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The Black and the Blue

Written by: Matthew Horace, Ron Harris
Narrated by: Matthew Horace
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Publisher's Summary

During his 28-year career, Matthew Horace rose through the ranks from a police officer working the beat to a federal agent working criminal cases in some of the toughest communities in America to a highly decorated federal law enforcement executive managing high-profile investigations nationwide. Yet it was not until seven years into his service - when Horace found himself face down on the ground with a gun pointed at his head by a white fellow officer - that he fully understood the racism seething within America's police departments.

Through gut-wrenching reportage, on-the-ground research, and personal accounts from interviews with police and government officials around the country, Horace presents an insider's examination of archaic police tactics. He dissects some of the nation's most highly publicized police shootings and communities to explain how these systems and tactics have hurt the people they serve, revealing the mistakes that have stoked racist policing, sky-high incarceration rates, and an epidemic of violence.

"Horace's authority as an experienced officer, as well as his obvious integrity and courage, provides the book with a gravitas." (The Washington Post)

"The Black and the Blue is an affirmation of the critical need for criminal justice reform, all the more urgent because itcomes from an insider who respects his profession yet is willing to reveal its flaws." (USA Today)

©2018 Matthew Horace and Ron Harris (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Critic Reviews

"The heated debates surrounding the relationship between police and African Americans have tended to overlook one crucial part of the story: people who belong to both communities. Matthew Horace is a keen observer of the racial dynamics of policing, the often shameful history that contextualizes it and the implications for our current circumstances. A great deal has been said on this subject but very little of it [is as] perceptive and profound as The Black and the Blue." (Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker)

"The hidden dysfunctions in American policing are laid bare in this searching exposé.... Horace and coauthor Harris write sympathetically of the dilemmas of policing, but are uncompromising in their indictment of abuses. Horace's street cred and hard-won insights make this one of the best treatments yet of police misconduct." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

"Horace has done an excellent job of weaving together his personal experiences as a law enforcement officer [and] the experiences of African Americans with the police.... This book should be read by police officers and used in criminal justice courses." (Elsie L. Scott, PhD, Director of the Ronald W. Walters Leadership and Public Policy Center, Howard University)

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