The Rage of Innocence
How America Criminalizes Black Youth
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The Rage of Innocence
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Narrated by:
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Karen Chilton
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Written by:
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Kristin Henning
About this listen
A brilliant analysis of the foundations of racist policing in America: the day-to-day brutalities, largely hidden from public view, endured by Black youth growing up under constant police surveillance and the persistent threat of physical and psychological abuse
Drawing upon 25 years of experience representing Black youth in Washington, DC’s juvenile courts, Kristin Henning confronts America’s irrational, manufactured fears of these young people and makes a powerfully compelling case that the crisis in racist American policing begins with its relationship to Black children.
Henning explains how discriminatory and aggressive policing has socialized a generation of Black teenagers to fear, resent, and resist the police, and she details the long-term consequences of racism that they experience at the hands of the police and their vigilante surrogates. She makes clear that unlike White youth, who are afforded the freedom to test boundaries, experiment with sex and drugs, and figure out who they are and who they want to be, Black youth are seen as a threat to white America and are denied healthy adolescent development. She examines the criminalization of Black adolescent play and sexuality, and of Black fashion, hair, and music. She limns the effects of police presence in schools and the depth of police-induced trauma in Black adolescents.
Especially in the wake of the recent unprecedented, worldwide outrage at racial injustice and inequality, The Rage of Innocence is an essential book for our moment.
©2021 Kristin Henning (P)2021 Random House AudioWhat the critics say
“The Rage of Innocence is reminiscent of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and James Forman Jr.’s Locking Up Our Own . . . A serious and thoughtful book about a subject of great importance, and it deserves to be widely read . . . Henning believes in the redemptive power of storytelling. It’s storytelling that can make people understand the racial inequities of the legal system, and it’s storytelling that can restore the humanity this system has cruelly stripped from its victims.”—New York Times Book Review
“We’ve long needed a great book on race and the juvenile legal system. Thanks to Kris Henning, we have it. Deeply researched and passionately argued, The Rage of Innocence details how we criminalize Black children—and explains how we can stop.”—James Forman, Jr., J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law, Yale Law School, and Pulitzer-prize winning author of Locking Up Our Own
“Henning’s vividly told stories, meticulous research, and trenchant analysis teach us just how widespread the pernicious mistreatment of children of color in contemporary America is—not just on the streets, but in our schools, courts, and social institutions. The Rage of Innocence is much, much more than a compelling and timely indictment of our justice system. It is a deeply disturbing look at what it means to grow up as a Black child in a society that fears, vilifies, and demonizes young people simply because of the color of their skin.”—Laurence Steinberg, Distinguished University Professor of Psychology, Temple University, and former director of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice.