New York Times Best Selling Author & Fierce Second Amendment Equality Champion Carol Anderson

In today's episode, Resmaa will be speaking with Carol Anderson. She is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University and author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Nation's Divide, a New York Times Bestseller, Washington Post Notable Book of 2016, and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner. She is also the author of THE SECOND: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, Anderson’s powerful assessment of the Second Amendment and how it was engineered to deny the rights of African Americans since its inception. Illuminating the history and impact of the amendment on Black Americans, THE SECOND is neither a “pro-gun” nor an “anti- gun” book. As Anderson explains, foundational to the creation of the Second Amendment, was the way that slavery and the fear of uprisings—and thus the fear of Black people—required, in the words of one colonist to, “keep a fearful monster in chains.” Access to guns was key. We, therefore, see the Founding Fathers mired in the racial politics of ratifying the U.S. Constitution and how that shaped the Second Amendment. In THE SECOND, Anderson boldly asserts that the Second Amendment is not about guns—it is about anti-Blackness. The ground beneath Stand Your Ground is like quicksand for African Americans.