Killing African Americans : Police and Vigilante Violence as a Racial Control Mechanism

Killing African Americans examines the pervasive, disproportionate, and persistent police and vigilante killings of African Americans in the United States as a racial control mechanism that sustains systemic racism. Noel Cazenave’s well researched and conceptualized historical sociological study focuses exclusively on these killings and treats them as political violence. With current race relations strained to a near breaking point, Killing African Americans is timely and relevant for students and scholars, as well as activists, politicians, analysts, and professionals within law enforcement and the criminal justice system.

Killing African Americans examines the pervasive, disproportionate, and persistent police and vigilante killings of African Americans in the United States as a racial control mechanism that sustains the racial control system of systemic racism. Noel A. Cazenave’s well-researched and conceptualized historical sociological study is one of the first books to focus exclusively on those killings and to treat them as political violence. Few issues have received as much conventional and social media attention in the United States over the past few years or have, for decades now, sparked so many protests and so often strained race relations to a near breaking point. Because of both its timely and its enduring relevance, Killing African Americans can reach a large audience composed not only of students and scholars, but also of Movement for Black Lives activists, politicians, public policy analysts, concerned police officers and other criminal justice professionals, and anyone else eager to better understand this American nightmare and its solutions from a progressive and informed African American perspective.