In America today, we are witnessing efforts to manufacture hysteria about race for political agendas. Use of the N-word is surging. Incidents of explicit racism have increased even as people insist that they are not racist. Black colleges and churches are experiencing bomb threats. In some states, teachers are being forbidden to teach about race and gender differences, and book banning, when it occurs, represents a societal embrace of ignorance. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream is turning into a politically orchestrated nightmare.

Explicit racial bias in America has exploded during the past decade, demonstrating a resurgence of the old-fashioned kind of racial hatred. It is time to apply science to the subject of racism and stop this partisan nonsense. The way human brains deal with differences is an open secret. Understanding how this process works is critical to enacting meaningful change. There are no clear methods for totally eliminating politicized hatred, but, contrived political animosity aside, by far the most harm still endured by minorities is due to unconscious implicit biases—biases that form in the subconscious and affect our day-to-day behavior without us even realizing it. Charles D. Hayes says we can apply recent advances in behavioral, biological, and neurological science to dramatically reduce the ubiquity of unintentional biases. We can finally reap the benefits of understanding the confusion caused by our subconscious influences.

Evolving in a Dangerous World Made Racism Inevitable: Concerned Citizens, Police Officers and Teachers Can Help Change This is Charles D. Hayes' follow-up to Blue Bias: An Ex-Cop Turned Philosopher Examines the Learning and Resolve Necessary to End Hidden Prejudice in Policing. In his latest release, he shows why the culture war over race in this country is a tragic waste of human sentiment.

If you care about this subject, the argument in this book is a gamechanger. Spend a couple of hours of reading and your perspective on race and racism will be forever changed. You will know something extremely important that tragically remains a mystery to most Americans. And then you can help put a stop to the mindless hostility.

Blue Bias is a book for police candidates, seasoned officers, police supervisors, citizens who seek a truly just society, journalists who want to understand the psychology and temperament of peace officers, and people who simply want to better understand the concept of criminal justice beyond what can be learned by watching police dramas. Consider the following:

Another day, another video of a fatal police shooting hits the internet. Outrage, grief, fear, charges of racism and police brutality follow...and the officer in question may or may not face indictment. But in the end, very little changes—vulnerable communities feel that they cannot trust the police, and peace officers struggle to perform their jobs justly in profoundly stressful environments.

Former police officer and author of numerous books and essays on the subject of self-education, Charles D. Hayes wants to fix that. In Blue Bias, he delves deeply into the question of what can go wrong in policing, for both officers and communities, and explores ways to make it right. His solution is ultimately simple: Know thyself. But to accomplish this edict requires a genuine appreciation of the complexity of human biology, and an incisive understanding of the role our subconscious plays in forming biases, and then confirming prejudices that conflict with our own sense of morality.

If you want to be a police officer or simply better understand what policing is really like, this book is an insightful attitude check. Hayes asks that you, the reader, pin an imaginary badge on your shirt, a gun on your hip and take a front row seat in his big city police academy, because as he explains, it’s the only way to understand what policing is really like and why it is a much harder and potentially more rewarding and a more stimulating job than is commonly thought.

Drawing on decades of research, Hayes introduces his readers to their own brains and the sentinel awareness of their limbic systems. He covers the effects of prolonged stress and heightened adrenaline on the emotional centers of the mind, as well as the roots of the unknown biases that lurk in the subconscious. He encourages self-awareness and a caliber of mindfulness to help police officers act thoughtfully with discretion in intense situations.

Blue Bias pulls no punches: you may find some of it difficult to read, but it is filled with the kind of information that is critical for understanding the difficulty police officers face today when they are not armed with the knowledge necessary to understand that what we are asking them to do is often at odds with their biological predilections.

No book on police work in America today would be complete without acknowledging the topic of systemic racism, especially the way this can affect potential biases officers may experience in that area. Blue Bias examines both the history of human bias and the current state of racism in America, and then provides useful ways to detect and reduce your own biases. For decades, Charles D. Hayes has been one of America’s most passionate advocates for rigorous lifelong learning. Applying his early experience as a Dallas police officer with a half century of reflection, while intensively studying behavioral science, he has identified the learning necessary to end the hidden prejudice, commonly called implicit bias, that is still prevalent, especially in many economically poor communities.

In today’s climate, Blue Bias is a desperately needed work: It calls on police officers to learn about the behavioral sciences beyond their training requirements in order to fulfill their oaths and to protect and preserve their own mental and physical health.