Surrender, White People!

July 1, 2020
The acclaimed comedian announces the terms of surrender that white America must claim for its sins, under threat of being surrounded as the U.S. becomes majority nonwhite. "We're clearly at war," writes Hughley. "When you can get shot in your own house like Botham Jean or Atatiana Jefferson, what else can you call it? All deaths are tragic, but not all of them are surprising. When dudes are on the streets, running afoul of the law, the propensity for something happening is probably exacerbated. But when cops kill two people in their homes, what else can you call it but war?" In his latest, the author offers a simultaneously humorous and serious take on race relations in the wake of a near unprecedented resistance effort to stem fatal police violence. He appoints himself as lead arbiter, "sole agent," seeking cautiously to negotiate a peace treaty that serves to establish a lasting peace between "Black folks and their oppressors." The author effectively combines his outspoken comedic sensibilities with his longtime experience with political commentary (he had his own show on CNN and serves as a correspondent for the network). Neither side leaves the narrative unscathed. Assuredly, white people get it the worst, yet many black readers may call into question what it means to accept "our place in America" if it's built on what Hughley admits is stolen land and wealth. This follows in the spirit of the author's previous book, How Not To Get Shot, as he mixes important statistics and earnest policy reforms with his witty perspective gained from his upbringing in South Central LA and decades of successful comedy tours in front of black and white audiences. Readers will frequently laugh out loud, but there's far more to this couldn't-be-timelier book than just jokes. Prescriptively mild and bitingly comedic.

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February 1, 2020

New York Times best-selling comedian Hughley (How Not To Get Shot) strikes a funny if pointed deal with soon-to-be-minority white America: If white people will stop preventing blacks from voting and will keep their police from killing young black men, blacks won't comment on how white people dance.

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