Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
front panel] Stolen Wealth, Hidden Power
The Case for Reparations for Mass Incarceration
Tasseli McKay
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McKay
Stolen Wealth, Hidden Power
The Case for Reparations for Mass Incarceration
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This unprecedented, meticulous accounting of how mass incarceration has devastated Black communities is a powerful call for reparations
Stolen Wealth, Hidden Power is a staggering chronicle of the destruction wrought by mass incarceration. Finding that the economic value of the damage to Black communities accounts for 86 percent of the Black-white household wealth gap, this compelling and exhaustive analysis puts empirical heft behind an urgent call for reparations. Four decades of state-sponsored violence have destroyed the health, economic security, and political power of Black Americans across generations, often compensated for by women's invisible labor. Grounded in principles of transitional justice that have guided other nations in moving past eras of state violence, this book presents a comprehensive framework for action.
"A vital contribution to the wider conversation on reparations for Black American descendants of US chattel slavery."--William A. Darity Jr., Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, Duke University
"This text is an important contribution to our liberation work as abolitionists, as we create systems that center an economy of care and move away from harm and punishment."--Patrisse Cullors, New York Times-bestselling author, educator, artist, and abolitionist
"Tasseli McKay writes with an unvarnished honesty and makes a compelling case for reparations for Black Americans. It is how America can heal from its racial woes."--Rashawn Ray, University of Maryland
"Necessary reading for all those seeking to understand the material consequences of mass incarceration and committed to reparative justice for the communities most affected by the prison industrial complex."--Jenn M. Jackson, Syracuse University
Tasseli McKay is a National Science Foundation postdoctoral research fellow at Duke University and an affiliate of RTI International. She holds a doctorate in social policy from the London School of Economics and is lead author of Holding On: Family and Fatherhood during Incarceration and Reentry.
Author photo: Ava Johnson
Cover design: Lia Tjandra
Cover illustration: sourced from Adobe Stock
University of California Press
www.ucpress.edu
ISBN 978-0-520-38944-1 (PLC)
ISBN 978-0-520-38946-5 (paper)
Synopsis
A meticulous and exhaustive accounting of the total economic devastation wreaked on Black communities by mass incarceration with an action guide for vital reparations. Stolen Wealth, Hidden Power is a staggering account of the destruction wrought by mass incarceration. Finding that the economic value of the damages to Black individuals, families, and communities totals $7.15 trillion--roughly 86 percent of the current Black-White wealth gap--this compelling and exhaustive analysis puts unprecedented empirical heft behind an urgent call for reparations.
Much of the damage of mass incarceration, Tasseli McKay finds, has been silently absorbed by families and communities of the incarcerated--where it is often compensated for by women's invisible labor. Four decades of state-sponsored violence have destroyed the health, economic potential, and political power of Black Americans across generations. Grounded in principles of transitional justice that have guided other nations in moving past eras of state violence, Stolen Wealth, Hidden Power presents a comprehensive framework for how to begin intensive individual and institutional reparations. The extent of mass incarceration's racialized harms, estimated here with new rigor and scope, points to the urgency of this work and the possibilities that lie beyond it.