The Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America's Law Enforcement - Softcover

Horace, Matthew; Harris, Ron

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0316440094 ISBN 13: 9780316440097

Publisher: Hachette Books, 2019

Synopsis

Longlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction

Matthew Horace was an officer at the federal, state, and local level for 28 years working in every state in the country. Yet it was after seven years of service when Horace found himself face-down on the ground with a gun pointed at his head by a white fellow officer, that he fully understood the racism seething within America's police departments.

Using gut-wrenching reportage, on-the-ground research, and personal accounts garnered by interviews with police and government officials around the country, Horace presents an insider's examination of police tactics, which he concludes is an "archaic system" built on "toxic brotherhood." Horace dissects some of the nation's most highly publicized police shootings and communities highlighted in the Black Lives Matter movement and beyond to explain how these systems and tactics have had detrimental outcomes to the people they serve. Horace provides fresh analysis on communities experiencing the high killing and imprisonment rates due to racist policing such as Ferguson, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Chicago from a law enforcement point of view and uncovers what has sown the seeds of violence.

Timely and provocative, The Black and The Blue sheds light on what truly goes on behind the blue line.

About this title

Review:

"Insightful, honest, and probing.... Drawing on years of experience as an officer-and even more years of experience as a black man-Matthew Horace has written a book that everyone should read."
--Wesley Lowery, author of the New York Times bestseller They Can't Kill Us All

"Matthew Horace is shedding light on racial stereotypes and how they play out in police departments across America."--Salon.com

"A black cop's frank look at tensions between police, communities of color.... The Black and the Blue is an affirmation of the critical need for criminal justice reform, all the more urgent because it comes from an insider who respects his profession yet is willing to reveal its flaws."
--USA Today

"The hidden dysfunctions in American policing are laid bare in this searching exposé.... Horace and coauthor Harris write sympathetically of the dilemmas of policing, but are uncompromising in their indictment of abuses. Horace's street cred and hard-won insights make this one of the best treatments yet of police misconduct."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Matt has compiled real life, inherent issues that we face as African American law enforcement professionals. I applaud [him] for bringing into focus... that somehow we were removed from the fabric of the black communities just because we took an oath, pinned on a badge and were issued a gun."--Clarence E. Cox III, President, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives

"A critical look into law enforcement and the plethora of problems that exist within America's criminal justice system. The Black and Blue is full of hard truths-truths that every American needs to hear.... Horace is an informed, intelligent, and extremely measured journalist. The Black and Blue is both well written and researched."--D. Watkins, New York Times bestselling author of The Beast Side and The Cook Up

"I have called on Matthew Horace as an expert so many times I can't count them. He offers insight like no other. This book is a must read!"--Nancy Grace

"The Black and the Blue is a necessary testimony from behind the blue wall of secrecy and silence that affirms the racist underpinnings and often deadly consequences of African American contact with law enforcement. This is an urgent conversation needed at every level in the criminal justice system."
--Liza Jessie Peterson, author of All Day: A Year of Love and Survival Teaching Incarcerated Kids at Rikers Island

"Every police officer, attorney, and civilian in American should read The Black and the Blue. There are lessons for us all."
--Joey Jackson, CNN Legal Analyst

"Horace's experiences, from his childhood in Philadelphia to his work on the streets and in police training classrooms, will be revelatory to many readers who have not felt the sting of racial prejudice.... [S]olid reporting and trenchant analysis [gives] Horace's readers a poignant understanding of how it feels to be both a black man and a black policeman. Reading The Black and the Blue will help all of us better understand the formidable challenges that big-city police officers confront every day-and how those challenges are exponentially more difficult when the police officer is a black man."--Philadelphia Inquirer

Book Description:

Career police officer turned CNN contributor offers a searing indictment of America's law enforcement.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hachette Books
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 0316440094
• ISBN 13: 9780316440097
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256