By Donald Marvin Jones
The Presumption
Race and Injustice in the United States
This powerful book on racism in the United States argues that a threatening narrative originating in slavery continues to link Black people to inferiority, dangerousness, and crime, causing them to be presumed guilty by society and U.S. legal systems.
Why are Black people stopped, arrested, and shot by police at such a high rate? Why are they portrayed in the media as gangbangers and urban thugs? D. Marvin Jones writes that the problem of race lies in the way Blackness has been inextricably knotted together in our culture with presumptions. In the era of segregation this was a presumption of inferiority, but in our era, it is primarily a presumption of dangerousness or criminality.
Presumptions of guilt, dangerousness and menace have haunted the black community since America was founded. These inhumane assumptions continue to infect every aspect of American justice causing untold suffering, marginalization and death. No one understands this toxicity better than Professor Donald M. Jones. In an original work like no other, Professor Jones dives deeply into the psychological, historical and legal elements of these deadly presumptions. The analysis is brilliant, original, sober and clear. Lawyers, law students, academics, journalists, activists, college students and anyone concerned about injustice will benefit from the preeminent expert on this subject, Professor Donald M. Jones.
– Thomas Mesereau, Esquire Internationally Renowned Trial Lawyer
More Books By D. Marvin Jones
Dangerous Spaces
Beyond the Racial Profile
Fear of a Hip-Hop Planet
America’s New Dilemma
Race, Sex, and Suspicion
The Myth of the Black Male