Politics & Government
![Elie Mystal - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B0956JH74V.jpg)
Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution
MSNBC legal commentator Elie Mystal thinks that Republicans are wrong about the law almost all of the time. Now, instead of talking about this on cable news, Mystal explains why in his first book.
"After reading Allow Me to Retort, I want Elie Mystal to explain everything I don't understand-quantum astrophysics, the infield fly rule, why people think Bob Dylan is a good singer . . ." -Michael Harriot, The Root
Allow Me to Retort is an easily digestible argument about what rights we have, what rights Republicans are trying to take away, and how to stop them. Mystal explains how to protect the rights of women and people of color instead of cowering to the absolutism of gun owners and bigots. He explains the legal way to stop everything from police brutality to political gerrymandering, just by changing a few judges and justices. He strips out all of the fancy jargon conservatives like to hide behind and lays bare the truth of their project to keep America forever tethered to its slaveholding past.
Mystal brings his trademark humor, expertise, and rhetorical flair to explain concepts like substantive due process and the right for the LGBTQ community to buy a cake, and to arm readers with the knowledge to defend themselves against conservatives who want everybody to live under the yoke of eighteenth-century white men. The same tactics Mystal uses to defend the idea of a fair and equal society on MSNBC and CNN are in this book, for anybody who wants to deploy them on social media.
You don't need to be a legal scholar to understand your own rights. You don't need to accept the "whites only" theory of equality pushed by conservative judges. You can read this book to understand that the Constitution is trash, but doesn't have to be.
"After reading Allow Me to Retort, I want Elie Mystal to explain everything I don't understand-quantum astrophysics, the infield fly rule, why people think Bob Dylan is a good singer . . ." -Michael Harriot, The Root
Allow Me to Retort is an easily digestible argument about what rights we have, what rights Republicans are trying to take away, and how to stop them. Mystal explains how to protect the rights of women and people of color instead of cowering to the absolutism of gun owners and bigots. He explains the legal way to stop everything from police brutality to political gerrymandering, just by changing a few judges and justices. He strips out all of the fancy jargon conservatives like to hide behind and lays bare the truth of their project to keep America forever tethered to its slaveholding past.
Mystal brings his trademark humor, expertise, and rhetorical flair to explain concepts like substantive due process and the right for the LGBTQ community to buy a cake, and to arm readers with the knowledge to defend themselves against conservatives who want everybody to live under the yoke of eighteenth-century white men. The same tactics Mystal uses to defend the idea of a fair and equal society on MSNBC and CNN are in this book, for anybody who wants to deploy them on social media.
You don't need to be a legal scholar to understand your own rights. You don't need to accept the "whites only" theory of equality pushed by conservative judges. You can read this book to understand that the Constitution is trash, but doesn't have to be.
Editorial Reviews
Praise for Allow Me to Retort:
"A pugnacious and entertaining critique of conservative interpretations of the Constitution. . . . Buttressed by Mystal's caustic wit and accessible legal theories, this fiery takedown hits the mark."
-Publishers Weekly
"There's something to learn on every page. . . . A reading of the Constitution that all social justice advocates should study."
-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"After reading Allow Me to Retort, I want Elie Mystal to explain everything I don't understand-quantum astrophysics, the infield fly rule, why people think Bob Dylan is a good singer. . . ."
-Michael Harriot, The Root
"Essential reading for people who think that you need to go to law school to understand our founding documents, and the perfect guidebook for Americans who want to understand how our country is supposed to work."
-Zerlina Maxwell, MSNBC analyst and author of The End of White Politics
"I loved Allow Me to Retort. It's a powerful and important book of brightly alive ideas. Mystal deconstructs tired arguments and failed positions with his signature intelligence, humor, grace, and extraordinary wit. His big brain, bright ideas and fierce advocacy for what is right are an antidote to the poison of our current political system."
-Don Winslow, bestselling author of The Border
"Elie Mystal is the funniest lawyer in America. Allow Me to Retort is brisk and brutal, sharply argued, full of both laugh-out-loud lines and righteous fury."
-Matt Levine, "Money Stuff" columnist, Bloomberg Opinion
"In Elie Mystal, we, the people, have a smart and funny legal pugilist. Allow Me to Retort is the people's guide to today's battles over the use, misuse, and abuse of the Constitution, and how we can actually secure justice for all."
-Dan Berger, professor of comparative ethnic studies, University of Washington, and author of Rethinking the American Prison movement
"A pugnacious and entertaining critique of conservative interpretations of the Constitution. . . . Buttressed by Mystal's caustic wit and accessible legal theories, this fiery takedown hits the mark."
-Publishers Weekly
"There's something to learn on every page. . . . A reading of the Constitution that all social justice advocates should study."
-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"After reading Allow Me to Retort, I want Elie Mystal to explain everything I don't understand-quantum astrophysics, the infield fly rule, why people think Bob Dylan is a good singer. . . ."
-Michael Harriot, The Root
"Essential reading for people who think that you need to go to law school to understand our founding documents, and the perfect guidebook for Americans who want to understand how our country is supposed to work."
-Zerlina Maxwell, MSNBC analyst and author of The End of White Politics
"I loved Allow Me to Retort. It's a powerful and important book of brightly alive ideas. Mystal deconstructs tired arguments and failed positions with his signature intelligence, humor, grace, and extraordinary wit. His big brain, bright ideas and fierce advocacy for what is right are an antidote to the poison of our current political system."
-Don Winslow, bestselling author of The Border
"Elie Mystal is the funniest lawyer in America. Allow Me to Retort is brisk and brutal, sharply argued, full of both laugh-out-loud lines and righteous fury."
-Matt Levine, "Money Stuff" columnist, Bloomberg Opinion
"In Elie Mystal, we, the people, have a smart and funny legal pugilist. Allow Me to Retort is the people's guide to today's battles over the use, misuse, and abuse of the Constitution, and how we can actually secure justice for all."
-Dan Berger, professor of comparative ethnic studies, University of Washington, and author of Rethinking the American Prison movement
Readers Top Reviews
Kindle
According to some the Constitution is a living, breathing, always changing and adapting thing, similar to a Supreme Court decision that gave corporations more rights than woman have over their own bodies. Also these same people when the living argument doesn't work switch to the Constitution should stay just like the Founders wrote it, strict adherence to their centuries old thoughts, and inflexible, as inflexible as the meat that ate in their dining rooms, lit only by candles or whale blubber, and served by slaves. Elie Mystal, MSNBC commentator, Constitutional scholar, and I hope a huge lover of comics and other fun things cause he drops so many references, and more importantly writer of Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution addresses this issues and calls them out, for their double-dealing and well lying. Using both humor, pop culture references and his own amazing legal acumen, Mr. Mystal points out the fallacies, crookedness, deception, and out right lying that makes up most of the arguments, and unfortunately legal decisions that effect us all. Mr. Mystal has a very bleak view of the future, and reading along you tend to agree. America seems to have no grasp of its past, even from months ago, and no clear idea what the future of this country will be, or even an idea of what is slowly being eroded away. Many might argue (FOX fans) that Mr. Mystal is crass and rude, and therefore his arguments are moot. They will probably add a "So there", to the end of that comment. Yes he is crass because that is the point. We are at the point where being polite, and holding the door, only gets people excluded and the door slammed shut on their faces and fingers. This country has left a sizeable majority of its people behind and the rest of us are just starting to notice. Unfortunately Mr Mystal has experienced that America, and that he can even joke about it makes him a stronger person than I. And he is very funny. And humor is a weapon against the powerful, because you can always add "just kidding" at the end. It work almost as well as "Well those people, not you". I won't say this book is vital, but you know what after the last couple of weeks I will say. This is a good primer on what to say to those Uncles we hate that are in our family, those people we have to work with, and well too many people who won't bother reading this book because he's a liberal. Mr. Mystal is actually worse than a liberal. He cares enough to get this mad and write this book. Only love allows a person to point out the flaws in something, not caring about the consequences, and I am sure there will be a lot of grief from both right and left poured on Mr. Mystal. He just wants us and the Constitution to be better, and to try just a little harder.
