Why Didn't We Riot?: A Black Man in Trumpland

Written by Issac J. Bailey

Narrated by JD Jackson

In these impassioned, powerful essays, an award-winning journalist deals forthrightly with what it means to be Black in Trump’s America.

South Carolina–based journalist Issac J. Bailey reflects on a wide range of complex, divisive topics—from police brutality and Confederate symbols to respectability politics and white discomfort—which have taken on a fresh urgency with the protest movement sparked by George Floyd’s killing. Bailey has been honing his views on these issues for the past quarter of a century in his professional and private life, which included an eighteen-year stint as a member of a mostly white Evangelical Christian church.

Why Didn’t We Riot? speaks to and for the millions of Black and Brown people throughout the United States who were effectively pushed back to the back of the bus in the Trump era by a media that prioritized the concerns and feelings of the white working class and an administration that made white supremacists giddy, and explains why the country’s fate in 2020 and beyond is largely in their hands. It will be an invaluable resource for the everyday reader, as well as political analysts, college professors and students, and political consultants and campaigns vying for high office.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Oct 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781713556176

Issac J. Bailey

Issac J. Bailey was born in St. Stephen, South Carolina, and holds a degree in psychology from Davidson College in North Carolina. Having trained at the prestigious Poynter Institute for journalists in St. Petersburg, Florida, he has been a professional journalist for twenty years. He has taught applied ethics at Coastal Carolina University and, as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, has taught journalism at Harvard Summer School. Bailey has won numerous national, state, and local awards for his writings. He currently lives in Myrtle Beach with his wife and children.

Reviews for Why Didn't We Riot?

[Stacey Gracelynn Daniel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is well written and thought-provoking. The authors, honesty and willingness to show his vulnerability require the reader to face the ugly truths he exposes.