Brave, clear-eyed, and passionate, Stakes Is High is the
book we need to guide us past crisis mode and through an uncertain
future.
The
events of the past decade have forced us to reckon with who we are
and who we want to be. We have been invested in a set of beliefs
about our American identity: our exceptionalism, the inevitable
rightness of our path, the promise that hard work and determination
will carry us to freedom. But in Stakes Is High, Mychal Denzel
Smith confronts the shortcomings of these stories–and with the
American Dream itself–and calls on us to live up to the principles
we profess but fail to realize.
In
a series of incisive essays, Smith exposes the stark contradictions
at the heart of American life, holding all of us, individually and as
a nation, to account. We’ve gotten used to looking away, but the
fissures and casual violence of institutional oppression are
ever-present.
There
is a future that is not as grim as our past. In this profound work,
Smith helps us envision it with care, honesty, and imagination.