My book was banned by Trump because he believes you can’t think for yourself | Opinion

Donald Trump doesn’t want you to read my book “Why Didn’t We Riot? A Black Man in Trumpland.” If you want to better understand how we arrived at this moment, you should read it.

“Why Didn’t We Riot?” is among the books the Trump administration just banned from the U.S. Naval Academy library. It’s the administration’s latest step in its quest to rid the country of “DEI.” To be clear. “Why Didn’t We Riot?” is neither a product of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, nor critical race theory. Trump labeled it “DEI” because I’m a Black dude who dares not bend the knee to Trump.

The president’s mission is clear. While claiming the mantle of colorblindness, his administration has been attacking those who aren’t straight, white men. He wants those of us with the wrong skin tone or genitals to forever have our qualifications questioned no matter our experience or expertise, except a few he designates so he can falsely claim he believes in equality. It’s an effort to return us to the 1950s, maybe the 1850s. It’s why he’s been firing highly-qualified Black people and replacing them with less-qualified white men all while pretending to value merit.

The administration’s banning of “Why Didn’t We Riot?” illustrates that better than I ever could have explained. The irony is I struggled writing that book. We were amid the height of the post-George Floyd protests, when it felt as though this country was possibly on the verge of serious reform, the kind that might last. Even the Confederate flag, which had flown at the capitol of my home state, South Carolina, my entire life, had come down. I took my kids to watch it be lowered.

I wanted to believe. Desperately. But I knew our history well enough to know that with every sign of Black advancement, there was backlash. That began with Reconstruction after the Civil War. After securing their freedom, Black people did not look for revenge. They looked for jobs and ways to participate in our democracy, to help perfect it. They helped write state constitutions that elevated the poor and previously silenced. They became entrepreneurs and doctors, pushed to allow millions more Americans to vote.

Had Reconstruction been allowed to blossom, it would have transformed our country and established the first healthy multi-racial democracy on the planet. But it wasn’t allowed to. White leaders in the North and South prioritized their own power and made way for the start of the Jim Crow era. That’s when the Ku Klux Klan, one of the worst domestic terror groups ever conceived, and other similar groups began decades of violence against Black people so severe, so ugly, they make ISIS look like amateurs.

I knew all of that while writing “Why Didn’t We Riot?,” which includes insights garnered during my nearly two decades as a member of a mostly-white Evangelical church and my personal and professional experiences with an uneven criminal justice system. I also explain why it’s important to understand the reasons Black Americans would never vote for a man like Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, despite segments of the community having warm feelings for him, even though a majority of white voters have now chosen Trump three times despite or because of his bigotry.

I suspect that’s why Trump doesn’t want you to read “Why Didn’t We Riot?” or anything like it. He doesn’t want you to think beyond the superficial, doesn’t want you to confront your role in the mess we currently find ourselves in — the way I confronted myself in those pages. I didn’t just confront others about their shortcomings.

The Trump administration’s anti-Black mindset runs so deep, they even banned books by Black conservatives. That’s another reason, among many, that book bans are just plain stupid. They suggest that you aren’t capable of contending with new or discomforting ideas, that book banners should decide what you should read or shouldn’t.

The good this country produced didn’t happen by avoiding challenges, but rather diving into them. Book bans say Americans aren’t tough or intelligent enough to continue that tradition.

It’s time to prove them wrong.

This story was originally published April 9, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "My book was banned by Trump because he believes you can’t think for yourself | Opinion."