Danielle S. Allen

This is a stunning personal saga of a life gone wrong. The author's cousin Michael, despite trying mightily, is unable to wrest himself from domestic and street violence, despite loving help and care from the author and his family. One of the most remarkable chapters is Michael's written description of his brief time as an inmate firefighter, working on California wildfires, where he truly finds his purpose. In this dual work of biography and sociology, Ms. Allen provides what is, for this show more reader, a brand new description of gang and drug dealing life in LA, which she defines as the "parastate", where the public's demand for narcotic escape and the white power structure's fear of men of color merge to create the over-incarceration for non-violent crimes that persists and ruins communities to this day. She also explores the shameful conduct of prosecutors who only want easy, plea-bargaining cases to try, resulting in police efforts in solving difficult murders reduced.

Michael's mother, who tried to stabilize her family via marriage and transplantation across country for work, ends up getting caught up in the maelstrom. This is both a personal and political recounting, a must read for anyone who supports Black Lives Matter, and even more critical for those who are on the fence.

Quotes: "Here is one of the differences between my hell in prison and Dante's Inferno. The souls in the Inferno are called by name."

"Deterrence dehumanizes. It directs at the individual the full hate that society understandably bears towards an aggregate phenomenon."

"Once gangs turn predatory, they often prey on their own communities. Like taxing authorities, they come to see their communities as a source of extractable revenue."

"There were few rewards for virtue when it briefly flashed in his unforgiving world." show less

Justice by Means of Democracy by Danielle Allen is an accessible and compelling argument for placing political equality as the base from which the other important aspects of a just society must flow.

While this is, as I said, very accessible it also warrants a careful reading. Allen lays her argument out very well and even when citing other thinkers, she explains their ideas so that those unfamiliar with them can follow. I am glad I was familiar with some of them, it certainly made it easier show more for me to understand, but even the parts that cited ideas that I didn't know I never felt lost.

I'm not going to try to put Allen's entire argument into a few sentences, I wouldn't do it justice and would likely emphasize the areas I knew best and skip those I don't. In addition to both a theoretical and a practical approach, what I find here is something I am finding in a lot more texts than back when I was either a student or an academic, namely the dynamic nature of big ideas we often, in the public sphere, think of as static.

Justice, freedom, democracy, and all of the systems and policies that work toward these ends need to be treated and acknowledged as dynamic, always being reconsidered in light of what is working and, more important, what isn't working. And the way to make sure we have the best information to make those ongoing assessments is to ensure that everyone is free to live their lives and speak their opinions in an open and constructive manner.

I would highly recommend this to readers who want to work toward a better world as well as those who have an academic interest in the topic. Hopefully the second group is also part of the first, but some do get caught up in the intellectual gymnastics and forget it all means nothing if not applied to the real world. This is a book that will reward multiple readings and, one hopes, extensive discussion.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less

In “Cuz”, the story of the ill-fated life of the author’s cousin serves both as a eulogy and as a vehicle for a concise analysis of the conditions that led to his downfall. While the tale of economic deprivation leading to dysfunction and tragedy may sound familiar, the purpose of the book is not to break our hearts yet again, though it does. Instead, it offers a clear understanding of the forces at play and the policies at the heart of oppression as experienced real people. It’s the show more flesh and blood story that gives depth and indelibility to that understanding.

Gangs were originally formed for mutual protection against the attacks from racist outsiders. With the advent of the lucrative drug trade, some gangs used their organizational advantage to get in on the profits, though to a far lesser degree than was widely believed, even by law enforcement agencies who could have known better. The war on drugs conflated gang activity with drug dealing. Anti-gang measures essentially criminalized being black with roughly half the black men in Los Angeles in the gang database maintained by law enforcement.

At the same time the judicial system became clogged with low level drug use cases, rendering the system incapable of dealing with more serious crime. Homicide went unpunished enabling gangs to rule their turf with ruthless impunity. Youth are forced to join gangs on pain of death. Families do not have the resources to escape.

The author refers to the druglord tyranny as the parastate, which, along with the militarized police force brought to bear on neighborhoods victimizes the populations trapped within its borders.

Despite the weight of its subject, the book reads easily. The author’s tone is caring but unsentimental and her self-reflection made her approachable. Most valuable for me was her concise analysis of the forces at play, made tangible by the real lives they affected. show less

One of the questions we ask people as part of the #thisismilwaukee project is this: “What is democracy for you?” The “for you” part is our attempt to get beyond the textbook definitions and get at how Milwaukeeans connect with the idea of democracy, how it is part of their lives and stories. It is a seemingly simple question without easy answers. Danielle Allen’s “Our Declaration,” recommended to us by Arijit Sen, is a close read of that most fundamental of documents and an show more enlightened work of scholarship around this very question. There is so much in those 1,337 words, a plumb line against which we can judge society and ourselves. One of the lingering questions is about how a society founded so squarely on the notion equality could be and remain so persistently unequal. Or, put another way, in the language of Hannah Arendt: How could our country comply with terror and genocide for so long? Allen shares a vision of democracy as the co-creation and co-ownership of a shared world, one in which liberty and equality are not at war with each other. So much of the work of democracy is done, she also details, through the craft of storytelling and political conversation among Americans whose experiences and critiques of their government should hold equal weight. "Our Declaration" is part on our #thisismilwaukee reading list. More about this from me and Kevin Miyazaki soon. show less