Allow Me to Retort

A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution

By: Elie Mystal

Narrated by: Elie Mystal

Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

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 listeners with the knowledge to defend themselves against conservatives who want everybody to live under the yoke of 18th-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 listen to this book to understand that the Constitution is trash but doesn’t have to be.

©2022 Elie Mystal (P)2022 Audible, Inc.

Informative and Entertaining

Constitution explained in a way everybody can understand. A must read for all who cares about equality. Loved it.

Required listening

No matter your gender or race, you need to listen to this book. Mystal lays out in compelling and entertaining fashion the crises that we are facing as a country and will continue to face unless things change

Thought Provoking & Entertaining

Not your run of the middle legal analysis but no surprise if you've ever read Elie's writing. This alternate reading of the Constitution is with paying strong attention to especially for people who are part of a dominant majority. I could say more than other people and sure will give better detailed analysis all I can say is it's worth taking your time and paying attention to. if you can catch the audio version is delivery makes it 10 times more entertaining.

Loved every second!

Clear, concise, informative and to the point. We’ll done will definitely share with someone else..

Very Informative

Listening feels like a conversation about law and constitutional topics between informed brothers. Great experience.

Agree with 99%, but too derivative of better stuff

And who exactly is he yelling at? Republicans don't read, or listen. Even if they did, they wouldn't read or listen to this. Corporate Democrats don't care so long as they keep their middle of the road support. And Progressives already know it.

Anyone who knows George Carlin, Noam Chomsky, James Baldwin, and their philosophical descendants, have heard all the same issues, done much better. Perhaps with the exception of the very recent examples. The author is clearly well educated and intimately familiar with constitutional law. The attempts at humor, or quirkiness, or comedic outrage just wore on me. No doubt the outrage is real. And as stated in the headline, virtually everything is spot on, and therefore it gets 4 stars. It's just the messenger, not the message, that drags it down.

Best idea of how to structure the supreme court.

At the closing of the book is the best idea I have heard on how to structure the supreme court in a way that currently works well in some states and how more justices are better (at least up to 29). Tit for tat expansion that is given as a reason to not expand the Supreme Court would actually dilute the effect of extremist appointments. This would help over time to make the court more responsive to representative democracy instead the branch of government lorded over by a small monarchy of justices, able to negate by decree the peoples' will. The current structure of the court is an Achilles heel to our government, targeted by savvy special interests, extremists, and would be authoritarians. People afraid that the courts would have less power to advance or protect human rights and the liberties of those with less capital should appreciate that the Warren court so responsible for such interpretations of The Constitution is the short time historical exception in a court that can swing with the appointment of a single justice. It is swinging back to the usual, or worse now to enable a one party authoritarian movement, thanks to its current vulnerable structure. A larger court with scheduled rotations, panel decisions with full court review in case would even out swings to minority extremes.

Required reading

Elie gives an on point view that commands people to think. He erases the line that most are afraid to cross. This read is for the young and old!

very well reasoned and performed.

this sentence is written only to meet the audible requirements for at least 15 words.

Wonderful Book.

I loved this book. Mystal brings the narrative an entertaining yet credible edge. I actually learned quite a bit about the Constitution and its relevance to the present political climate.