N*gga Theory. Jody David ArmourЧитать онлайн книгу.
of compassion by underscoring that often all that separates people from perceived evil or good is luck, unfortunate and dehumanizing labeling, and the circumstance of their birth.
He also appropriately points out the profound impact prosecutors historically have had in perpetuating the narrative that some people are irredeemable and the role a new generation of reform-minded prosecutors is playing in bringing about a dramatic shift in the justice system. 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.
—Miriam Aroni Krinsky, Founder and Executive Director of Fair and Just Prosecution
In its most moral moments, the Black Lives Matter movement called for a repudiation of respectability politics and challenged Black Americans throughout the country to reject sorting ourselves into “Good Negroes” and “Bad Negroes,” and to resist being seen as either “worthy” or “unworthy” of civil rights. N*gga Theory answers that call, in an explosive analysis of language and law.
Combining critical race theory, rap, legal scholarship, a wholly fresh theoretical approach, and his signature, poetic prose from Twitter, Jody Armour maps out a new form of solidarity—a solidarity which can both undo mass incarceration and grant our nation new frames for healing that aren’t predicated on a “regressive moral framework.” Sparring with figures as diverse as Tommie Shelby, Bill Cosby, Emile Durkheim, Michelle Alexander, and Chris Rock, Armour parses major questions about race, worthiness, and criminality in American society.
His answer, time and again, is to “Call me a Nigga”—to form a cross-class alliance from the academy to the prison. I can’t wait to teach this book to students.
—Dr. Steven W. Thrasher, Daniel H. Renberg Chair of Social Justice in Reporting and Assistant Professor of Journalism, Northwestern University
N*gga Theory demands moral consistency that has been lacking in popular and academic narratives of mass incarceration. Armour rejects absolute moral categories—violent vs. nonviolent, innocent vs. guilty—that have driven reform discussion. The book forces readers to confront a simple truth: ending mass incarceration is impossible without viewing people who have done bad and violent things as individuals worthy of freedom. To decarcerate, America needs a new theory, one that recognizes the racial goals of the criminal justice system, shapes language and law, and places individuals—not categories of offenders—at its center.
—Abraham Gutman, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Jody’s masterpiece should be a mandatory read for every police leader. The issue of race in society, and how race and labeling impact the criminal justice system need to be understood by those who oversee the men and women who police in today’s world. His views on mass incarceration and the need to take a deeper dive into how we look at sentencing and diversion are revolutionary and have certainly made me rethink my own stance on these complex societal issues.
—Chief (Ret.) Brendan Cox, Director of Policing Strategies at LEAD Bureau
Jody Armour’s wonderful new book, N*gga Theory, is a powerful call for solidarity with the most socially marginalized members of our society: violent African American criminals. His devastating critique rebukes the current orthodoxy of respectability politics, which separates the world into “good” non-violent African Americans, and “bad” violent ones. He shows how social hierarchies based on race produce structures of oppression characterized by violence. He identifies the ways in which sympathy drives our moral judgment of wrongdoers, and examines why people of all races find it so hard to empathize with the African Americans who are singled out for disproportionately harsh treatment by our criminal justice system, even as they sympathize with the police who shoot, beat, and taze them. He draws on examples taken from rap, literature, and life to provide profound yet instantly accessible insights into the complex structure of oppression, social marginalization, and the criminal law. One moment, the reader will be humming along as Professor Armour discusses a favorite song; the next, bowled over when he exposes the hidden racial impact of criminal law doctrine. Through it all, 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.
—Eric J. Miller, Professor of Law and Leo J. O’Brien Fellow at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
This is a LARB Books publication
Published by The Los Angeles Review of Books
6671 Sunset Blvd., Suite 1521, Los Angeles, CA 90028
www.larbbooks.org
© 2020 by Jody Armour
© 2020 Foreword by Larry Krasner
© 2020 Intoduction by Melina Abdullah
ISBN: 9781940660684
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019956993
N*gga
Theory
Race, Language, Unequal Justice,
and the Law
JODY ARMOUR
Foreword by Larry Krasner
Introduction by Melina Abdullah
table of contents
Foreword by Larry Krasner
Introduction by Melina Abdullah
PROLOGUE
Nigga Theory: A Song of Solidarity
CHAPTER ONE
Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity in Blame and Punishment
CHAPTER TWO
Moral Luck in the Social Production of “niggas”
CHAPTER THREE
Law in the Social Construction of “niggas”
CHAPTER FOUR
The Midwifery Properties of the N-word
CHAPTER FIVE
Metaphysical Theatre and Nigga Theory in Nine Acts
CHAPTER SIX
How Race Trumped Class in 2016
CHAPTER SEVEn
Condemning “niggas”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nigga Theory and Praxis: Where the Rubber Meets the Road
Conclusion
Coda
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Notes
index
Foreword
by Larry Krasner
When I heard that Kobe Bryant died in January, 2020, I immediately thought of USC Law Professor Jody Armour. A little-known fact about Professor Armour is that he held Lower Merion High School basketball records for more than a decade before Kobe broke them during his own high school years. That high school is public, affluent, and located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where Kobe was born, spent part of his childhood, and is still a favorite son. Jody Armour’s enrollment in that high school, so far from where he was born and spent his younger years, was unexpected. Professor Armour’s years at Lower Merion High may seem like a small detail, but it’s a detail that matters in his challenging and successful life, like all details in a life we care to see.
It would be easy for Armour to trumpet the many achievements in his remarkable career as a critical legal theorist and law professor, easy for