"What we’re doing is creating something different. For me, it’s a different way of viewing myself, a different way of living, a different way of loving my blackness."

—Kristina from Black Lives and Spatial Matters

To help people think more deeply about race, freedom, and the policing of metropolitan space in the United States, Cornell University Press has moved forward the publication of the Black Lives and Spatial Matters: Policing Blackness and Practicing Freedom in Suburban St. Louis by Jodi Rios (@rios_jss). In addition, we are also offering the ebook for free (through August 31st) to anyone who wants to engage with this crucial conversation because we believe that books can change the world around us.

From author Jodi Rios: "At its core, this book is about two powerful sets of practices—the cultural politics of race and space that attaches risk to Black people and Black space, and the politics of possibility that reaffirms blackness as a unique site of imagination and freedom. I ask that we reconsider the epistemic violence that is committed when scholars, policy makers, and the general public frame Black precarity as just another racial, cultural, or ethnic conflict that can be solved through legal, political, or economic means."