N*gga Theory. Jody David Armour
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Note on the title:
This book is titled N*gga Theory because I do not want to encourage non-black people to say the word “nigga” out loud, and because I recognize that some black folk also feel uncomfortable publicly uttering the troublesome epithet. I address these concerns within. Nevertheless, this book is really titled Nigga Theory, which is what I’ve called my brand of Critical Race Theory for years in law review articles, lectures, documentaries, and on social media.
—Jody Armour
Praise for N*gga Theory:
This book is revolutionary. Prof. Armour challenges us all to reject the vast systems of oppression and dehumanization that seek to sow—and capitalize on—fear and division among us. With compassion and rigor, Prof. Armour renders a new political, moral, legal, and philosophical framework for a more equitable world—one centered around our shared humanity, our shared vulnerability, and the dignity that we all deserve.
—Matt Ferner, Editor-in-Chief at The Appeal
In N*gga Theory, Jody Armour takes the most reviled word in the English language and uses it as performative art and a battle cry to unite African Americans divided by class because they share a vital common interest in eradicating the racism rooted deeply within the criminal justice system. Armour demonstrates—through lived experience, empirical data, and storytelling—that the historical and deeply racist view of black people as inherently more blameworthy, punishment-deserving, and disposable transcends class and implicates us all.
—Lara Bazelon, Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Juvenile Justice Clinic and The Racial Justice Clinic
Jody Armour’s N*gga Theory is a powerful exploration of race, class, and justice, particularly criminal justice, in today’s America. Whether you agree or disagree with one or more of Armour’s approaches, this book will again and again make you stop and think. And thinking, deep thinking, in those areas is something all of us—citizens, policy makers, academics, stakeholders all—sorely need to consciously confront and then address the injustices and inequalities we all know are there.
—James F. McHugh, Former Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court
N*gga Theory is a provocation, a poem, a lyric urging racial solidarity with every body caged in the American penal state, even or especially those classified as “violent offenders.” Through riveting personal narrative and rigorous interdisciplinary research, Jody Armour gives us the transgressive penal theory necessary in this racially troubled era.
—Professor Aya Gruber, author of The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women’s Liberation in Mass Incarceration
N*gga Theory is a masterpiece.
This book is a confirmation and a revelation. My copy is marked with underlines and exclamations, circles, and folded-down corners of pages. It confirms what anyone who has worked for and with a Black person caught in the American criminal legal system knows in our bones and in our hearts, but for which we have had no theory to explain. This entire system—from the police officers roaming our impoverished streets, looking for Black adults and children, to the ordered and crushing restrictions on the evidence that may be presented in the courtroom, to the words of the jury instructions a judge gives to the jury, to the bars of the actual cage—is one that is indeed rigged, its scales always weighted in favor of Black “guilt.”
The revelation in this book comes in what we could not see before: how all the pieces of this system, a system infused with white America’s individual and collective racism have been fitted together to create a class of “criminals,” deserving of our condemnation. Professor Armour shows us a way forward and out. However, turning away from mass incarceration and extreme retribution will require much more of us, individually and collectively, than the cheap grace of current criminal justice “re-form.”
—Kate Chatfield, Senior Advisor for Legislation and Policy at The Justice Collaborative
Part memoir, part hard-core critique, its in-your-face title lets you in on what’s ahead in the radically progressive moral, legal, political and linguistic, scholarly takedown of our legal system, particularly criminal (in)justice.
Law professor Jody Armour, from a decidedly lofty academic chair, applies the charged title of his book to himself as well as to ‘otherized’ brothers in San Quentin, Attica, Angola, or death row anywhere. Demanding an alliance of Ivy League diplomas and messy rap sheets, solidarity between the ‘socialized’ and the ‘wicked,’ emphasizing the dichotomy created by not only conservatives, but also liberals and progressives regardless of race, this is not beach reading.
After three decades of judging, I’m ready to go back to law school and take Professor Armour’s classes.
—Justice Emily Jane Goodman, New York State Supreme Court (Ret.)
Jody Armour’s new book is a timely and forceful contribution to the criminal justice reform movement combining legal research and reasoning with critical race theory into a radical and urgent demand for reevaluating this country’s commitment to draconian punishment.
Armour makes a frontal assault on false moral equivalencies, mass incarceration, and calls into question virtually every aspect of the criminal justice system. Provocative prose and rigorous research, radical race theory and rethinking blame and punishment, this book is a must read for anyone interested in understanding and dismantling mass incarceration.
—Chesa Boudin, District Attorney of San Francisco
I applaud Jody’s heroism and bravery for illuminating the entrenched failures of the criminal justice system and its disproportionate impact on Black and Brown communities. His keen insight in this book unpacks the dreadful stain of mass incarceration on this country and helps show how this unfortunate reality has led to overcrowding, severe racial disparities, and the criminalization derived from a systemic “lock them up and throw away the key” mentality. The painful lessons of failed public safety policies from the past 25 years are still evident in cities across this country through the decimation of poor and under-served communities.
Jody pushes prosecutors to accept that the time has come to repair the broken criminal justice system that has destroyed communities. Prosecutors can be a force for good, for reform, for dismantling this system of racial injustice and mass incarceration and help right the wrongs of the past to create a justice system that we all believe in.
Jody’s narrative reminds us all that when we invest in people—as mothers, daughters, husbands, brothers, and fathers—we can help them thrive and create safer and healthier communities for everyone.
—Marilyn J. Mosby, Baltimore City State’s Attorney
Prof. Armour has radically re-purposed “The N-word” to describe a new theory of race, law and justice, and he uses unflinching language to reveal uncomfortable truths about racial bias in the justice system. He unpacks the moral judgments underpinning criminal law and procedure that serve to “otherize” certain criminal defendants to their detriment, and he offers a new lens through which we should view justice reform.
As an advocate for both the most despised wrongdoers and socially marginalized victims, Jody Armour has articulated a critical race theory that is ultimately a call to uplift the human dignity of the individual.
In this challenging book, Professor Armour also calls upon prosecutors like me to be more than merely “progressive.” Real change like he calls for in N*gga Theory will happen only when we all get a lot more uncomfortable with the true state of our legal and carceral systems.
—Dan Satterberg, King County Prosecuting Attorney
For too long we have justified and normalized the demonization and excessive punishment of those who commit crimes—rather than aiming to understand and address the struggle that led to this conduct—and in the process destroyed the lives of millions who are incarcerated, along with their families, loved ones,