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Terry Keys

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Stop Killing Us: My story and the history of racism in America. Kindle Edition

by Terry Keys (Author), Zachary Irons (Foreword), Joe Beckman (Foreword) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 75 ratings

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USA Today Bestselling Author Terry Keys takes aim at the racial divide facing America today in this breathtaking memoir.

Terry Keys takes you through his journey of being a black man in south Texas. Travel with him as he discusses being in an inter-racial relationship to his days in law enforcement. Keys revisits some of his darkest days as he recounts the racism that he’s endured.

It is a safe place where questions get answered and myths get addressed. This book is not PRO Black or ANTI White - it is PRO UNITY.

What makes this book different? The author has compiled everything this subject needs in one place. Common myths, history and real life experiences of regular, everyday black men here in America. Never before has there been a compilation of as many stories from a multitude of men. These men aren’t criminals, thugs or gang members – but rather fathers, husbands, sons, uncles, brothers, business professionals and coaches. You’ll be able to read their stories and relive their pain/humiliation with them. Through their powerful words and compelling narratives you’ll be able to connect.

Slavery ended in the United States in 1865 – the year is now 2020. America has had 155 years to make black people feel welcomed, wanted and safe. The gap has closed but we aren’t there yet.

Humans are inherently flawed so racism in America will never be completely stamped out. But the overwhelming majority of Americans don’t condone racism. The recent murder of George Floyd set off a tidal wave a protests, riots, looting and social media posts from most Americans with a pulse. Most were outraged at the policing that was employed in the video that we all watched.

But how did we get here? The author takes a deep dive into American history and weaves his own experiences as a black man living in America.

Everyone views the world through their own lens. But in order to see everyone for who they truly are it is important to make an effort to see the world through someone else’ lens.

What are some of those experiences that black men in America go through? If they have encounters with police doesn’t that mean they are criminals? How can white Americans engage? Where do we go from here? How can we knock down some of these walls and make America a better place for everyone? How do you become an anti racist?

Terry Keys takes Netflix' 13th a step further.

Keys' includes a powerful Q & A that answers common questions that white people have regarding blacks.

Don't miss this incredibly impactful, touching, inspirational and timely piece by Terry Keys.

Editorial Reviews

Review

How to describe this book? With difficulty! Yes, it was very difficult to read. It was difficult to grasp the reality of life for people who have more melanin in their skin than I do - I must say that this description, the melanin, really resonated with me. Factual, and simplistic in many ways, yet totally correct. It was difficult in that reading it made me question myself and how I reacted to racism, how I felt racism in my (white) body and how I viewed racism in others.Having read Stop Killing Us I understand so very much more. I think I may well have to read it another time, or even more than one more time, to fully take on board all that Terry and other contributors have written. It will take me time to correlate so much new information. What I can say right now is 'Thank You All' for putting your experiences down on paper, for allowing others to walk for a very brief moment in your shoes. I would like to see this book as essential reading for all - however, I do understand that a person needs to be open to reading and hearing truths that have been misrepresented for decades. I don't think I will have stopped thinking about this book for a very longtime - if ever. I will certainly view my relationships with others through a very different coloured lens.Thank You Terry.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B089LMZKF3
Publisher ‏ : ‎ (July 28, 2020)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 28, 2020
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 8380 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 171 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #1,455,209 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #364 in Social Policy
- #406 in Minority Studies
- #480 in Ethnic Studies (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
4.4 75 ratings

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Terry Keys

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USA TODAY Bestselling author Terry Keys is an award winning novelist, songwriter, and poet. His first novel 'Chained Guilt' won the NIEA Thriller of the year award. A native of Rosharon, Texas, Keys spends his free time reading, hunting, fishing, and working out. He lives in Houston, TX metro with his wife and two children. Please visit his website at www.terrykeysbooks.com

Download one of Terry's books "The Missing" here for FREE https://dl.bookfunnel.com/7sl0k4ch6t

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4.4 out of 5

75 global ratings

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Lora S.

Looks at the issues from multiple sides

Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2020

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If you want to read a good book about the history and practice of racism in America and what we can do about it, Stop Killing Us by Terry Keys is a good book to start with. Or to continue with.

The author makes his points without undue sensationalism. He recognizes that there are multiple sides to the issues he covers. He gives a sort of screenplay of the now-famous death of George Floyd, in case you missed it or, like me, were sort of avoiding it. He also describes several famous cases of suspicious sentences of young black men (some of them actually children) from years ago. Some of these I had heard of but didn’t know the details of. Others I had never heard of before.

Another segment of the book gives some of the author’s encounters with the police over the years, and also those of some of his friends. These were all middle-class black men with jobs who were not engaged in any criminal activity at the time. They were ultimately not arrested or attacked, but you can see the constant level of hostility even in these fairly mild encounters.

Near the end of the book is a chapter on things you can do to help. This was one of the things that most interested me about the book. Rather than just being a recitation of all the things that are wrong (like another book I recently read) this one actually talked about some of the things we might be able to do to help.

5 people found this helpful

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Judy S

Take a look through someone else’s eyes.

Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2021

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Great read. Highly recommend. This book makes you take pause and see the world through someone else’s perspective.

Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2020

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I saw myself throughout, just read again and again, all. Is happening again and again. The Kerner report continues. I will use as a. reference.

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2020

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In one humble reader's opinion, the premise of this book is PERFECT for the times; instead of stats (which are almost always selective no matter who the author is), let's have a bunch of PERSONAL STORIES from people who have experienced racist run-ins with the police. Maybe it's because we're the same age, but it was also easy to see the author as a guy I would know as he narrated. Just a family man like me writing in his spare time because he had to say something about this historical year we're all stuck in together and how it all came to this.

The major setbacks were when statistics got inserted that can be easily pushed back on (the actual numbers of violent crimes in the black community are put against the white to show how similar in numbers they are, yet he leaves out how white are over 65% of the country and blacks are less than 15% for example, leaving open a whole other discussion about the incredibly disproportionate crime rate that some would say is the reason cops have to be so present and demand such authority in black communities) and that...

As a white man, my own experiences with bullies who wear badges seemed to outdo a few of those included in here, and I never was even a punk rocker or anything that'd draw attention other than just young at the time. Looking back, I can only assume that it was because I was young that those particular cops were so demanding of my "respect" (fear) since young males tend to commit more crimes and I suppose my friends and I were the only people who were suspicious enough for them to excuse getting their obnoxious and sometimes sadistic fix in. This and not personally knowing many (if any at all past my early-20s) white people who come out of their racist closet as soon as the nonwhites are out of the room made me wonder if this book's best contribution is letting some whites know that plenty of whites with power positions over nonwhites are indeed like that and out there for innocent nonwhites to deal with in a mostly white society. Or maybe it's just Texas (where 100% of these stories take place except for one just outside it). Just kidding, South. Love the food.

The most divisive part though was when one storyteller took a break from relaying a painful human experience to inserting the opinion that Rayshard Brooks was "defending himself" from the police. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... Well, I have to admit that even in my hunger to keep learning, I almost put the book down after that. I didn't, I carried onward with a more alert and impatient eye, but that little detail not flat-out being edited from this book just made me wonder if ever there will be an eye-to-eye constructive conversation or if the white and black community are indeed doomed to be "two different countries."

Something has to be said on that note, as the goal here was clearly to unite us in the fight for racial equality in this country we share and make white people see something they may not have been able to before. Black people hopefully are beginning to notice though that "the media narrative" is not pro-white anymore though in a time where CNN describes that bad guy as a "white man" when he's white and a "man" when he's black to the point of even lightening pixels to make a black man caught on a video appear white even if he's just rightfully defending himself from violent protestors (yep, some have been violent). The author also seems to defending the rioting and looting by citing that some whites did the same when they wanted no integration. Yeah, but... those whites are pretty much unanimously remembered now as a-holes who were on the wrong side of history, which makes pointing out that double standard more harmful to the "legacy" of this year's rioters/looters than helpful.

The narrative of that the only real pattern to everything that's been uncovered this year being that all these people being shot by police are black has been weakened by throwing cases of people who had done nothing wrong (i.e. Philando Castile) in with Rayshard Brooks because they're the same color. Some people unfortunately see Brooks as a black guy just acting black and some unfortunately see him as a poor father who was simply defending himself from being punished by slave catchers. Both are shallow views to most of us, who see that case as a guy who drunk drove to the point where he actually pulled HIMSELF over in a drive-thru line, still tried to smooth-talk his way out of a DUI after being approached by police (as ANYONE would have being caught that blatantly red-handed), resisted arrest to the point of assaulting two armed police officers, was fired up enough to not be subdued when they used less-than-lethal force with a taser, stole one's taser, then ran off and only turned around to fire it at one of the officers before being shot (with the only weapon left at their disposal on top of it all, seeing as one taser had been used already and the other had been stolen by Brooks). Any man willing to do all that to get out of a DUI charge sure doesn't seem like someone who would have called 9-1-1 if he had run over someone while drunk driving, and blaming the system for the decisions a grown-up made that night weaken the argument for him when one takes into account that a little girl was killed the next day over this incident when a protestor fired into someone's car that got too close to their makeshift barrier set up by that same drive-thru. SECORIEA TURNER, 8 years old. Many of us feel we should say her name too, if not even more than that of the man she was essentially killed over.

And that's where I remain after reading this. Reading, listening and finding out what I can do to help towards a country where we ALL feel part of the idea of America, just still not disarmed of the ability to look for the truth and still more sympathetic to a little girl who could have been my daughter over a grown man who did far more in that one night than just "drive while black."

Either way, again the premise of this book is important enough to make it worth your five bucks, especially if you're a white person just seeing footage of looting and shaking your head about why you should care. Of course, the title alone likely turned you off if you're in that frame of mind, but just in case you were still curious enough to check the "critical" reviews -- I felt a need to write this review just for you. Having been around black people for most of my life, I've heard the horror stories (and apparently lived a few judging by the tameness of some of the weaker story links in here), which is why when skeptics try to throw the statistics of black crime at me I remind them that I trust two things more than statistics; my personal experience and the word on the street. For its few faults, this book gives a good taste of both, in that by "streets" I mean word amongst friends (which the author comes off as -- even through all the hits and misses). I personally found how the author and his Hispanic friend were treated after saving a kid's life as the saddest personal account in here, as I admit I cannot think of a white person being able to relate to its creepiness except for somewhat vicariously. The author's occasional type-o, unwillingness to let on who he voted for recently and admission that people tease him about being the "whitest" black guy they know make him relatable as a person who's just telling you where he's coming from and not another angry distant voice trying to sound prophetic. Honestly, I'd say the book deserves 4 stars, the 3 are so it pops up as a "critical review" and hopefully hooks you enough to give it a shot after checking the bad reviews to reaffirm your choice not to buy it haha. Gotcha. No seriously, if you feel like I'm addressing you in this paragraph then give it a shot. Tom Clancy will forgive you this once. Hey I'm white, I can say that.

One last thought -- Sorry for the spoiler, but being turned down to become a police officer at his local precinct over his color was actually the most heartbreaking part of all this and why this account should be read. Black people brave enough to go in the face of being called names by even their own to become a cop and make a difference for the better are part of the solution, and seeing that there may be fewer because of actual cops (not black culture) keeping that from happening anywhere in this country truly does add a layer here.

4 people found this helpful

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Jayme

Enlightening

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2020

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What an amazing book. I had no idea how the world has been stacked against black people. I appreciate the factual approach and patient explanations.

2 people found this helpful

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