Ghettoside by Jill Levoy

Throughout history, the justice system has been married to the sociological mores of society including racism. Leovy explains the historical mistreatment of black Americans through the modern lens of a crime problem. She takes the FBI crime statistics which are often used by racists to justify their belief that “blacks are just more violent” and gives them a historical context. There are two sides to the coin, Leovy explains; black men are both more likely to commit violent acts and more likely to fall victim in a cycle resembling that of the chicken or the egg. Levoy leaves the reader to decide which came first and how outside influences kick started the cycle. 

This book follows the careers of a few detectives in Watts during the 90’s and into the 2000’s. Many of these detectives played some role in the bedrock story of this book: the murder of a black police detective’s son. Each aspect of the long, winding case that it becomes feels the resonance of the cultural history of the South. 

This book takes a sympathetic but hard hitting look into why so many black men can be killed and no one will put their names or faces on the news. Levoy also includes extraordinarily racist quotes from police, politicians, and many others made recently on the issue of black on black crime, but sound as if they came straight out of The Birth of a Nation. 

It is difficult to like this book as, by the end, Levoy has recounted the killing of hundreds of black men and children who were killed by gang violence for no reason other than them being black. However, this includes such important cultural context to the issues surrounding inner city gang violence while correcting myths, it is hard to not like it for what it can do to educate people who want to talk about this. 

Rating: ★★★★★