judicial system and this country’s colored people” is nothing less than genocide—the intentional effort “to destroy, in whole or in part, a people.” As evidence, Crump documents the destructive effects of racial profiling, mass incarceration, stand-your-ground laws, voter disenfranchisement, and disparate educational opportunities afforded to white and minority students. He catalogues high-profile police killings of African-American men, including Michael Brown, and places the 2014 water crisis in Flint, Mich., in the context of the “multigenerational killing” caused by “environmental racism.” He notes, among other statistics, that “more than half of all Americans who live within 1.86 miles of a toxic waste site are Black or brown.” Despite his outrage, Crump believes in the power of the U.S. Constitution to end racial injustice, and offers 12 “personal action steps” readers can take to fight racism. Progressives will welcome Crump’s alarming yet credible account. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Benjamin Crump’s work – his research, his voice, his fight – is paramount to the black community. Open Season must occupy a dominant place in the classroom, in libraries, in the workplace, in police training programs. Crump’s masterful voice and expertise of America’s corrupt power structures will alter the hierarchy by which we dangerously abide.” 

Patrisse Khan-Cullors

. . . deeply disturbing account of how the justice system is used to maintain a system of inequality and justify the murder of black Americans.

Book Riot

Ben Crump offers a deft and unflinching expose on America’s treatment of people of color. He charges America to live up to its status as the great “melting pot” by protecting and serving all of its citizens. His passionate voice lifts the true stories of wronged Americans off of the page and emblazoned them onto our hearts. A mouth-gaping read from one of the most steadfast champions for justice of our time.” 

Kenya Barris

“Ben Crump offers a deft and unflinching expose on America’s treatment of people of color. He charges America to live up to its status as the great “melting pot” by protecting and serving all of its citizens. His passionate voice lifts the true stories of wronged Americans off of the page and emblazoned them onto our hearts. A mouth-gaping read from one of the most steadfast champions for justice of our time.” 

 Kenya Barris

"Ben Crump is a warrior on the front lines of the war for social justice.  These notes from the legal battlefield of civil rights pushes us beyond lazy presumptions of where we are as a society to the hard truths of what we have achieved and how far we still have to go.”  

Reginald Hudlin

"Ben Crump is a warrior on the front lines of the war for social justice.  These notes from the legal battlefield of civil rights pushes us beyond lazy presumptions of where we are as a society to the hard truths of what we have achieved and how far we still have to go.”   %COMM_CONTRIB%Reginald Hudlin

★ 2019-08-19
An accomplished civil rights attorney and former president of the National Bar Association exposes subtle, systemic genocide in America.

Crump assails the criminal justice system in the United States as one designed for white, wealthy men: All others are on their own. "This book," he writes, "featuring many of the cases I have worked on, reveals the systematic legalization of discrimination in the United States, and particularly how it can lead to genocide—the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a people. This book particularly addresses genocide as it relates to colored people." It's vital, writes the author, to understanding the terms involved as well as how those terms have been manipulated over time. First, the concept of race does not have a biological or genetic basis. It began in the 15th century as Europe sought to justify enslaving, murdering, and stealing the lands of Indigenous people. When left unchecked, racism, the assertion of superiority in order to discriminate, is a tool of genocide. There are also institutional racism and environmental racism, demonstrated in the plight of citizens enduring poisonous water in Flint, Michigan, as well as legal slavery in our prisons, people innocently killed in police custody or on the street under "stand your ground" laws. Crump consistently condemns the courts' failures, demonstrating how policing is unequal and disproportionate; as he notes, people of color are far more likely to go to jail for misdemeanors than white people. The Supreme Court has a long pattern of intellectual justification of discrimination and has relied on the concept of states' rights to throw out cases. Though Jim Crow laws were overturned in the 1960s, new laws quickly replaced them, laws that may be less obvious but still result in voter suppression. Crump rightly warns readers to ignore talk of voter fraud; it's a myth used to justify restrictive laws. Many readers will be justifiably infuriated by the author's well-documented findings; hopefully, they will also choose to follow his 12 "personal action steps" to combat systemic racism.

There is much more to inequality and discrimination than we know, and Crump will open your eyes. Pay attention.

Kirkus Reviews

Benjamin Crump’s work – his research, his voice, his fight – is paramount to the black community. Open Season must occupy a dominant place in the classroom, in libraries, in the workplace, in police training programs. Crump’s masterful voice and expertise of America’s corrupt power structures will alter the hierarchy by which we dangerously abide.”  — Patrisse Khan-Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter and New York Times bestselling author of When They Call You a Terrorist

“Ben Crump offers a deft and unflinching expose on America’s treatment of people of color. He charges America to live up to its status as the great “melting pot” by protecting and serving all of its citizens. His passionate voice lifts the true stories of wronged Americans off of the page and emblazoned them onto our hearts. A mouth-gaping read from one of the most steadfast champions for justice of our time.”  —  Kenya Barris, creator of Black-ish

“There is much more to inequality and discrimination than we know, and Crump will open your eyes. Pay attention.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“. . . alarming yet credible account.” — Publishers Weekly

“. . . deeply disturbing account of how the justice system is used to maintain a system of inequality and justify the murder of black Americans.” — Book Riot

"Ben Crump is a warrior on the front lines of the war for social justice.  These notes from the legal battlefield of civil rights pushes us beyond lazy presumptions of where we are as a society to the hard truths of what we have achieved and how far we still have to go.”   — Reginald Hudlin, writer, director, and producer

From the Publisher