My name is Ivan Kilgore. I’m here today to give you a brief synopsis of my book, Domestic Genocide: the Institutionalization of Society, available on Amazon Prime. In what has become a highly controversial topic, American institutions have come under fire as a growing number of committed scholars and advocates for social justice have caught the vapors and awoke to the fact that these institutions have been designed with the sole intent of organizing American social and economic life to the advantage of its predominantly white ruling class. In the case of many Black Americans, and other people of color and the poor, this often means that our communities and lives will be exploited to the fullest, if not destroyed.
In my highly critical analysis of these institutions, I unapologetically explain, in the book, the various cultural and institutional forces that have operated to preserve this agenda. Here, the backdrop of my thesis centers on my life, where the day to day struggle to rise above the mire of poverty, injustice, racism, and miseducation and violence in American society have taken me on a journey beyond American ghettos, college hallways, and prison dwellings. Consequently, the circumstances that came of these events would hurl me onto the nation’s highways and into the bowels of Mexico to traffic illicit drugs and other forms of destruction, which resulted in my being placed before a jury on two separate occasions for capital murder.
In response to my story, the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper received sweeping reviews that prompted countless individuals in the Bay Area to join mentoring organizations. Joining the fervor will be the renowned professor Alvin F. Poussaint of Harvard University, and the late Professor John Aaron of San Francisco State University, who would greatly assist me to bring this project to life. In short, Domestic Genocide is constructed around nine chapters that, at first reading, seem to stand independent of each other. Part autobiography, part academic poetry, prose, and spoken word, it captures the voice of those who are afflicted by the blow back of capitalism. It undoubtedly has made for an incredible case study, and has been reviewed and studied by a number of universities around the United States as we speak. And it speaks to the institutional forces, again, that affect many poor, Back, and oppressed Americans. You can see the book trailer and excerpts of the book, Domestic Genocide, at www.willisraised.wordpress.com. Thank you.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
