"America likes to tell itself that it inhabits a postracial world, yet nearly every empirical measure-wealth, unemployment, incarceration, school segregation-reveals that racial inequality has barely improved since 1968, when Richard Nixon became our first zlaw and ordery president. Hayes contends our country has fractured in two: the Colony and the Nation. In the Nation, we venerate the law. In the Colony, we obsess over order, fear trumps civil...

America likes to tell itself that it inhabits a postracial world, yet nearly every empirical measure - wealth, unemployment, incarceration, school segregation - reveals that racial inequality has barely improved since 1968.