This powerful book on racism in the United States argues that a threatening narrative originating in slavery continues to link Black people to inferiority, dangerousness, and crime, causing them to be presumed guilty by society and U.S. legal systems. Why are Black people stopped, arrested, and shot by police at such a high rate? Presumptions of guilt, dangerousness, and menace have haunted the black community since America was founded. These inhumane assumptions continue to infect every aspect of American justice, causing untold suffering, marginalization, and death. No one understands this toxicity better than Professor Donald M. Jones. In a work like no other, Professor Jones dives deeply into the psychological, historical, and legal elements of these deadly presumptions. The analysis is brilliant, original, sober, and clear. Lawyers, law students, academics, journalists, activists, college students, and anyone concerned about injustice will benefit from the work of the preeminent expert on this subject, Professor Donald M. Jones.