... Bailey offers an unflinching perspective about the ongoing dialogue about racism and racial justice in America ... While Trump is now out of office, this book is as relevant as ever. While the Trump era exposed the persistent undercurrent of racism embedded in institutions and systems, the author notes that race in America continues to be an 'emotional, complex' topic.
The essays of Issac J. Bailey’s Why Didn’t We Riot? are incisive as they confront the realities of systemic racism in America and in the age of Donald Trump ... The book is replete with reminders of established inequalities. It reveals racism in the justice system with an essay about a wrongly convicted man whose trial reflects the degree to which judges, juries, prosecutors, and sentencing guidelines work against Black Americans. It exposes the microaggressions that Bailey has been subject to, including suggestions that his successes are proof against systemic issues ... The title question hangs over the book’s deliberate accounting of Black marginalization, unanswerable if logic is applied. By the book’s end, a 'communal scream' is called for, rendering Issac J. Bailey’s essays essential reading.
... singular voices have arisen that are able to separate the wheat from the chaff to openly speak the truth about the continuous violence perpetrated upon Black people and the rising inequality in Trump’s America. Issac J. Bailey is one such voice. Despite his many accomplishments in a white dominated world, he feels a deep anguish about the mounting abuses African Americans are forced to endure ... In 169 pages, Bailey splendidly creates a milieu where empathy can take root and blossom within readers of all backgrounds. A recognition slowly arises that we are all in this together and the time for an awakening to that fact is now.
In this impassioned if uneven essay collection, South Carolina journalist Bailey (My Brother Moochie) examines racial inequality and injustice in America ... In the book’s strongest pieces, Bailey reports on harrowing examples of police brutality and racial injustice from his home state ... Other essays raise troubling issues, such as higher rates of chronic disease among African Americans and the impact of internalized racism, yet they lack focus. Still, this a bracing and timely survey of why Black Americans are 'sick and tired of being sick and tired.'
Through a combination of poignant memoir and social and cultural analysis, Bailey tackles of range of hot topics ... By no fault of Bailey’s, die-hard Trumplandians aren’t likely to be swayed; conscientious Americans will come away from this book further enraged by the pernicious, persistent pattern of racial injustice in this country. Brilliant, searing, and surprisingly vulnerable.
