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Must #audiobook this for the full impact.

At the very least, read the epilogue.

More excellent, interesting and dare I say, exciting than expected and being a long time follower of Mystal as a blogger, my expectations were high. It was through Mystal that I probably had my first “a-ha�� moment as a white person on how different the black experience is from the white experience in this country. And then started really listening to the reasons why the Black American experience, even today, is different than what I, being white, experience.

Mystal is an excellent educator of constitutional law which is what makes this book so readable for a layperson such as myself. He goes into the weeds of legal theory only where necessary to shed light on how laws written into the constitution and bill of rights are applied in practice, but even those excursions into the briar patch were not too intellectually intimidating with the map Mystal lays out. He doesn't pontificate which frankly is surprising for a lawyer (sorry, not sorry to my lawyer friends.)

He gives readers a lot to think about, too much for me to recap here. One thought bubble that's stayed with me - if you are white and you were on trial in front of a jury of your peers and all the jurors were black, how would you feel? Let's say it's a criminal trial where you were wrongly accused of financial crimes? Would you feel confident of getting a fair trial by an all black jury? Why or why not? Would having one white person on the jury help? Yet that is similar to what nearly every black person in America will face whether they are in court on a criminal matter or civil. Just something to think about as one thinks about what comprises fairness, impartiality, and equality - ideals that we Americans are striving for.

I reluctantly consider myself a traditionalist, and sadly, a conformist. It's just my nature - I was never part of the artsy crowd, the rule-breakers, the anti-authoritarian rabble rousers. But that position has not always served my country well, this country of America whose ideal I believe in so strongly and so deeply. Sometimes a more forceful, definitive move in a new direction and not a small course correction is what would most benefit the people of this country.

Listening to the epilogue where Mystal breaks down the argument for increasing the number of seats on the Supreme Court is the forceful, definitive move we the people need and should demand of our representatives. It's not such a non-traditional, radical idea after all. The number of justices has changed before in American history and there's current precedent (in the 9th circuit) that shows how a large number of active judgeships can work and work well. Yes, from a political perspective there are risks (for both Republicans and Democrats) but to my mind those are outweighed by the potential benefits (for both Republicans and Democrats).

All in all, Allow Me to Retort is a stimulating book that I highly recommend you read (or better yet listen to) whomever you are.