“Did you ever have the police follow you for so long, that you get suspicious about your own goddamn self?
“Maybe I did kill them people.”
Surrender, white people! After 400 years of white supremacy in America, a reckoning is here. Time to listen up, look history in the face, and surrender unjust privilege. These are the terms of peace–and they are unconditional. Hope you have a sense of humor, because this is gonna sting.
“You say comply with police orders, we still get shot. You say don’t break the law, we still get shot. You say don’t talk back, we still get shot. You say be more like white people, dress differently, act differently, and yet the results are not the same as for white people.”
― D.L. Hughley, How Not to Get Shot: And Other Advice From White People
The legendary activist/comedian and author of the “hilarious yet soul-shaking” (Black Enterprise) bestseller How Not to Get Shot returns to address a nation on the edge of civil war.
After centuries of oppressing others, white people are in for a surprise: You’re about to be a minority yourself. Yes, the face of America is getting a lot browner—and a reckoning is coming. Black and brown folk are not going to take a back seat anymore. It’s time to lay down your unjust privileges and sue for peace while the getting’s still good. Lucky for America, D.L. Hughley has a plan.
On the eve of America becoming a majority-minority nation, Hughley warns, the only way for America to move forward peacefully is if Whites face their history, put aside all their visions of superiority, and open up their institutions so they benefit everyone in this nation. But we can still have fun with this right? Surrender, White People! hilariously holds America account for its wrongs and offers his satirical terms for reparations and reconciliation.
“If you do get shot by the police, you’d better believe there will be an investigation—of you, anyway. Hope you don’t have a criminal record! When a black suspect is shot, the media and their accomplices in the police department will be sure to make that public. Everyone will know that you “were no angel.” That’s apparently justification enough for police brutality, even killing. “See, he was a bad dude—you can understand how he might get shot.” Bad dudes get what they deserve. So Michael Brown deserved to die because he robbed a convenience store. So Eric Garner deserved to die because he sold illegal cigarettes.”
But it’s not all bad news, white folks. The upside is that if you put D.L.’s plan into effect, you can FINALLY get black people to stop talking about oppression, discrimination, and their place in America. That’s something we can get behind.
“Peace and reconciliation will only happen, I believe, when white people surrender their unjust privileges and their delusions of ‘supremacy,’” Hughley says of the book. “Look your history in the face, put aside all your visions of superiority, open up your institutions so they benefit everyone in this nation, and join the rest of us as equals. That’s what I mean by surrender.”
The acclaimed comedian announces the terms of surrender that white America must claim for its sins, under threat of being surrounded as the U.S. becomes majority nonwhite.
The book is broken into seven articles or terms:
Article I: White People Shall Consider Reparations
Article II: History Books Shall Be Aligned
Article III: We Shall Endeavor To Understand One Another
Article IV: We Shall Deal with the White Supremacy Problem
Article V: We Shall Be Un-Oppressed
Article VI: We Are Part of America
“We’re clearly at war,” writes Hughley. “When you can get shot in your own house like Botham Jean or Atatiana Jefferson, what else can you call it? All deaths are tragic, but not all of them are surprising. When dudes are on the streets, running afoul of the law, the propensity for something happening is probably exacerbated. But when cops kill two people in their homes, what else can you call it but war?”
In his latest, the author offers a simultaneously humorous and serious take on race relations in the wake of a near unprecedented resistance effort to stem fatal police violence. He appoints himself as lead arbiter, “sole agent,” seeking cautiously to negotiate a peace treaty that serves to establish a lasting peace between “Black folks and their oppressors.”
“Be patient; don’t judge a book by its racist, oppressive cover.
Any police shooting is bound to be investigated, so wait for all the facts to be known and dismissed.
In the end, it might be that white people think you deserved to be shot. But if you’re lucky, the police will start shooting even the most lovable white people and we’ll finally get some reforms!”
The author effectively combines his outspoken comedic sensibilities with his longtime experience with political commentary (he had his own show on CNN and serves as a correspondent for the network). Neither side leaves the narrative unscathed. Assuredly, white people get it the worst, yet many black readers may call into question what it means to accept “our place in America” if it’s built on what Hughley admits is stolen land and wealth.
This follows in the spirit of the author’s previous book, How Not To Get Shot, as he mixes important statistics and earnest policy reforms with his witty perspective gained from his upbringing in South Central LA and decades of successful comedy tours in front of black and white audiences. Readers will frequently laugh out loud, but there’s far more to this couldn’t-be-timelier book than just jokes.
Prescriptively mild and bitingly comedic.
The thing is that most of the people arrested in this country are white. Most of the people who shoot cops aren’t black. So what is it that makes cops think and act extra aggressively toward black people?”
Hauntingly accurate.
Scaringly true.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-to-confront-a-racist-national-history