A Colony in a Nation - Chris Hayes

My good ol' Michigan book club (of book recommendation fame) pointed me at A Colony in a Nation. Even though we as a group didn't read it, I thought the blurb was so compelling that I had to read it myself. This book pulled me in and gave me plenty to think about. I strongly recommend reading -- with a skeptical mind, and a pen in hand. If, like me, you are new to reading about the history of oppression and racism, then this book will give you the motivation to read more. If, however, you are already well-read on these topics, then this book will likely frustrate you with its brevity.

Summary. A Colony in a Nation covers the current state, and history of, racial oppression in the USA. The thesis is that we have a Colony (of Black¹ and brown people who are guilty until proven innocent) in a Nation (of white people who are innocent until proven guilty). To give you a feel for the rest of the content, I have named the book's chapters: (I) Thesis, (II) History, (III) Policing & Guns, (IV) White Fear, (V) Seediness/Gentrification, and (VI) Punishment & Privilege. For me, Chapters II and IV were the most interesting, and drive most of my lingering questions (more on that shortly, as Hayes says often).

In Chapter II, Hayes traces the history of revolutionary sentiment in the British colonies of the 1700s and draws parallels to feelings around BLM today. I felt this analogy was quite compelling (note, I'm not an historian!). The key difference between the 1700s and today is that we don't have an ocean dividing the Colony from the Nation.

Chapter IV introduces the driving force behind the history of oppression: white fear. Funnily enough, I could not find a clear definition of "white fear" in the book. However, there are a few passages that get close. For example, the feeling of being "outnumbered and afraid in a land not your own, and attempt it bring it under your control." Or, vividly, the fear that "perhaps our destiny is indeed a more equal society, but one where equality means equal misery." As Hayes says, "white fear emanates from knowing that white privilege exists, and the anxiety that it might end."

I'll point out that the idea of "white fear" is not Hayes' original concept, nor is it unique to the USA. However, I found Hayes' detailed anecdotes (both historical and personal) convincingly laid out the case for white fear as the foundation of oppression of people of color.

White fear explains succinctly why, for example, the police are called to enforce order (but no particular law) when Black people are roaming in a white space. I also think the phrase "white fear" is much more compelling as an explanation than "white supremacy" or "white nationalism," both of which connote much more agency and intention than "fear." It is very powerful to recognize when one is acting out of fear, even if the actions themselves seem aggressive or fearless.

One last aspect of the book I want to point out is the power of Hayes' personal anecdotes. This is very much the same power as we see in Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be An Antiracist; the anecdotes make Hayes relatable, and clearly portray both his investment and his privilege (which he points out readily). It brings a humanity to every passage that I found made the philosophical and political message much more compelling.

Lingering Questions. My main frustration with this book is that it sets up many intriguing questions, but provides few answers or next steps for the reader to take. Reading it felt like getting angry at the news -- the anger is not just from what one reads, but also from a feeling of impotence to effect change. While I have plenty of mundane questions, I'll just focus on the two that I felt were most important to me.

My first lingering question is from the history discussion: if we have set the stage for a revolution, then what does a modern American Revolution look like? I think the mass BLM and related protests start to answer this question.

My second lingering question is, how do we dismantle white fear? The book extensively explains why things are as they are, but it is quite unclear what to do next. Sure, we can attack the symptoms -- prisons, police brutality, prejudice -- but how do we attack the causes? Here I think Kendi provides a clearer answer: we vote! We elect people who explicitly support antiracist policies, and can speak intelligently about the causes, not just the effects, of racism. We recognize that it will take white people, Black people, and all others working together with a whole lot of love to dismantle white fear.

A Variety of Opinions. With any book discussing challenging social issues, I think it's critical to read not just the book, but a variety of reviews. Note, it's surprisingly hard to find a review of this book by a person of color. I found positive reviews by Charles R. Larson (not the admiral), Aaron W. Hughey (here); insightful critiques by Eric Liu (here), Sam Klug (here), and Dawn Suggs (here); and a cartoonish negative review by Daniel Greenfield (here). The reviews by Liu and Klug are most compelling.

I strongly recommend reading Klug's review, which provides extensive and detailed historical context², and clearly explains how Hayes misses the mark in conveying the power of the "colony in a nation" phrase. As Klug says, "Though [Hayes] refers to the popularity of the concept of internal colonialism among Black Power activists, he does not discuss its meaning and uses in the movement, beyond the rhetorical power of associating American racism with a recently discredited form of governance." Before reading this review, I was unaware that the "language of internal colonialism" was popular in the 1970s with black nationalists³. Klug's critique is thus that "Hayes saps the language of anticolonial critique of its power." 

Eric Liu's review lines up closest with my experience of the book. I think the book serves well as the "start of a discussion, not the end of one." Most critically, I was left with the lingering questions above, wanting to know what to do next. I disagree mildly with Liu that the book was too short, or that Hayes did not dive deep enough into many issues/claims. For me, the short punchiness was satisfying to drive me to learn more -- and that's, in my eyes, a very important utility of such a book. Get people to read and learn and expose themselves to others' viewpoints. And, as Liu mentions, Hayes has his MSNBC broadcast platform to further develop and promote the message of this book.

My Takeaways. This book taught me the notion of "white fear." As I mentioned earlier, I find it to be a much more succinct and compelling phrase than "white supremacy" or "white nationalism." While we may fight against supremacy or nationalism with force and aggression, instead we can fight against fear with love and understanding (and voting! don't forget to vote!).

Footnotes

¹ The AP has started capitalizing "Black" when referring to people. Note, that has nothing to do with whether or not one should capitalize "white" when referring to people, though it has caused plenty of white fear stir in US Conservative news outlets. I guess the jury is out on "brown" too, as the AP style guide instructs writers to avoid the term altogether.

² Mehrsa Baradaran's essay dives into Nixon's policies and the particular cunning to which Klug speaks: that Nixon consistently furthered racial oppression and injustice.

³ As an aside, in the course of looking for reviews of this book, I bumbled into Donald J. Harris' 1972 paper (and ended up learning about Harris himself). I've skimmed the paper, so I can just give a high-level overview. This paper discusses the idea of 1970s black life as a colony, giving credence to Klug's statement about black nationalists. Harris is in fact critical of the colonial notion, but as an economic analytical framework rather than as a "political slogan." His argument runs quite similar to Eric Liu's criticism of Hayes, in that the colony framework is sustained by metaphor, but requires a much deeper and precise justification to hold as an analogy. Unlike Liu, Harris poses an alternative framework hinging on the Marxist notion of exploitation, and the entire discussion hinges on economic ideas instead of the law/order distinction that Hayes makes. Harris is open about being unable to satisfactorily answer some questions (e.g., directly measuring exploitation of black labor), but does provide economic explanations of white people's indifference and incentives to maintain segregation. While refuting the colony-in-a-nation explanation, Harris does instead plant the seeds of arguments that we see in Kendi's work: "The basic point to see is that American blacks are, and have always been, organically linked with American capitalism from its very beginning."