Skip navigation
Allow Me to Retort
Book

Allow Me to Retort

A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution

The New Press, 2022 more...

Buy book or audiobook


Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Controversial
  • Eye Opening
  • Bold

Recommendation

The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal – embracing controversy, never equivocating – examines the US Constitution and finds that racism shaped how Americans interpret it. He includes judges who misread it in ways that harm Black people. In Mystal’s view, the courts’ application of the Constitution has never fully included women or people of color. Besides, he says, it hasn’t solved many problems, given the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol and recurring mass murders. Mystal advocates Supreme Court reform and a more positive, fair understanding of the Constitution. He’s provocative, but even if you disagree with him, his analysis – notably of systemic racism and the law – is enlightening.

Summary

The First Amendment protects people from government repression, not from “cancel culture.”

Politicians, public intellectuals, university professors, writers and media personalities fret about cancel culture, particularly when someone says something racist, sexist, antisemitic or homophobic and ends up losing a magazine column, publishing contract, speaking engagement or professorship. Then, they decry censorship and argue that the culture violates their “free speech” rights.

The First Amendment protects people principally against the government silencing political speech and protest. Those who protest against cancel culture seldom take action when real First Amendment rights are at issue. For example, they remained silent in 2020 when Attorney General William Barr allowed the suppression of an otherwise peaceful protest outside the White House or when billionaire Peter Thiel sued the independent news site Gawker into extinction. Authentic First Amendment rights are threatened when those who disagree with protestors demand that the police attack them or when those who find a news story distasteful bombard the...

About the Author

The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal is the Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Type Media Center, an MSNBC commentator, and the legal editor at the More Perfect podcast.


Comment on this summary

More on this topic

Learners who read this summary also read