A very interesting book. Well-written, engaging, and briskly-paced.
One of the many books, in recent years, that examines the inconsistencies, injustices, and divide in American justice and society. It is, however, one of the better ones.

Recommended.

This book is a heart-breaking must-read. The author is well-versed on his subject and provides a powerful perspective without sounding overly emotional or biased. I think a lot of us fail to see or know about the gross injustices Hayes illustrates, but it is timely for those of us (like me) to learn how those in the "colony" live and make efforts to bring about change.

I am probably too biased to review Christ Hayes book since I have a MAJOR informational crush on him. (That's a thing right?!) I found this book to be well written, informational, and entertaining in the sense that it read very much like his MSNBC show.

Very important book for these days when the US is more and more becoming two distinct nations

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC of this book.
An interesting and eye-opening book which told me things I didn't know and made me look at things I knew from a different perspective. I lived through the events of the '60s and '70s as an adult. I lived in Los Angeles during the Watts riots. I marched for civil rights. I was pretty aware of what was going on. I am also aware that we still have not reached equality. Yet there was a lot I didn't know.

Chris writes almost conversationally and includes many personal anecdotes and lots of information he gathered both in his work as a reporter and interviews he did specifically for this book. I liked that aspect. It made it very readable and the events seemed very real. Not a perfect book but really everyone should read it. These are things we need to know particularly given the current president.
The book was mostly written before the election. It talks about the use of fear upon white people in order to achieve control of people of color and poor people. This becomes even more pertinent today.

http://www.americanfreethought.com/wordpress/2017/03/19/a-colony-and-a-nation-by-chris-hayes/

The Bookstall is sponsoring a luncheon with Chris Hayes this week (Friday, March 31 at 11:30 at The Union League Club downtown). He recently authored A COLONY IN A NATION which deals with race relations in this country, particularly criminal justice and discrimination in law enforcement. In fact, Hayes (who appears on MSNBC and also wrote Twilight of the Elites) uses history and statistics to argue that there are really two Americas: a nation and a colony. He states, "One is the kind of policing regime you expect in a democracy; the other is the kind you expect in an occupied land...." where "police behave like occupying soldiers in restive and dangerous territory." The violence and subsequent reactions which prompted Hayes' book also led to a plan by Senators Scott (South Carolina) and Lankford (Oklahoma) called "Solution Sundays," where they encourage constituents of different races to have dinner together. That is a simple, but very powerful idea to help erase misconceptions, decrease fear and bridge the "borders" between A COLONY IN A NATION that Hayes depicts.

LINKS in live post:
http://www.thebookstall.com/ AND
http://www.thebookstall.com/event/chris-hayes-colony-nation-ulc AND
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/26/politics/scott-lankford-solution-sundays/

In this quick and enlightening read, Chris Hayes asserts that our country has broken in two in exactly the way President Richard Nixon had warned. The United States of America now exists as two separate countries, the Nation of and for the privileged, and the Colony inside it where the marginalized (specifically black, brown, and poor people) are shoved aside and overly policed. Hayes takes a hard look at how we got to this point historically, while also examining the continuing racial and economic injustices in policing, and highlighting white privilege. Proposing no way out, Hayes leaves the reader wondering exactly how we are to recover from this, and make our nation whole again. As a country, we have so much work to do.

A Colony in a Nation made for excellent reading. As the blurb describes, Chris Hayes contends that the US “is fractured in two: the Colony and the Nation. In the Nation, we venerate the law. In the Colony, we obsess over order; fear trumps civil rights; and aggressive policing resembles occupation.” Hayes, who is white, draws from his own experience growing up in New York and many historical and political sources. His argument is compelling, and without suggesting a practical solution he does end his book with an alternate positive vision for policing and the criminal justice system. My main issue with Hayes’ book is not what he has to say, but that it has been said in so many different ways already and, yet, as I watch the current state of US politics, I see no progress towards addressing the issues Hayes deals with. On the contrary, it looks like things are backsliding – before the election, there was an apparent slight move away from mass incarceration and prison privatization. But now, including with the approach to immigration, aggressive policing in disadvantaged communities seems to be going full steam ahead. And it’s being justified with the very type of populist fear mongering Hayes decries in his book. Hopefully, in the long run, what Hayes has to contribute to the discussion is more than “spitting in the wind”, but it sure doesn’t look like it right now. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

In a 1968 speech, Richard Nixon said that "Black Americans . . . do not want more government programs which perpetuate dependency. They don't want to be a colony in a nation." In his new book, A Colony in a Nation, author and MSNBC commentator Chris Hayes builds on that theme, specifically with respect to law enforcement. He makes the argument that "American criminal justice isn't one system with massive racial disparities but two distinct regimes."


Hayes writes extensively about his coverage of Ferguson, Missouri, in the aftermath of Michael Brown's death, as well as his experiences growing up in New York. As subsequent investigations found, Ferguson police had a long history of racial disparity and of milking the poorer, minority citizens of the city through spurious traffic stops and incidental fines, as well as treating black people in humiliating ways. Sadly, this is the case in cities all over the country; it took the killing of a young man to bring it to light in Ferguson. Hopefully other municipalities and police departments are reevaluating their policies and practices in light of the investigation in Ferguson.


I agree with Hayes that policing in many areas of the country is in dire need of reform. But he draws the colonial parallels well past the point of ridiculous. He compares the drug-dealing culture in our cities to colonists smuggling goods past British tax grabbers. "Smuggling in the colonies was not so different from drug dealing in economically depressed neighborhoods and regions today. . . . Dealers, like smugglers, become institutions--the way, say, New Englanders viewed John Hancock in the years leading to the revolution." So the dealer overseeing a network of crack dealers in downtown Philly is the same as John Hancock? Got it. (I do have some sympathy with Eric Garner's case. Selling legal goods [cigarettes] illegally [individually] should not be an offense, much less a capital offense.)


OK, so Hayes has equated drug dealers with the tariff scofflaws who built our nation, thus justifying their illegal activities and perhaps recognizing them as forerunners of a coming--legitimate--revolution. How about demonstrating that white, privileged, college kids are just as felonious, but are treated better than their inner-city, poor, minority counterparts? Hayes, a graduate of Brown University, thinks it's just fine for Ivy Leaguers and other college kids to flaunt their lawlessness. "Elite four-year schools are understood by almost everyone involved in them--parents, students, faculty, administrators--as places where young adults act out, experiment, and violate rules in all kinds of ways. And that's more or less okay, or even more than okay; sometimes it's encouraged." Not by me. I know, I felt like a puritanical stick in the mud reading this portion of the book, and I'm sure I sound like one.


The larger point that he makes--that campus disciplinary systems provide a parallel system of justice that insulates college kids from the consequences of their actions--is valid and important. But his response is basically, "That's great, because kids can learn about all the wonderful vices of the world and be protected from inconvenient consequences like criminal records." (That's not a quote of Hayes, but my interpretation of his response.) He tells a story about sitting around smoking pot in the dorm, and when a campus cop came by, he just commented on their choice of music and said goodnight. If a similar group of black kids was smoking pot in, say, someone's basement, and a cop came in, there probably would have been arrests or citations or something. Hayes uses this discrepancy to excuse college students' behavior and call for similar leniency among the population at large. I believe the conversation needs to be about enforcing laws among college kids. If college police paid more attention to student criminality and substance abuse, perhaps colleges wouldn't have so many alcohol-related deaths and intra-student rapes. Maybe he'll change his tune when his kids are about to go off to college.


Hayes is certainly right to argue that discrepancies in the enforcement and prosecution of crime, where they exist, need to be rectified. Our prison system is testimony to the glaring fact that blacks are more likely to be jailed than whites. An argument that higher imprisonment rates among blacks is solely explained by the fact that blacks commit more crimes than whites simply does not hold up. As compelling and colorful as the colonial argument is, I don't believe it holds up to the level that Hayes wants it to. There are too many black Americans who are thriving outside of what Hayes calls the Colony to argue that "our entire project for decades has been to keep [black people] there."


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

A fantastic and compassionate look at a serious problem

This was a fast but explosive read. I will tell you right now that I am not one to read nonfiction but I watch Chris Hayes' show every day and I was curious about this one. I'm so glad I read it - it was such a fast and compelling read! It has a simple premise that is that the United States has evolved (in my opinion, wrongfully) into the two different worlds - one a colony and one a nation. The colony is policed by the nation and in which order drives everything. My favorite part about this was the discussion of the history of our country such that its formation was based upon protesters and those that didn't want to comply with the governance - it gives me strength and hope for what is going on now and reminds us all to #RESIST. I definitely recommend this to anyone concerned about policing in our country and the inherent inequality of the same.

A Colony in a Nation comes out later this month on March 21, 2017, and you can purchase HERE. This is my first must-read of 2017! You can watch Chris Hayes on MSNBC, nightly, at 8 pm EST.

Through our shared cultural inheritance, Americans convert white fear into policy. When the system receives a shock--a crime wave, a terrorist attack--and we must answer the question What is to be done, our collective response is punishment, toughness, and violence. We build a bureaucracy and vocabulary of toughness that then take on their own power, their own gravity and inertia. We then bequeath the institutions of toughness to the next generation of politicians and policy makers, even after the initial problem they were meant to solve has dissipated.

Nice tight writing. Very impactful and will be a great addition to my library

Thanks to Net Galley, I was able to read this fascinating new book by MSNBC anchor, Chris Hayes. Hayes writes a scholarly yet engrossing new book looking at the various nuances of law and the explication of so-called 'order' in today's America. Borrowing the quote from Richard Nixon for his title, he explores the great divide in our country between the disenfranchised of our nation who still live as if in a separate colony, while the privileged 'nation' attempts to maintain the status quo. While he focuses on people of color, poverty and the inequities of the educational system also play a role. It begins in Ferguson, where Hayes was on the ground reporting the aftermath of the shooting of a young black man, Michael Brown. His insight into the past history not only of Ferguson, but also the surrounding areas, highlights information that is pivotal to the understanding of the Black Lives Matter movement. American history is used to inform the reader of past practices in law enforcement: the fall out of tariffs all the way to revolutionary times, the statistics of stop-and-frisk, the community policing movement, the 'broken windows' policy, and many more. Hayes also fully embraces his own white privilege and his Ivy-league background, honestly and provocatively displaying his own prejudices and forcing the reader to look in his or her own mirror. This is not a book for the reader who wants a fast, thrilling mystery, but it is a book for our time, a book we should all read, a book that will not only make you smarter, but will force you to ask questions of yourself and the rules of society. Do we want order or do we want to be safe?

Having both watched him for a few years on MSNBC and having read his work in The Nation, I love Chris Hayes, His earlier book Twilight of the Elites (called “a stunning polemic by Ta-Nehisi Coates), emphasized how out of touch America’s political leaders were with those they were elected to govern (and this was in 2012!). In his new book, he takes the experiences he has had reporting from places like Ferguson and West Baltimore and combines it with his outstanding knowledge of U.S. history and concludes that our country has broken into two distinct factions: the Colony and the Nation.

As he examines the issues and events in Ferguson, West Baltimore and other places where racially-motivated crime and violence have been in the news in recent years, he contends that the conditions in these cities and towns mirror those that sparked the American Revolution. Along the way, he examines the political, economic and social conditions in both eras.

He explains that despite our wish to live in a “post-racial” world, the situation that exists in “the Colony” looks very much like a police state, where aggressive policing makes the police look like an occupying force and fear is paramount.

He points out that our country imprisons a higher percentage of its citizens than any other county, except the archipelago of Seychelles, with “nearly one out of four prisoners in the world …an American,” although we have only 5% of the world’s population. And “American criminal justice isn’t one system with massive racial disparities but two distinct regimes. One (the Nation) is the kind of policing regime you expect in a democracy; the other (the Colony) is the kind you expect in an occupied land.” Ouch!!

He examines the end of Jim Crow and the change that happened in the 1960s is a time when some believe “it was reconceived and reborn through mass incarcerations” – for me, this was unsettling to read. In Ferguson, Hayes believes “…the police had taken on the role of enforcing an unannounced but very real form of segregation in the St. Louis suburb.” Further, he says our “post-civil-rights social order …gave up on desegregation as a guiding mission and accepted a country of de facto segregation between “nice neighborhoods” and “rough neighborhoods,” “good schools” and “bad schools,” “inner cities” and “bedroom communities.””

To his credit, he in unflinching as he presents his self-analysis of his own privilege as he lives the “the Nation,” and explains “None of this came about by accident. It was the result of accumulation of policy, from federal housing guidelines and realtor practices to the decisions of tens of thousands of school boards and town councils and homeowners’ associations essential drawing boundaries: the Nation on one side, the Colony on the other,” And, as in the case of Sandra Bland, “In the Colony, violence looms, and failure to comply can be fatal.” And he points out that this is not so in The Nation.

Many of us are currently pondering how the hell our country got to the point where it is today. This book doesn’t have all the answers, but it is eye-opening, well researched, easy to read and comprehend, and reveals Hayes’s intelligence as well as his compassion and desire for change. It comes at a good time for anyone wanting to have some awareness of how we got to where we are, and I highly recommend it. Five stars.

COLONY IN A NATION BY CHRISTOPHER L HAYES

I am so glad I read this book. It is relevant and an important to the current events happening today in our Democracy. I feel like the author raises important issues. I think it makes and illuminates how there is still racial inequalities in certain states. I feel like every police officer and cruiser should be mandated by federal law to have a camera on their body and on their cars. They should be made to have dashboard cameras. Police brutality is on the rise and there have been too many instances where their is an abuse of power. I have read about and seen corruption in the way the laws are enforced with people of different ethnicity other then white. I also think that people that live at the poverty level do not have the resources to a fair trial. Many innocent people are sent to prison because they lack the ability to pay thousands of dollars for attorneys fees. Ask yourself this question: Who do you think a judge is going to believe when it comes to being wrongly accused of committing a crime?. You or the police officer?

This book was on my wishlist. Many huge thanks to the Publisher for granting me my wish. It was an honor to read an early copy and review this book. Many huge thanks to Christopher L. Hayes for writing such a timely important book and for granting me my wish. Thank you to Net Galley for my digital copy for a fair and honest review.