Black Rage Confronts the Law
- ISBN-10
- 0814744761
- ISBN-13
- 9780814744765
- Category
- Law
- Pages
- 306
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1997-05-01
- Publisher
- NYU Press
- Author
- Paul Harris
Description
In 1971, Paul Harris pioneered the modern version of the black rage defense when he successfully defended a young black man charged with armed bank robbery. Dubbed one of the most novel criminal defenses in American history by Vanity Fair, the black rage defense is enormously controversial, frequently dismissed as irresponsible, nothing less than a harbinger of anarchy. Consider the firestorm of protest that resulted when the defense for Colin Ferguson, the gunman who murdered numerous passengers on a New York commuter train, claimed it was considering a black rage defense. In this thought-provoking book, Harris traces the origins of the black rage defense back through American history, recreating numerous dramatic trials along the way. For example, he recounts in vivid detail how Clarence Darrow, defense attorney in the famous Scopes Monkey trial, first introduced the notion of an environmental hardship defense in 1925 while defending a black family who shot into a drunken white mob that had encircled their home. Emphasizing that the black rage defense must be enlisted responsibly and selectively, Harris skillfully distinguishes between applying an environmental defense and simply blaming society, in the abstract, for individual crimes. If Ferguson had invoked such a defense, in Harris's words, it would have sent a superficial, wrong-headed, blame-everything-on-racism message. Careful not to succumb to easy generalizations, Harris also addresses the possibilities of a white rage defense and the more recent phenomenon of cultural defenses. He illustrates how a person's environment can, and does, affect his or her life and actions, how even the most rational person can become criminally deranged, when bludgeoned into hopelessness by exploitation, racism, and relentless poverty.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth
By Kristin HenningBryant-Davis et al., “Trauma Lens of Police Violence,” 854; Kim Gilhuly et al., Reducing Youth Arrests Keeps Kids Healthy and ... 2020 KIDS COUNT Data Book: State Trends in Child Well-Being (Baltimore: Annie E. Casey Foundation, ...
-
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
By Carol AndersonCarefully linking historical flashpoints – from the post-Civil War Black Codes and Jim Crow to expressions of white rage after the election of America's first black president – Carol Anderson renders visible the long lineage of white ...
-
Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor's Fight for Fairness
By Laura Coates"A ... true story and ... account of bias in the courtroom from CNN senior legal analyst Laura Coates, recounting her time as a Black female prosecutor for the US Department of Justice"--
-
Hanukkah - The Real Story
By Paul HarrisHanukkah - the real story describes the Jew's guerrilla war for national liberation and religious freedom. The oil miraculously lasts 8 days. 8 vivid drawings reimagined from history.
-
Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America
By Patrick PhillipsNational Book Award finalist Patrick Phillips tells Forsyth’s tragic story in vivid detail and traces its long history of racial violence all the way back to antebellum Georgia.
-
Race Matters
By Cornel WestFirst published in 1993 on the one-year anniversary of the L.A. riots, Race Matters has since become an American classic. Beacon Press is proud to present this hardcover edition with a new introduction by Cornel West.
-
Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter
By Kerri K. GreenidgeMcGuire was back in Antigua during Trotter's Birth of a Nation protest—he became rector of the island nation's St. Paul's Church in Falmouth—McClane regularly sold the Guardian in St. Bartholomew's rectory, and mobilized his nearly ...
-
N*gga Theory: Race, Language, Unequal Justice, and the Law
By Jody David ArmourInterrogates 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 ...
-
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
By Dr. Robin DiAngeloIn this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.
-
Where Do We Go from Here?
By Kimberly L. WatkinsInterwoven in this novel are issues and lessons related to friendship, love, death, family secrets, betrayal, heartbreak and pure bliss.