In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space by Irvin Weathersby Jr.

“An awe-striking masterpiece of love.”—Jason Reynolds, #1 New York Times bestselling author“The sentences alone in In Open Contempt make it one of the most memorable books of the decade. But it’s the unexpected lingering and genius crafting of consequential action that makes this one of the freshest explorations of space I’ve ever read. Irvin Weathersby Jr. has made something we’ve never before seen, felt, or witnessed.”—Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy: An American MemoirA stirring journey into the soul of a fractured America that confronts the enduring specter of white supremacy in our art, monuments, and public spaces, from a captivating new literary voiceAmid the ongoing reckoning over America’s history of anti-Black racism, scores of monuments to slaveowners and Confederate soldiers still proudly dot the country’s landscape, while schools and street signs continue to bear the names of segregationists. With poignant, lyrical prose, cultural commentator Irvin Weathersby confronts the