There are two classes of citizens in the US, those with full rights and who are part of the Nation and those who are given less in the way of rights and are treated differently thus are part of the Colony.
There is a parallel to be made between colonization and current issues around race. Hayes uses the Revolutionary period of US history to lay out the argument. But the prevailing argument of this well written and well laid out book is that it isn't as much the laws or taxes in the case of the revolutionary cries for independence but the nature of enforcement used, then and now.
In colonial New England the actions of customs officials and others acting for the Crown conducted searches at will on residents who were British subjects treated differently than their fellow subjects residing over seas. The goal was to collect taxes on items to help replenish the King's coffers after war depleted them. Revenue.
In Ferguson it wasn't really just the shooting of Michael Brown, it was the way policing, the way enforcement was handled. For example the order for police to write tickets not with the goal of public safety but to raise Revenue.
From the war on drugs to the end of "Stop and Frisk" Hayes talks about the law and the order aspect of policing, the rise of crimes and the decline. And he confronts the truth of where he ends up sitting as a white male with money in it all and how he reacted as a young man, a college student, and an adult with children working in the news industry.
So well written.
And an extra kudos to Hayes for using the term "survivor" rather than victim when he talks about sexual assault.
(Finished June 10, 2017)
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