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#BlackLivesMatter movement has had a weighty affect on the politics of the United States of America. It has been a hot topic of debate for years. This paper is a book review of Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta’s” From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation.” She has thoroughly researched, discussed and analyzed the political traits of movement of #BlackLivesMatter, how this movement is detached from black politics and including the history of the link between policing and race. I accessed this book by entering Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta's" From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation" On Google scholar. I have accessed the other two sources with the same strategy.

Taylor is an African American writer and academic. She is an assistant professor at Princeton University of African-American Studies. From Northwestern University, Taylor achieved her Ph.D. degree in African American Studies. She worked on her dissertation titled Race for Profit: Black Housing and the Urban Crisis in the 1970s. For her this book, she was awarded Cultural Freedom Award 2016 from Lannan Foundation for an Especially Notable Book. Moreover, she is the author of many articles and books which reflect her hard work being an activist for black lives. She is the inspirational and strong activist for the lives of black and all her work focuses on this particular discipline. In her book, she has thoroughly addressed the development of hating Blacks as a culture in American society. The objective of Taylor in her this book was to deliberate motivation and the history for the movement of #BlackLivesMatter and to contemplate if the United States of America is post-racial. Her book has also searched that this movement is able to be applied beyond brutality of police to a broader range of activism. Taylor aimed to enlighten historical elucidation of the circumstances that assisted in recurrence of black racism in the United States of America. Her purpose in writing this book is to illume how #BlackLivesMatter is fighting against racism as well as against capitalism.

The central strength of this book is the thorough demystification of meritocratic legend which pervades politics and culture of America. Like Cedric Johnson, and Michelle Alexander she uses comparative-historical analysis, rhetorical analysis, and demographic statistics, to enlighten the latest guises of institutional racism (Kennelly, Conor). Taylor not only targets politicians conservative mentality but liberals as well like Al Sharpton and Obama who propagandize exceptionalism of America, inadequate reformist policies and narratives of "culture of poverty", which can be integrated into the economy of politics of class privilege and racism (Taylor). Moreover, the intelligent reproach of outstanding anti-racist Tim Wise all alone makes her book worth reading. In her book, she has thoroughly addressed the development of hating Blacks as a culture in American society. She also discussed the civil rights, its consequences and notions that started acting color blind. Moreover, she addresses how the modernization of society has taken a turn and made it possible for black faces to reach higher places. Along with that, she has discussed the current issues which are showing clear results that venom of racism still circulates in our society, how brutally Blacks get treated by police, public, and even government. She has illumed the facts and arguments about the racial discrimination that exists in our society and how hard it gets for black people to take justice and raise voice for their rights. Her book enlightens the affects of black lives matter movement on the politics of United States of America and discusses what part and percentage of the liberated society have started accepting the fact that Blacks have as much equal rights as whites have, and there is no standard of superiority and inferiority between races. This book is specifically is the best for those readers who are interested in knowledge regarding the intricacies of racism through all these years and developments in the politics of the United States of America. The author explains the increase in the number of police harassment incidents by the policy of "broken window" which follows that thwarting petty crime will help in reducing all crimes in the country. Across the United States of America, this is the pattern, where tax is applied to poor by local authorities, trusting on income by declaring fines. This is done in the conduct to substitute strictness cuts in the funding of government. According to the recent study, young black men who are of age 15 -19 are killed 21 times more than the white peers.

For the author, the pathway to escape from the dead-end of typical politics is to look up to the class custom of fighting racism, just as what was used in the 1930s by the communist party.She has discussed that individuals who make a claim: emphasizing class include the reduction of racism, they often talk like Blacks are not even an important part of the workers class. Moreover, while commenting, “connections should form the basis of solidarity, not a celebration of our lives on the margins.”, she has complained in her book regarding the attitude which headed few activists to criticize Muslin Lives matter movement as dejection of Black Lives Matter.

Blacks often face hard time in getting jobs in the United States of America, there need to struggle a lot to get to higher post which has created an economic instability in the society. In her book, author has also described the irony of the economic inequality in the society by questioning the higher managements in our society which takes all the handsome advantages while others even survive for their lives with so much struggle and hard work. “The essence of economic inequality is borne out in a simple fact: there are 400 billionaires in the United States and 45 million people living in poverty. These are not parallel facts; they are intersecting facts. There are 400 American billionaires because there are 45 million people living in poverty. (194)

Profit comes at the expense of the living wage. Corporate executives, university presidents, and capitalists, in general, are living the good life--because so many others are living a life of hardship.”(194). In this book, Taylor demonstrates the true definition of justice. She has makes it clear to the people that justice is not something that is a product of what American people think, it is more than that (Langford Catherine, Speight). It brings equality, peace, and fairness to all cultures, races, and individuals, it is not confined to a single race or part of society. In fact, it is for all parts of society. “Justice is not a natural part of the lifecycle of the United States, nor is it a product of evolution; it is always the outcome of the struggle." (5) Taylor has raised some powerful questions in her book regarding the inequality and social injustices and raised voice against what Black people face in their daily lives. She discusses that even though the rise of liberation was claiming to change things all around the world, and people started knowing their rights and raised their voice to achieve what was rightfully theirs, things seemed to be changed but not exactly as they were changed more for whites in the American society (Kennelly, Conor). She argued that even if the improvements are made, why they are not for all of the members of society? “In many ways, the Black Lives Matter movement, now in its infancy, is already encountering some of the same questions that confronted the Black Power movement in the 1960s and 1970s. For example, Can the conditions created by institutional racism be transformed within the existing capitalist order? Housing, wages, and access to better jobs and education can certainly be improved but can that be achieved on a mass level and not just a few?” (17) The tone of the author was powerful and strong in the entire book. She has made sure to keep her readers dive in the pool of emotions while reading. Her entire work educates the readers and folds the curtains away from the facts, realities, and social injustices that have made strong roots in the society against black. Her book gives a peak to its reader about the grief, pain, injustice, and agony faced by Blacks all these years. She was very much convincing while addressing her point of views, raising her voice for those who are in need and deliberating her arguments for the lives of black. She has proved each of her points with thorough research, authentic data and facts, and figures. Her readers get instantly convinced from issues that she wants to discuss. Her work in this book is pretty much well-organized, she made sure to keep a remarkable flow and started from the racist culture in the society, and then discussed that it was the same for centuries, and so on. In this book, each argument is discussed in a way that makes it easy to understand what is going on and what does author have to say rather than being confused while reading that what is even happening at all.

Work Cited

Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. From #BlackLivesMatter to black liberation. Haymarket Books, 2016.

Langford, Catherine L., and Montené Speight. "#BlackLivesMatter: Epistemic Positioning, Challenges, and Possibilities." Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric 5 (2015).

Kennelly, Conor. "Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From# Black Lives Matter to Black Liberation." Irish Marxist Review 5.16 (2016): 84-87.