by Bettina Love
First published 2023
Dr. Bettina Love examines four decades of American education policy that systematically targeted Black children. She connects Reagan's presidency to what she calls a War on Black Children, showing how it operated alongside the War on Drugs to criminalize and marginalize young people of color. Love documents how reform policies introduced policing into schools, closed institutions serving Black communities, and stripped funding from struggling districts. She reveals how white savior narratives enabled private interests to exploit public education while labeling Black students as failures. The book follows twenty-five Black Americans whose lives were shaped by these policies, demonstrating the human cost of structural racism in schools. Love argues that cosmetic changes disguised as justice have replaced meaningful reform, while the system continues to funnel Black children toward incarceration rather than opportunity. Working with leading economists, she calculates the financial damage of miseducating Black students and proposes reparations as the foundation for transforming American education for all children.
Genres: african-american, education, non-fiction, 21st-century, academic, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: institutional-racism, social-commentary, systemic-oppression
Setting: America, United States
Period: 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s
352 pages · Hardcover · St. Martin's Press
Content warnings: racism