Acclaimed legal scholar Patricia Williams cited Professor Caroline Light's forthcoming book in her August 15, 2016 column in The Nation, "The ‘Ground’ in ‘Stand Your Ground’ Means Any Place a White Person Is Nervous."

Williams writes:

"Harvard professor Caroline Light has traced the history of our romance with legalized vigilantism. She dates it to the Reconstruction era, 'when post-war political and economic turmoil and the enfranchisement of African American men fed late-19th-century gender panic, and the legal terrain shifted to characterize a man’s "castle" and the dependents residing therein as an extension of the white masculine self.' Light (whose excellent new book Stand Your Ground: A History of America’s Love Affair with Lethal Self-Defense is forthcoming from Beacon Press next spring) asserts that current policies, including defunding basic public services, have led to a situation in which 'the state’s retreat from the protection of its citizens creates a perceived need for (do-it-your)self-defense.' The supposedly race-neutral idea of 'reasonable threat' actually encourages a 'lethal response to black intrusions into spaces considered white.'"

All of us in WGS are looking forward to reading Professor Light's book when it comes out in early 2017!