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On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was murdered by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin. Floyd had been accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill in a small store, and Chauvin was filmed kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. As word of the murder spread, protests broke out around the United States. Many expressed their horror at yet another incident of violence against a Black man, while others rallied around the police. Floyd died after Stamped was written, but in his death are echoes of the earlier deaths of other Black people killed in encounters with police. These include three highly-publicized incidents that occurred in 2014: 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio, 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and 43-year old Eric Garner in Staten Island in New York City.
Yet, despite this epidemic of violence and the social divisions it has exacerbated, race and racism are often considered taboo subjects in schools (where not discussing race and racism is sometimes the official or unofficial policy) and elsewhere in American society. Stamped insists that the “R-word” is a topic that must be discussed and exposed. Rather than putting the responsibility for navigating white feelings and expectations on young Black people, it lays out the history of American racism, clearly explaining how white supremacy works. Its argument responds to racial violence by urging young Black readers to resist the ways that assimilationist expectations can undermine their self-confidence, thereby empowering them to join antiracist activists to forge a better future. By describing the historical context of centuries of racism in American society, the book turns to the past to help readers live more fully in the present. Stamped demonstrates to readers how historical context can have a pronounced social impact today.
