Racing to Justice and Building the Beloved Community
This year, I have read a handful of extraordinary books on race: Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness , Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (which I will profile soon), and, most recently, john a. powell's Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society . The three authors, all attorneys, write at length about the criminal justice system and the courts. As well, all three authors tell a story with the power to upend a comfortable world-view. With a shelf full of publications and a 32-page curriculum vitae, john a. powell (spelled without capitals) is a scholar in the areas of civil rights and civil liberties and a host of issues including race, structural racism, ethnicity, housing, poverty, and democracy. He is the Executive Director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to dua...