Join the incredibly erudite and engaging MSNBC host and editor-at-large of the Nation, Chris Hayes, for an important conversation about inequality in America. In his book, A Colony in a Nation, Hayes describes how black and brown people (and, increasingly, working-class whites) live in a territory that is not free, but rather is controlled from outside, where the law is a tool for constraint and limitation rather than a foundation for freedom and prosperity. The American criminal justice system, he argues, is not one system applied differently to different people, but two distinct systems. Hayes will be joined by two powerhouse voices whose recent work highlights the structural issues underpinning racial inequality. Yale Law School professor and former public defender James Forman Jr.’s book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, was described by the New York Times as “superb and shattering.” Carol Anderson’s shocking and timely White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, describes the disturbing efforts throughout American history to disadvantage blacks and the shameful failure of the courts, including the Supreme Court, to remedy those efforts. This essential discussion of where we are on race in America will be moderated by Kim McLarin, novelist and frequent guest on WGBH’s Basic Black.
