By Jody Armour

"Ngga Theory: Language, Unequal Justice, and the Law" by Jody Armour is a thought-provoking exploration of how language shapes perceptions within the criminal justice system. Armour delves into the complexities surrounding the use of the word "ngga" and its implications on issues of race, equality, and justice. This book challenges readers to confront uncomfortable truths about the ways in which language can perpetuate systemic inequalities in our society. With sharp analysis and compelling arguments, Armour prompts readers to reconsider the power dynamics at play in our legal system and broader social discourse. "N*gga Theory" is a timely and essential read for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the intersection of language, race, and justice in America.

Los Angeles Review of Books, 2020, 224 pages

by Jennifer Tilton

How do you tell the difference between a “good kid” and a “potential thug”? In Dangerous or Endangered?, Jennifer Tilton considers the ways in which children are increasingly viewed as dangerous and yet, simultaneously, as endangered and in need of protection by the state.
Tilton draws on three years of ethnographic research in Oakland, California, one of the nation’s most racially diverse cities, to examine how debates over the nature and needs of young people have fundamentally reshaped politics, transforming ideas of citizenship and the state in contemporary America. As parents and neighborhood activists have worked to save and discipline young people, they have often inadvertently reinforced privatized models of childhood and urban space, clearing the streets of children, who are encouraged to stay at home or in supervised after-school programs. Youth activists protest these attempts, demanding a right to the city and expanded rights of citizenship.
Dangerous or Endangered? pays careful attention to the intricate connections between fears of other people’s kids and fears for our own kids in order to explore the complex racial, class, and gender divides in contemporary American cities.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2010; 203p.

By Carl Gutierrez-Jones

The beating of Rodney King, the killing of Amadou Diallo, and the LAPD Rampart Scandal: these events have been interpreted by the courts, the media and the public in dramatically conflicting ways. Critical Race Narratives examines what is at stake in these conflicts and, in so doing, rethinks racial strife in the United States as a highly-charged struggle over different methods of reading and writing. Focusing in particular on the practice and theorization of narrative strategies, Gutiérrez-Jones engages many of the most influential texts in the recent race debates including The Bell Curve, America in Black and White, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, and The Mismeasure of Man. In the process, Critical Race Narratives pursues key questions posed by the texts as they work within, or against, disciplinary expectations: can critical engagements with narrative enable a more democratic dialogue regarding race? what promise does such experimentation hold for working through the traumatic legacy of racism in the United States? Throughout, Critical Race Narratives initiates a timely dialogue between race-focused narrative experiment in scholarly writing and similar work in literary texts and popular culture.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2001.

By INGRID EAGLY

Eric Fish’s Article, Race, History, and Immigration Crimes, explores the racist motivation behind the original 1929 enactment of the two most common federal immigration crimes, entry without permission and reentry after deportation. This Response engages with Fish’s archival work unearthing this unsettling history and examines how his research has informed a series of legal challenges seeking to strike down the modern federal border crossing law as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. Focusing on the district court decision in United States v. Carrillo-Lopez that struck down the reentry law, and the subsequent Ninth Circuit reversal, this Response explores three central and recurring questions in the immigration law field: (1) the legacy of plenary power; (2) the significance of the blurry boundary between immigration law and other areas of law, such as the criminal law; and (3) the thorny problem of when taint from a discriminatory predecessor law continues to infect a modern law. The resolution these three key debates is central not only to the constitutionality of the illegal entry and reentry laws, but also to other areas of law that shape the lives of immigrants in the United States.

USA, UCLA School of Law. 2023, 20pg

By Megan Ming Francis and LeahWright-Rigueur

This review examines the Black Lives Matter movement. Despite a growing body of literature focused on explaining the formation and activities of the present Black Lives Matter movement, less attention is given to the historical antecedents. What are earlier Black-led movements centered on ending state-sanctioned violence? This article situates Black Lives Matter in a much longer lens and examines the long struggle to protect Black lives from state sanctioned violence.We draw from existing research to provide a historical genealogy of the movement that traces the beginnings of a movement to protect Black lives to the work of Ida B.Wells and follows it up to the work of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the urban rebellions that have followed.

USA, Annual Review of Law and Social Science. 2021, 21 pg