Summary

The book’s prologue begins with the story of Amadou Diallo, and unarmed Black man who was killed by police in New York City, in the year 1999. Diallo had done nothing wrong, but police shot 41 bullets at him. The mayor, Rudy Giuliani, responded to the incident by defending the police, and even claiming that the NYPD, not Black residents, were the victims of discrimination. The book’s author, Carol Anderson, noticed this incident as part of a long historical pattern. Every time people or the media have noticed discrimination against Black people in the U.S., the dominant discourse becomes distorted. The discourse consistently attempts to frame Black people as the primary wrongdoers. Anderson has coined the term ‘white rage’ to describe this phenomenon. White rage is aggression and oppression against non-white people. Because white people are the dominant ethnic group in...