Neighborhood Watch
Policing White Spaces in America

This book explores how private citizens police Black people in America to enforce de facto color lines and maintain 'White spaces.'

Shawn E. Fields (Author)

9781108793506, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 June 2022

250 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.1 cm, 0.32 kg

'Neighborhood Watch is a must-read for all who want to understand how space is racialized in the United States and how everyday white residents have repeatedly utilized their racialized understandings of these spaces - through 911, neighborhood watch programs, social media platforms, and more - to police the racial boundaries and hierarchies that a system of Jim Crow once explicitly regulated. Professor Shawn Fields deftly illustrates the interconnected ways in which governments promote and encourage racial violence and brilliantly exposes readers to the public-private partnership in enforcing the 'color line' in our nation.' Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Dean, Boston University School of Law

Although racism has plagued the American justice system since the nation's colonial beginnings, private White Americans are taking matters into their own hands. From racist 911 calls and hoaxes to grassroots voter suppression and vigilante 'self-defense,' concerted efforts are made every day by private citizens to exclude Black Americans from schools, neighborhoods, and positions of power. Neighborhood Watch examines the specific ways people police America's color line to protect 'White spaces.' The book charts how these actions too often result in harassment, arrest, injury, or death, yet typically go unchecked. Instead, these actions are promoted and encouraged by legislatures looking to expand racially discriminatory laws, a police system designed to respond with force to any frivolous report of Black 'mischief,' and a Supreme Court that has abdicated its role in rejecting police abuse. To combat these realities, Neighborhood Watch offers preliminary recommendations for reform, including changes to the 'maximum policing' state, increased accountability for civilians who abuse emergency response systems, and proposals to demilitarize the color line.

Introduction: a personal protection agency
1. Cycles of racial fear
2. White caller crime
3. Just a hunch
4. Defending white space
5. Unqualified immunity
6. Permanent fear
7. Rethinking maximum policing
8. Resisting a 'shoot first, think later' culture
Epilogue: 'send her back'.

Subject Areas: International law [LB]