St. Louis

Clarence Taylor’s Fight the Power: African Americans and the Long History of Police Brutality in New York City is a candid and timely book. Taylor raises many arguments in Fight the Power. His main argument is twofold. First, race was a primary motivating factor behind police brutality in New York. Second, the false representation of blacks as criminals in mainstream media hindered efforts to meaningfully reform the New York Police Department (NYPD). The association of blackness with criminality, he argues, formed the basis of the interest in the racialized social control of blacks through police use of force. Taylor further avers that official’s (e.g., mayors, police commanders) resistance to efforts that challenged the criminalization of blacks and attempts to democratize the NYPD has perpetuated police abuse and domination of black and brown New Yorkers. To support these claims, he documents numerous sociopolitical events and developments coupled with sundry detailed, sterling and cogent examples underscoring the struggles for change and official resistance to citizen-based recommendations for police reform. Although Taylor dedicates most of the chapters to tracing the historical attempts of black activists to limit police power, Fight the Power is more than a detailed historical account of the struggles between police and black communities and their fight for change. Beyond that, it is a call for police reformers to recognize true reform needs to focus on reducing police power through the democratization of police agencies by pushing for thorough involvement of civilians in police organizations’ decision-making processes.