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1440874492
| 9781440874499
| 1440874492
| 4.00
| 9
| unknown
| Feb 29, 2020
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it was amazing
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I finished this at least a year ago. The book was thoroughly spiked with markers pointing to remarkable notes of historical fact or insights that only
I finished this at least a year ago. The book was thoroughly spiked with markers pointing to remarkable notes of historical fact or insights that only this woman at this time could make. I hadn't known very much about the institution called League of Women Voters before picking this up but since that time, I have learned much more. We can see so clearly how imperfect we are and get some notion of what we need to do to make this group work for everyone. For change to be effective, we would have to stay working with an imperfect organization to make it better. You know how sometimes your instinct is to just leave...that you cannot change it all by yourself...and then you see someone who is leading by example? This book is like that. Real leadership. Real work. Real. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 22, 2020
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Nov 07, 2021
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May 22, 2020
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Hardcover
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1590519086
| 9781590519080
| 1590519086
| 4.30
| 544
| May 18, 2017
| Feb 19, 2019
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it was amazing
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It is difficult to know where to start when talking about the northern migration of Africans, South Asians, and Middle Easterners to Europe. By now ma
It is difficult to know where to start when talking about the northern migration of Africans, South Asians, and Middle Easterners to Europe. By now many of us have formed opinions based on the nature and number of migrants to Europe in the past several years. Davide Enia reawakens our sense of wonder at the existential nature, the true terror and dangerousness inherent in the refugee journey by sea. And in the process, he reawakens our compassion. The book is a multi-year set of interviews with survivors of the mass landings of migrants on Lampedusa, an island of about eight square miles nearly midway between Italy and the coast of Africa. Approximately seventy miles from Tunisia, Lampedusa is closer than Sicily (127 miles from the African coast) and Malta (109 miles distant). In the days following the Arab Spring, flotillas of migrants arrived daily, thousands of people, thousands more than there were islanders on Lampedusa. It was overwhelming. “Fear and curiosity coexisted with mistrust and pity. The shutters remained fastened tight, or else they’d open to hand out sweaters and shoes, electric adapters to charge cell phones, glasses of water, a chair to sit on, and a seat at the table to break bread together. These were flesh-and-blood people, not statistics you read about in the newspapers or numbers shouted out over the television.”This book is written by a man trying to work out his own complicated view of the migrants, from the point of view of the shell-shocked rescuers. This attempt to understand what is at stake is braided together with Enia’s relationship with his Sicilian father and dying uncle. Gradually he unveils the thoughts of those who have spent years witnessing the movement of migrants some of whom are picked up moments before their already-swamped craft sinks irretrievably. The migrants are all ages and agonizingly aspirational. In photographs of the debris found in the refugee boats were items thought indispensable: skin creams, jars of preserved vegetables and fruit, insect repellent, chapstick, toothpaste, a can of Coca-Cola, cooking pots, lids, padlocks, keys, beach wraps, wallets, rings…the list of items took my breath away, coming as it does after learning of an invisible shipwreck in 2009. Refugees from one boat rescued in open seas remained standing on the dock on Lampedusa, staring at the horizon. A sister boat which had set sail with them the same day, holding four hundred people, never arrived. Sometimes migrants return to Lampedusa, which they call their birthplace, their second birthday the day they arrived, alive, from the sea. One young man gives some idea of the difficulty of the crossing. Their rubber dinghy ran out of gas “almost immediately.” When the salt water drenched them again and again, their skin burned and their heads felt as though they would explode. The sun shone cruelly. They floated for eighteen days, out of all provisions, reduced to drinking urine. A Maltese patrol boat appeared and tossed them gas, water, food, then sped off. The patrol watched from a distance as the dinghy moved into Italian waters. It was three more days until an Italian Coat Guard vessel picked them up. Of the eighty who had left Libya, seventy-five of them had died. Enia doesn’t begin with the tragedy in October 2013 that brought Lampedusa so vividly to everyone's attention around the world, the day a boat sank within sight of the shore, the day the seas filled with bodies. But he works up to that moment, sharing with us the experiences of those who have witnessed years of landings so that the full scope and horror of the event can be understood, looked at, and borne. The other day I saw a video clip of a landowner on the U.S. border with Mexico saying he’s a big Trump supporter, strong on national defense, and the biggest conservative around. “But,” and I’m paraphrasing him now, “I think they’re wrong on this border wall. These folks aren’t criminals or terrorists.” It sounds like this man has seen a few things. At some point we all need to imagine how we will act when faced with naked need and hardship beyond comprehension. On Lampedusa, a warehouse was refurbished with a shower to give those who escaped under the fence of the overcrowded refugee holding facility a chance to get cleaned up. “Little by little, even some of those who regularly inveighed against these immigrant kids started leaving bags in front of the warehouse with donations of shampoo, soap, shoes, and trousers. They’re seeing people on the street who were malnourished, barefoot, raggedy, and so they did their best to help them with their primary needs.”This is a necessary book, beautifully and thoughtfully written, so that all our conscious and unconscious prejudices can bubble up…and float free. And we can be the people we hope to meet, were we in need. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 21, 2018
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Jan 25, 2019
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Dec 21, 2018
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Paperback
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1328911241
| 9781328911247
| 1328911241
| 4.05
| 16,997
| Oct 23, 2018
| Oct 23, 2018
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it was amazing
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I forget where I first heard of Adjei-Brenyah, but the name of his debut story collection was so similar to Esi Edugyan’s much-lauded Washington Black
I forget where I first heard of Adjei-Brenyah, but the name of his debut story collection was so similar to Esi Edugyan’s much-lauded Washington Black that I wanted to read both to make sure they were separated in my mind. Now it is difficult to imagine I would ever forget the title story “Friday Black,” about a young man in a retail store setting dealing with the sales and buying mania of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the official opening of the Christmas season. There is indeed something black in the American psyche, that would celebrate a day of such whipped-up and fruitless passion for more than we need or can effectively use. I did not read the first story in the collection, “The Finkelstein 5,” until long into my perusal of the collection. Just as well, because it is a staring full-face into the racism we still see and hear all around us today. The characters who are black adjust themselves to fit into the white overculture, adjusting their “blackness” on a ten-point scale. Adjei-Brenyah draws from the incidental murders of young girls attending Sunday school, of a young man shot as he walked down the night-darkened street of his neighborhood, of a young man so angry at the deaths of the others that he considers, for a moment, fighting back. There is a barely-disguised cameo of the talking heads on right-wing TV talk shows, with Adjei-Brenyah carefully picking out for us the most offensive and patently absurd of their comments regarding white fear of unarmed teens and children of color. My favorite of the stories in the collection has to be “Zimmer Land.” In this significant piece, which I can imagine being chosen for Best-Of collections until Adjei-Brenyah is old and gray, a young man works at a kind of play-station where members of the community are given the opportunity to see how they would react when their fear or anger instincts are aroused. Patrons are issued a weapon when they enter the play space set, a paint gun whose force can rupture fake blood sensors in the mecha-suit of the player. Mecha-suits sound like transformer kits, inflating to protect the torso, legs, and arms of players, and to intimidate. Patrons are not told to use the weapons, but the mere convenience of the weapons is an opportunity, and the rush of shooting is like a fast-acting drug. Isaiah is black and he is the player white patrons come to test their emotions against in a “highly curated environment.” When Isaiah complains to management that most of the patrons are repeats, coming frequently to fake-kill him and not learning anything new about the sources of their aggression, perhaps even “equating killing with justice,” his bosses tell him his heart better be in the job ‘cause there are others who’ll do the work with real aggression and commitment. At least four of Adjei-Brenyah’s signature pieces in this collection describe the soul-destroying unreality of America’s retail space, where salespeople are rewarded for up-selling and given praise, if not bonuses, for selling the most [unnecessary] stuff to the most [vulnerable] people. We are reminded that there are several ways to make money to live while writing, and in Adjei-Brenyah’s case it is retail sales rather than, say, restaurant work or construction. He gives us a look at what we never thought to ask as we made our way through the racks of shirts or stacks of jeans. Highly praised by other acclaimed writers in front-page and back-cover blurbs, this collection heralds the arrival of someone we will continue to look out for. The ideas behind the work is what is impressive, besides just the writing skill. Adjei-Brenyah knows one doesn’t have to be sky-diving to make the work interesting. It’s about what you’re thinking about while sky-diving. Late Night comedian Seth Meyers interviews Adjei-Brenyah and Book Riot interviews Adjei-Brenyah here. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 04, 2019
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Feb 17, 2019
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Sep 25, 2018
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Paperback
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0374103119
| 9780374103118
| 0374103119
| 4.26
| 4,253
| Jun 12, 2018
| Jun 12, 2018
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it was amazing
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This scientific and legal drama recounts the harrowing ordeal of several families suffering terribly from toxic chemicals leaching from storage pools
This scientific and legal drama recounts the harrowing ordeal of several families suffering terribly from toxic chemicals leaching from storage pools of fracking waste into their drinking water and into the air in western Pennsylvania. New Yorker staff writer and journalist Eliza Griswold has excellent instincts for a story and she has honed her skills so that unwieldy real life is put into a clear timeline; we not only understand, we are desperate to learn the outcome. It is nearly impossible to imagine this kind of deceit and coercion happening today in ‘sacrifice zones’ around the country. After all, it is written in Pennsylvania’s own constitution that “The people have a right to clear air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and aesthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit for all the people.”Residents who survived—many of their farm animals did not—had to leave their newly worthless property because the water was not fit to drink and the air was not fit to breathe. This is the story of how these families fought the state and federal agencies (EPA, DEP) charged with protecting them; Range Resources, the company responsible for the fracking work; the companies responsible for testing blood and water for chemical components causing the damage; their own neighbors; and the political leadership including the governor in Pennsylvania who instituted Act 13, giving zoning overrides to fracking companies. When their lawyers, John Smith and his wife Kendra, finally argued a case about the pollution before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in October 2012, two years after they began researching the cases, the lawyers were afraid the conservative judge known to side frequently with Republican politicians would throw out the challenge to Act 13. [Pennsylvania is known today as the poster child for such severe political gerrymandering Republicans in state and national government far outweigh their Democratic challengers.] State governor Tom Corbett didn’t want “to send a negative message to job creators and families who depend on the energy industry.” Corbett was voted out in 2015. Speaking of families who depend on the energy industry, the neighbors of these folks who had been so wrongly done by sometimes begrudged the families their lawsuits since it might lessen their opportunity to sell the rights to whatever gas or right-of-way lay beneath their own land. This is a horror story that is difficult to tear one’s eyes from. “[Range Resources] tried to appeal to those who stood to make money with an unusual letter writing campaign. One mass mailing was addressed to a fictitious ‘Mr. and Mrs. Joe Schmo at 10 Cash-Strapped Lane.’ It urged residents to bring pressure on their local officials to allow companies wide latitude to drill where they needed to, or there’d be no gas, and ‘no gas means no royalties.’”The royalties, by the way, weren’t very impressive to someone who was going to lose their health, their livelihood, their land, their house, their way of life. This was farmland, so most of people discussed here in detail had barns, large animals, etc. This says nothing of the downstream pollution of the groundwater. People can drill on their own property, but not if it affects their neighbor. Fracking waste is toxic, but much of the time so is what fracking dredges up from deep earth pockets holding Pleistocene-era bacteria and ocean salts. No one wants this waste. Range Resources paid Alan Shipman to truck away waste that didn’t fit in the holding ponds. Shipman was convicted in 2011 of mixing the fracking solutions with less lethal waste so technically it would fall under less stringent guidelines for placement and then he dumped it illegally into public waterways. A few local public officials thought some of the difficulties lay in the corruption of government by money flowing from the gas companies to people in political office who thereafter tended to cater to those business interests. Even Obama changed his tune from “no fracking” during his campaign, to “gas is good” during his term. Some individuals argue that despite some pollution, gas extraction has made the U.S. practically energy independent, moving the U.S. from importing two-thirds of it’s oil needs to one-fifth. A degree of pollution here may prevent global ocean rise because gas is less carbon-emitting, etc, etc. To all of this could be argued that the costs of gas are not adequately taken into account by companies operating by deceit. Have the companies pay the real costs and then go find investors. They will, and we will be protected. If gas is judged to be “just too expensive,” we may need to rethink the way we do business or the way we live. One final note is a very short discussion Griswold adds about the Tragedy of the Commons. I’d never heard of this concept, so I quote her here at length: “Economists describe the Tragedy of the Commons like this: cattle herders sharing a pasture will inevitably place the needs of their cows above the needs of others’, adding cow after cow and taking more than their share of the common grass. This ‘free rider’ takes advantage of the commons, and consumes it until it’s gone. This, the argument goes, is human nature, which sets individual gain over collective good. Traditionally, the Tragedy of the Commons has supported the case for individual property rights: since it’s impossible for people to act together to protect commonly held assets, we might as well carve up those assets and leave individuals to look after their own. But what if the commons did not need to end in tragedy? What if people were able to work out effective practices of sharing the commons and transmit those traditions to their descendants? Elinor Ostrom, a professor of political science at Indiana University, argued that the solution to the Tragedy of the Commons for the twenty-first century lies in common sense. Sharing has succeeded in the past and could succeed in the future. Ostrom was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics for this work. She died in 2012.”This is a terrific, propulsive, horrifying, and important read you are not going to want to miss. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 04, 2018
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Sep 09, 2018
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Jul 31, 2018
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Hardcover
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0679444327
| 9780679444329
| 0679444327
| 4.47
| 104,281
| Sep 07, 2010
| Sep 07, 2010
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it was amazing
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In the future, people will probably mistake the the origin of the phrase ‘the warmth of other suns’ to be this big book on America’s Great Migration,
In the future, people will probably mistake the the origin of the phrase ‘the warmth of other suns’ to be this big book on America’s Great Migration, when it fact Wilkerson credits the phrase to a poem of Richard Wright’s that she uses as an epigraph: "I was leaving the South to fling myself into the unknown. I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns, and, perhaps, to bloom."The beautiful, elegiac poem expresses regret one had to leave some of one’s roots behind in order to ‘transplant’ elsewhere. Wilkerson interviewed about 1,200 people and did subsidiary research to collect & corroborate enough impressions and remembrances that she felt comfortable in this period and could supply details others forgot. I'd be willing to bet she used techniques similar to those used by the author of one of my favorite histories, the award-winning Russian journalist Svetlana Alexievich, who wrote Secondhand Time: An Oral History of the Fall of the Soviet Union. Alexievich’s journalistic technique uses the general experience to elucidate the personal, though Wilkerson also did extensive interviews with the three main subjects of her narrative. The Great Migration covered the period 1915-1970; Wilkerson’s own attention span covers a period of almost one hundred years, from 1915-2010. The three different sets of migrants whose lives she uses as examples did not know one another, and all three were alive when she began her research; all three had died before she’d finished. George Starling moving up the eastern seaboard from Florida to Harlem in New York City; Ida May Gladney moved from Mississippi to Chicago, part of the midwest migration; and Robert Foster moved from Louisiana to California, an experience about which I knew the least. The book is huge with detail. It can’t be rushed, and those who read or listen to it regularly, recognizing it may take weeks to get to it all, may enjoy it best. There is a rhythm to the telling; it is long-form story-telling, and it adheres to an oral tradition. One can certainly make the case that, since Wilkerson conducted interviews for the bulk of her narrative, this is in a long line of family histories passed down orally from generation to generation. The experiences she recounts fills in holes some discover in our own family histories. We can now imagine what the migrants must have encountered. In charts showing the movement of African Americans from the South to different parts of the country in the last century, Los Angeles and cities in California got only a third or smaller proportion of what Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Philadelphia settled. Boston and New York were in between those two. One incident Wilkerson recounted that shook me badly was the story of the attempted integration in the summer of 1951 in Cicero, an all-white town on the southwest border of Chicago. The mob mentality that took over the reason of the so-called white people—and it should be noted this was a broad swath of first- and second-generation European immigrants—when they learned a black couple had rented an apartment is horrifying, terrifying to recount. The couple’s belongings and the apartment were destroyed…on day one. The next three days brought a full-scale riot that needed the National Guard to subdue. Boston is not specifically mentioned in this history, but the New York experience plays a large part. Wilkerson makes reference to the Northern Paradox, a term coined by the sociologist Gunnar Myrdal: “In the North, Myrdal wrote, ‘almost everybody is against discrimination in general, but, at the same time, almost everybody practices discrimination in his own personal affairs’—that is, by not allowing blacks into unions or clubhouses, certain jobs, and white neighborhoods, indeed, avoiding social interaction overall.”Considering African Americans apparently occupied approximately 25% of the population in these two cities, I’d have to agree that the discrimination, in Boston at least, is subtle, hidden, denied since most neighborhoods until recently were clearly segregated. Ida Mae Gladney left Mississippi for Chicago October 14, 1929, and eventually ended up voting for Barak Obama as senator of Illinois. In describing cooking and eating corn bread the way it was made when she was coming up, she says “Now you put you some butter and some buttermilk on it,” she says, “and it make you want to hurt yourself.”I’ve never heard that phrase before, but it sure covers a number of addictive activities. In describing Dr. Robert Joseph Pershing Foster’s life in California, we get an indelible picture of the man by the way he remembered the clothing he and his wife wore at eventful moments in their lives. “He remembered one night in particular. He was wearing a black mohair suit he ordered specifically for the occasion from the tailor who dressed Sammy Davis, Jr., and Frank Sinatra. He wore a black tie with a burgundy stripe, a white tab-collar shirt, gold cuff links, black shoes, black silk socks, and a white handkerchief with his initials, RPF, embroidered in silver.”Elsewhere he mentions this black mohair suit jacket has a silk lining in scarlet. How can one begrudge a man who is so enthusiastic in his compositions? There is such joy there. The last individual detailed in this book, George Swanson Starling, was memorable for what he did not accomplish. His family held him back from finishing college, so George married an unsuitable woman and left home for the North. "It was spite," George would say of the decisions he made at that moment in his life…"That’s why I preach today, Do not do spite," he said. "Spite does not pay. It goes around and misses the object that you aim [at] and goes back and zaps you. And you’re the one who pays for it."A truer lesson was never told. I used Whispersync to listen/read. Robin Miles narrates and her reading is perfect in pace and clarity. Ken Burns gave an intro to the audio edition which was not reproduced in the kindle version. He says, basically, "This is must-read nonfiction, essential to our understanding of race. I loved this book" and more. We haven’t had this kind of history told in this way before. Allowing this history to inform the construct that is your life will change that life a little bit. ...more |
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1
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Feb 23, 2018
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Mar 17, 2018
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Feb 23, 2018
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Hardcover
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3.97
| 14,579
| Feb 06, 2018
| Feb 06, 2018
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it was amazing
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This book seems too small for all it accomplishes. The quiet watchfulness and introspection of the Prologue tamps down opinion before it develops. We
This book seems too small for all it accomplishes. The quiet watchfulness and introspection of the Prologue tamps down opinion before it develops. We are here to listen, to understand. It is such a quiet read, immediately alert to the tension inherent in a grandson of immigrants policing the border. This is a beautiful book, a beautiful physical object. Riverhead Books formatted the inside to be a kind of art, using gray pages to separate the sections and lines to guide our eye, delineate our thoughts. We recognize we are privileged to see what an American thinks of the border, an American with reason to care about the migrants, who shares our history and theirs. The real terror that migrants bring or flee is not hidden; it is one of the first things the border guards encounter. A drug capture is a feather in one’s cap. The people ferrying the drugs are not as important; they are allowed to struggle back to where they came from, or continue onward if they dare. Not much thought is expended in their direction. Before long, Cantú becomes aware of his own muted, muffled response to the hideousness of the choices facing his human captures. The job itself appears to be a reason why he cannot envision himself in their place. Then we discover Cantú’s stress is coming out by a grinding of his teeth when at rest. He dreams of captures—his response and theirs—and how it could be different. He moves to a different job, a different state. He watches, in a computer lab, movements in the border area. He researches reasons for population movement, drug dealing, gang murders, a capture’s history. This knowledge does not abate his nighttime fears. He starts to try to imagine the humanity behind the statistics, quoting the historian Timothy Snyder, “Each record of death suggests, but cannot supply, a unique life….it is for humanists to turn these [deaths] back into people.” He goes back to El Paso and the Rio Grande and finds himself more confused than ever. “…studying…and reading…international affairs…I had the idea that…the patrol…would somehow unlock the border for me…but…I have more questions than ever before.” Exposure to the violence of the border region gave him a kind of moral injury: “Moral injury is a learned behavior, learning to accept the things you know are wrong.” In contemplating the migration of individuals from Mexico and Central America to North America, Cantú must examine the horror facing those migrants in their own countries. He gives us a taste of it, leading us to question our own understanding of government, laws, fairness, money, profit, coercion, protection. We realize we do not know the answers to the questions these migrants raise: How are we to live? What do we have to lose? Cantú leaves the border patrol to think, write, read, study. In trying to make sense of his own history, his recent past, and his future, he takes a job in which he meets a man who becomes his friend. That man, it turns out, is what Americans call an illegal, though he has lived and worked more than thirty years in the United States. All the understanding Cantú learned at the border is put into practice now as he couples his sensitivity and sensibility with experience. This gorgeous, thoughtful read is replete with references to poets and novelists, as well as to those who write history, philosophy, international affairs. Cantú took time and had the resources to assimilate his feelings about illegal border crossing—the indignity, the futility of it—and he is eloquent in his expression of it. What I came away with, putting financially-motivated drug traffic aside, was that the movement of individuals is migration, something that is not going to stop because we disapprove. When things get bad enough, people move. Cantú’s title alludes to the water-like quality of the stream, and the possibilities for growth. Flood. We, and the people of other great nations, should think about restructuring our attitudes to accept the reality of a world in crisis and how that affects us whether we want it to or not. We must look at ourselves and the world, ourselves in the world, to see what we need to do to keep ourselves from moral injury. ...more |
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1
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Mar 03, 2018
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Mar 12, 2018
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Feb 02, 2018
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Hardcover
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1580056776
| 9781580056779
| 1580056776
| 4.49
| 105,752
| Jan 16, 2018
| Jan 16, 2018
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it was amazing
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People of every race are going to read this book—at least I hope they are. It is not written just for people still denying that racism exists in Ameri
People of every race are going to read this book—at least I hope they are. It is not written just for people still denying that racism exists in America today, but for people who know it does but do not recognize the myriad ways it manifests. Oluo writes so clearly and simply, this book just a pleasure to read, despite addressing emotionally sensitive material. It is so well-conceived and executed that one could use it as a handbook for group discussion, one or two chapters a meeting, talking over what she has presented. Those discussions can be within one's own group, and do not need to include people outside one's race unless they want to be there, e.g. white people should be talking to white people. We have a lot to discover about ourselves, our culture, how our political and economic systems affect racist ideas. She gives us the tools to begin that work, and suggests that we not make black people the sounding boards for our own anxieties—anxieties about how we are perceived, or mistakes we may have made or…whatever. It's not about us. Oluo’s book builds on earlier books on this theme in the best way possible: You Can’t Touch My Hair by podcaster Phoebe Robinson, and Why I Am No Longer Talking to White People About Race by British journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge, were both enormously helpful in raising some of the issues Oluo addresses with such clarity. Oluo organizes the material so that we are focused on behaviors or questions we will recognize if we have thought about these issues at all, such as "How do I talk to my mother about racist jokes she makes?" "Is police brutality really about race?" "What are microaggressions?" "Is it race or class that separates us?" "What is intersectionality?" "I was called out for being racist but I don’t know what I did wrong." Oluo suggests ways to approach these questions, and tells us what is not okay. She says there are basic rules, which we might understand to be immutable rules:
While Oluo will concede that in the context of the points made above, “just about everything is about race…” Pause here. This is such a critical point that is too easily missed. White people do not generally talk about race, do not think about race because they are in a white supremacist society. Understand this to mean that white is privileged in our society, and until recently was the largest population group, using their own means of measuring “white.” White is a race, like other races. We just haven’t had to think about it as such. Oluo goes on to say “…almost nothing is about race.” Pause again. That would be true also. Race doesn’t even show up genetically. White Americans have more genetic difference with other Europeans than we do with Black Americans. It’s culture and context that rubs us differently. But Oluo goes through all this carefully, spending some time defining what racism is. She warns us that talking about race will make us uncomfortable. We need to forgive ourselves if we make mistakes, but we also have to forgive others who are trying to understand what they do not now understand. “You’re going to screw this up,” Oluo tells us, but you can prepare, and try to lessen the amount of times you get it wrong. She helps by talking this out. This is not easy stuff. Racial justice activist Debby Irving agrees. Just when we think we understand what privilege is, we might discover we don’t know how to explain it, or give examples of it, or even recognize it immediately. We need to change something so basic as our vocabulary, and everyone who has learned a new language knows how hard that can be. Our behaviors are often habituated, learned when we were children, and some need to change. Change is hard, but not impossible. Oluo sticks with the practical ways she has lived with and uncovered her own lack of understanding around race--for instance, not making enough effort to understand what underlies the term Asian American. That particular chapter, “What is the model minority myth?” is enormously informative. We learn the large number of sub-groups fall under the category of Asian American, and how they are doing in our economy. It seems hard to believe this book came out only a month ago, in January 2018. I am so thrilled there is such useful material now to help us with our own conversations with family, friends, and colleagues about race. I recommend buying this one. You will be grateful for this resource. You will probably need to refer to it again and again, or pass it around, when your conversations raise some of the questions Oluo deals with here. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 13, 2018
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Feb 18, 2018
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Jan 23, 2018
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Hardcover
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041592913X
| 9780415929134
| 041592913X
| 4.23
| 2,677
| Jan 01, 2000
| Oct 26, 2000
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it was amazing
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bell hooks shares her upbringing and personal history with us in this book, and for that reason it is worth savoring. She has a very conversational st
bell hooks shares her upbringing and personal history with us in this book, and for that reason it is worth savoring. She has a very conversational style in this book; she is not writing a polemic. But she is teaching. This book reminds us that America does indeed have a class hierarchy, and indicates how that plays out for citizens. hooks reminds us that in a culture where money is the measure of value, it is believed that everything and everybody can be bought. But money is not the standard where other values are more important: “Solidarity with the poor is the only path that can lead out nation back to a vision of community that can effectively challenge and eliminate violence and exploitation.”Acquiring wealth or items of value make us fearful that someone will take those things away from us. hooks herself had such an experience, having bought a fancy car she found herself being less generous. A material object with which she identified altered her relationship to others. She caught this recognizable mindset exactly: human beings do this. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t admire or have lovely things. We just have to acknowledge they change us and our relationship with others, and find a way to compensate for this. Money or beautiful things is not the point, not the point of our existence. We have to look harder, deeper for that. This book was published in 2000, shortly after hooks’ prolific period studying, writing, speaking in the 1990s. The push for more—more money, more power—has always been with us but hadn’t infected the vast middle class, perhaps because it was unimaginable, until this period when unheard-of wealth was within reach for many in the middle class. hooks is just reminding us not to lose our sensibility to the false god, gold. Chapter Five, called “The Politics of Greed,” is just as relevant now as it was when written twenty years or so ago, perhaps more so. That’s the thing with bell hooks: she seems to have sprung full-grown from the head of Athena or whomever. She is grounded in a way we can dream of, finding her way to answers some of us will only discover in old age, if at all. She talks about addiction in a way that hurts, it seems so familiar to many now. “Those who suffer the weight of this greed-based predatory capitalism are the addicted. Robbed of the capacity to function as citizens of any community (unable to work, to commune with others, even to eat), they become the dehumanized victims of an ongoing protracted genocide. Unlike the drugs used in the past, like marijuana and heroin, drugs like cocaine and crack/cocaine disturbed the mental health of the addicted and created in them cravings so great that no moral or ethical logic could intervene to stop immoral behavior.”We recognize this language today, though the drug choice has changed to opioids. In her chapter entitled “Being Rich,” hooks explains that the poor and working class have been taught by mass media to think like and aspire to the values and attitudes of the rich ruling classes, ideologically joining with the rich to protect their class interests. We are all taught to believe that the wealthy have earned their right to rule because they are rich, without examination into the sources of that wealth and the exploitation it may represent, and we therefore often abandon any political commitment to economic justice. In the old days of an emerging Christian ethic, the disciples were puzzled to learn from Jesus that the rich must work harder for grace because they will be tempted to hoard their wealth and exploit others to increase their wealth. “Nowadays much new age spirituality attempts to undermine traditional biblical condemnation of the greedy rich by insisting that those who prosper are the chosen, the spiritual elect. But there is a great difference between celebrating prosperity and the pursuit of unlimited wealth.”In later chapters hooks addresses the new wealth of American blacks and how allegiance to the new class interests of successful black people may supersede their racial solidarity. We must be mindful that an exploitative rule set allowed certain talents to break barriers most cannot and this should not be taken as the kind of success any of us consider complete. In general and from the outside, it does not appear that successful blacks are ignoring their brethren, but I do not think the same can be said of white citizens. hooks actually addresses this in her chapter entitled “White Poverty: The Politics of Invisibility.” While the black poor were ostracized in the larger society, they managed to stick together, live together, worship together. In some ways, this was unavoidable where the society was segregated. But poor whites lived everywhere, and because of segregation, had no common cause with poor blacks, and were not accepted by wealthier whites. Doubly despised, we could say. It is not so far from that time to today, when poor whites embarrass their wealthier brethren. hooks is saying that we must bridge this divide and recognize the basic humanity we all share, across race, class, sexuality, and national origin. We have to surrender our attachment to material possessions, eliminate the false hierarchies based on wealth, color, sex, etc. and interact based on more lasting values. A final few chapters suggest ways for us to ease into new relationships with one another. hooks is indispensable as a thought leader. ...more |
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Mar 21, 2018
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Jan 22, 2018
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0393285286
| 9780393285284
| 0393285286
| 3.87
| 1,033
| Jul 07, 2016
| Aug 23, 2016
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it was amazing
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I have a new favorite poet and and I can’t stop thinking about her work. But you have to hear her speak the work to get the full impact so therefore o
I have a new favorite poet and and I can’t stop thinking about her work. But you have to hear her speak the work to get the full impact so therefore on my blog I have attached a video of Oswald reading the first poem in this 2016 collection, called "A Short Story on Falling." I have learned that this appears to be Oswald's ninth book of poetry, and that her second book, Dart, won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2002. According to her wiki, Oswald "is a British poet from Reading, Berkshire. Her work won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2002 and the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2017. In September 2017, she was named as BBC Radio 4's second Poet-in-Residence." It is absurd to fall in love with language again, but here I am, helpless in her hands. Her visualizations are unforgettable. In "You Must Never Sleep Under a Magnolia," we learn of "shriek-mouthed blooms" and the first flowering like a glimpse of flesh. And what of Old scrap-iron foxglovesOr what about "Tithonus: 46 Minutes in the Life of the Dawn" whose characterization of Tithonus reminds us of another babbling old man: It is said the dawn fell in love with Tithonus As it happens, just when I discovered this unbeatable voice, I learn that she and another newly discovered favorite author, Kei Miller, will be speaking together, in a month, at the same venue in England, as part of the Bath Spa Poetry Series: It is enough to bring the dead to life. ♬♪ If I were a rich man ♬♫ ...more |
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Jan 08, 2018
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Jan 08, 2018
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Dec 31, 2017
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Hardcover
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1438451687
| 9781438451688
| 1438451687
| 3.81
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| May 14, 2014
| Jun 01, 2014
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it was amazing
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In a way I wish this book weren’t as dense with ideas as it is, but it shows us that this race stuff is not simple or easy. The struggle to understand
In a way I wish this book weren’t as dense with ideas as it is, but it shows us that this race stuff is not simple or easy. The struggle to understand what it will take to fix this messy problem should make pessimists of us but indeed Sullivan’s book is so thoughtful and addresses so many aspects of American race issues that we also have reason to hope—that people like this will guide a new generation forward with new tools. Shannon Sullivan's Introduction alone made me want to recommend this book to every well-intentioned white person who thought they want to convey their ‘wokeness.’ Basically she is saying, and I agree, that it’s not going to be so easy as that. We’re going to have to be the handmaidens of this movement, not the tip of the spear. Ain’t nobody so woke they cain’t learn a few new lessons. When Vance came out with his autobiography Hillbilly Elegy, some critics pointed out that he was tentatively making a larger point about the American political system and poor white country folk but ignored the issue of race. Sullivan dives right in and seizes that nexus of class and race and explains why middle class white folks, the “good white [liberals]” of the title feel more comfortable with middle class black folk than with ‘poor white trash.’ It is because 1) poor white folk embarrass them and fracture the rules of white social etiquette; and 2) the white middle class like to believe they are openminded and that opportunity for black people exists. At the end of this chapter she makes the point that white supremacists cannot be sidelined if we are to move forward in a democracy. They must be engaged. It is too much to expect that black people would have to engage these folks and still preserve their sense of self, so this may be the role that well meaning white “allies” might have to play: engage these folks. Not what we would have chosen for ourselves, but undoubtedly necessary. The second point Sullivan makes is that white people cannot wish away their white ancestors, or declare them anathema. We must recognize that those folk operated under different social, political, and economic conditions and that we may have done what they did in the same circumstances. What they did perpetuating slavery was undoubtedly wrong, but we can’t just say, “that’s not us.” We have to concede that it indeed might have been us, and we still benefit from the privileges granted us from that time, e.g., money, status, opportunity. etc. This point is one white folk want to shy away from, but in fact black writers on race have been saying this for awhile now. We have to acknowledge slavery in the United States damaged the prospects for black folk, and that while we did not do these things, to this day white folk benefit. There are only four points in this book, but they are very carefully looked at from several directions so that our confusion, fears, or objections, should we have any, are carefully answered. Other reviewers have said Sullivan’s third issue, discussing the “disease of color-blindness,” has been the most influential one in the process of teaching and raising their children. White people have to start talking about race, which for many of us growing up was something well-brought-up people did not do. Talking about race was done by white supremacists or white trash. That’s over now because it is necessary to talk about race, our own race, in order to acknowledge that our own race is not neutral. It also has cultural habits and color. And in many cases, it comes with its own assumed ‘rightness,’ or first place in a hierarchy of correctness. Black folk, it appears, would prefer we do talk about race because otherwise it is the elephant in the room. They have to deal with the consequences of race daily. It seems right to them that we do, too. So what Sullivan is able to do is to suggest ways to discuss race and color and the history of privilege with children at an early age. Her researches show, and we ourselves know very well, that children pick up unspoken cues from our behaviors even if we never say a word. She suggests we steer the learning process by discussing race openly, recognizing how it plays out in our neighborhoods and playgrounds, and address it head on. This is especially true if very few black individuals live in our neighborhoods, which can lead to early learning about why that would be so. Sullivan’s last point addresses white guilt, which is tied in with acknowledgment of the wrongs perpetuated on black folk in American history and abroad. We, good white people all, have guilt. But that guilt is not useful when talking about racial justice. We must jettison the guilt, and/or shame; Sullivan argues that “a critical form of self love is a more valuable affect to be cultivated by white people who care about racial justice.”Why? White guilt can be a paralyzing emotion that can impede racial justice. White guilt can inhibit action but also judgment. Racial justice needs people who have some moral authority and can respect people of color enough to disagree with them. James Baldwin hoped that black people would not retaliate against white oppressors for one reason only: that it hurts twice. Once when the aggression is perpetrated, and again when it is retaliated against. Religious leaders who were also victims of oppression have been saying this since the beginning of time. ‘Love thine enemies.’ It is what black Christians did after the nine Dylan Roof killings in Charleston, South Carolina at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. White people were shocked. Real Christian values? How can it be? White evangelicals appear to have lost their connection to Christianity a long time ago. “People of color have long been aware of the toxicity of white people’s affections and emotions…Love has not been the dominant affect that characterizes white people.”In her conclusions Sullivan warns good white liberals not to expect intimacy. The white gaze can be like white noise: it obliterates other creative expression. The book is dense with insight, much more than I reproduced here. It should be on everyone’s list of must-reads, along with bell hooks, whose writing you are sure to encounter when you have begun investigating race. Sullivan writes in the Introduction that “perhaps in the future racial categories will not exist.” In the future, augmented and non-augmented humans may be the critical divisors. Skin color would be just another descriptor. ...more |
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Jan 13, 2018
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Jan 22, 2018
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Dec 24, 2017
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Paperback
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0991331303
| 9780991331307
| 0991331303
| 4.03
| 10,470
| Jan 09, 2014
| Jan 09, 2014
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really liked it
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Until a couple of years ago I didn’t really think about race. I didn’t have to, being part of the majority white population of the United States. When
Until a couple of years ago I didn’t really think about race. I didn’t have to, being part of the majority white population of the United States. When I realized that without my attention we were not managing race well in this country, e.g., the shootings of unarmed black men moving away from the shooters, I realized I needed to understand what the heck was being perpetrated upon the non-white population in the name of my safety. This book is written by a woman who experienced a similar kind of epiphany. Irving grew up wealthy in a suburb of Boston, “the most racist city in America,” according to SNL comedian Michael Che. She’d never confronted the fact that white was a race, too. I had, having lived some years in a non-white majority country, but even I had trouble defining what white meant in America. When I heard a joke about “the whitest thing I’ve ever done,” I started wondering what that would be, and why. The point is that we all have something to learn about race, no matter the stage of our awakening. One takeaway from Irvings’s lessons was that race is always on the mind of minorities and part of their conversations with one another, but is rarely spoken of in white households. White households may even hold back when their attention is drawn to race, thinking it is rude to speak of it. They claim to be ‘colorblind,’ or ‘do not see race.’ It turns out minorities would prefer you do see race. Because it’s there, and because it is affecting them. We’re actually not all the same. We may have similar aspirations and dreams as humans, but we do not share the same backstory, home lives, food, cultural habits, etc. We’re different, and we need to accommodate differences of opinion and direction in our towns and cities, schools and public facilities. Irving raises the idea of America’s ‘melting pot.’ It is a concept we need to look at again as our population changes, and speak about with our neighbors, and our government. What does that really mean, and is it good? Or can retaining some diversity of thought and culture make us stronger, better, wider in outlook? Irving talks about diversity workshops she’s attended and ones she’s organized in Boston. She shares her learning from these sessions, and warns us that people of color are very tired of educating white people about racial sensitivity and fairness. They want white people to do what they have had to do their entire lives: catch up. And that means putting in the time to educate oneself through reading, listening, workshops, and classes if necessary. We may then recognize and work to eliminate racism in ourselves or in others. The thing is, when we explore race together, we are gong to make mistakes. We are leaving our comfort zone. The first time we speak a foreign language with a native speaker captures some of the discomfort we will feel. It can be humiliating, and we will make mistakes. If the journey is undertaken with real intent and a proper degree of acceptance of our own abilities and limitations, we will often experience breakthrough and native speakers may find themselves intrigued and willing to help. If this book at times sounded like a primer for every generalization ever made about race, it is still helpful for that. Wherever you are in your understanding of race you will find something here to learn. Irving’s frankness helps to clarify areas about which we were curious but unless we have friends of color, we had no one to ask. It looks at ways we can learn to feel more comfortable with color, speak of it, benefit from the diversity of it, but also how to face our own fallibility. “I’ve come to feel that the straightforward airing of experiences and beliefs is a necessary, albeit uncomfortable, pathway to interpersonal and intercultural understanding and healing. Intimate human connection and enduring trust are the rewards of courageous conversation. The trick for me has been learning to stay in the conversation long enough to get to the other side, where niceness gives way to authenticity, understanding, and trust, the ingredients necessary for social stability.”I will try to stay in the conversation long enough, and I hope black citizens also stay in the conversation. I understand the exhaustion, truly. So you don’t have to answer whites all by yourself, and maybe not every time it comes up. But if we’re going to get through this, we’re gonna have to engage. Maybe if whites come at least halfway it won’t be so bad. Irving’s journey was kind of inspiring, and makes me want to try something like that in my own town. I also live in a suburb of Boston and only in the past two to three years have people of color moved into our neighborhoods. I‘d like to know why it took so long, and I’d like to make some new friends. It is a change too long in coming. “If there’s a place for tolerance in racial healing, perhaps if has to do with tolerating my own feelings of discomfort that arise when a person, of any color, expresses an emotion not welcome in the culture of niceness. It also has to do with tolerating my own feelings of shame, humiliation, regret, anger, and fear so I can engage, not run. For me, tolerance is not about others; it’s about accepting my own uncomfortable emotions as I adjust to a changing view of myself as imperfect and vulnerable. As human.”...more |
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Dec 20, 2017
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Dec 24, 2017
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Dec 20, 2017
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Paperback
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0062431781
| 9780062431783
| 0062431781
| 4.29
| 508
| May 30, 2017
| May 30, 2017
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it was amazing
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These collected essays about the writers’ separate experiences in the occupied territories of Israel/Palestine have a kind of cumulative bludgeoning e
These collected essays about the writers’ separate experiences in the occupied territories of Israel/Palestine have a kind of cumulative bludgeoning effect. The reader passes through stages of rage and resistance to the kind of stupefaction one encounters in a bombing war. Why on earth would anyone do such things? They’ve been led to it slowly, gradually, until the ‘enemy’ is ‘other’ and normal human rights rules do not apply. In a very short introduction, Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman admit they’d not paid attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for many years because it was such a dispiriting subject. But in 2014 Ayelet attended a conference organized by Breaking the Silence, a nonprofit organization composed of former Israeli soldiers who had worked in the occupied territories and who opposed Israel policies there as a result. When Ayelet related to Chabon what she had learned and seen during and after the conference in 2014, “…we both began to realize that storytelling itself—bearing witness, in vivid and clear language, to things personally seen and incidents encountered—has the power to engage the attention of people who, like us, have long since given up paying attention, or have simply given up.”The stories are absorbing and diverse and really give us an idea what life has been like, and is like now, for Palestinians. An international cast of writers, Geraldine Brooks, Colm Tóibín, Madeleine Thien, Dave Eggers, Anita Desai, among many others, have each looked, thought, and written their experience. It is exhilarating, infuriating, surprising, and meaningful. We learn new things. We see what they have seen. Injustices are recognized, spoken, acknowledged. And the writing, well, it is everything we anticipated. Reading this book all at once puts pressure on one’s peace of mind. Read it in pieces if you like, one or two by authors you admire, or by authors you’d never heard of. Just read a couple to get a sense of the crisis again, to see how it has evolved. Just bear witness a little while. This is something happening right now, as we sit down to a plentiful dinner in a comfortable chair. Just a moment to recognize that this is something we can actually do something about. This isn’t a natural disaster. It is policy grown gnarly and twisted over years. Mario Vargas Llosa has an essay in the collection and his view is long and wide. “…I feel that the ever more colonialist bias of recent governments—I am referring to the governments of Sharon and Netanyahu—may be terribly prejudicial to Israeli democracy and the future of their country.” He, like most of us in the U.S., love Israelis for being irrepressible, but we do not love what they have done in this case. They are losing their national identity, not enhancing it. My “The soldier roused himself from his torpor long enough to shrug one shoulder elaborately and give Sam Bahour a look in which were mingled contempt, incredulity, and suspicion about the state of San’s sanity. It appeared to have been the stupidest, most pointless, least answerable question anyone had ever asked the soldier…[he] had no idea why he had been ordered to come stand with his gun and his somnolent young comrade at this particular fork in the road on this particular afternoon, and if he did, the last person with whom he would have shared this explanation was Sam…”Encountering the young soldiers completely derailed Sam Bahour and Chabon’s plans, apparently so common an occurrence that another incident of it just added to the indignities and humiliations suffered daily by Palestinians, even Palestinians who have gained some stature in the community. But look also what the circumstance has done to the Israeli soldiers. They are stupid with boredom at their post, and have learned to treat Palestinians as lesser beings. They are likewise suppressing their natural human dignity and are trashing the social contract humans have with one another. This isn't war, remember, or so they've told us. Occasionally when reading these pieces, one gets a glimpse of what the policies surrounding the illegal occupation are doing to the children, our future. Rachel Kushner’s story, “Mr. Nice Guy,” centered on her visit to the Shuafat Refugee Camp in East Jerusalem. Her description of the high-rise buildings there evoke an involuntary embarrassed laugh, they sound so…unsound. The young boy following her around as she looks up at the structure says, “This building is stupidly built. It’s junk.” He and his family live there. See what I mean about infuriating? And Habila's "The Separation Wall" gives us a honest man's incredulity. Just read it. Each story gives a different aspect of living in the occupied territories that you’d never thought of. Read one or |
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Sep 27, 2017
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Sep 29, 2017
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Aug 21, 2017
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Paperback
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1931498717
| 9781931498715
| 1931498717
| 3.96
| 6,702
| Sep 2004
| Sep 2004
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it was amazing
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This slim handbook subtitled “Know Your Values and Frame the Debate: The Essential Guide for Progressives” was originally published in 2004. It is sli
This slim handbook subtitled “Know Your Values and Frame the Debate: The Essential Guide for Progressives” was originally published in 2004. It is slightly more than one hundred pages that recaps the large ideas Lakoff had written about in his role as cognitive scientist, in a book called Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, first published in 1996 by the University of Chicago Press. Moral Politics is on it's third edition (ISBN-13: 978-0226411293), published in time for the 2016 election. Last year Lakoff also published an essay on his website called "Understanding Trump" subtitled "How Trump Uses Your Brain Against You." Lakoff is Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972. I am astonished Lakoff’s brilliant insights are not better utilized by the Democratic Party. Bernie took the lessons to heart and started pounding out a new single-note message so that we couldn’t miss it, but why was he out there alone? Why didn’t the entire liberal left start with reframing—we had a handbook after all—and completely change the way business was done? One could argue that Hillary did use Lakoff’s cognitive science approach by allowing the ‘Stronger Together’ message to express her values. I vaguely recall hearing also “This is not who we are,” when Trump said or did something particularly egregious. I was paying attention, but it seems to me Hillary’s team could have been A LOT more explicit about the ideas in Lakoff’s book, reframing arguments and changing the discussion. She just couldn't manage to relinquish control and involve us. Bernie just had one message and he said it loudly and often, and even if we didn’t know what he would do in different situations that arose in foreign affairs, we knew his basic playbook: Man is basically good. Citizens working together unleash the creative potential in the population. Who wants to be rich when people are starving next door? We have some big problems but we’ll get there together.This book is a series of conclusions and so reading it is a little like mainlining information if you’ve never seen it before. It may take reading it a couple times before the information sticks in your head, and before you are able to apply the techniques he shares with us. Many of these ideas probably seem familiar if you have been thinking about what happened in the last election. I hadn't been able to articulate my own thoughts but the instant I saw what Lakoff wrote about conservatives and the ‘strict father’ way of looking at the world, it sounded so right (see Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land). One thing Lakoff points out is that when conservatives start using Orwellian language—language that is the opposite of what they mean—they are weak. Just as they are vulnerable on their position on environment and global warming, they are weak on the ‘healthcare’ bill. We should take these issues and run with them, turning every argument into a referendum on what they are not doing to solve these problems. We own the moral arguments here. They have nothing. Be smart. Be smarter. The far right has appropriated the word “freedom” if you can imagine. The far right uses “freedom” to mean “freedom from coercion from others,” which at first blush sounds pretty good. Who wouldn’t want that? But then they go on to express the need to "save capitalism from democracy", so that laws won’t constrain their money-making and power consolidation. They object to paying taxes in excess of the amounts one would voluntarily contribute. Why pay taxes for schools if one does not have children oneself? is one common argument. They are being coerced to pay for social welfare. Conservatives are also very big on ‘tort reform,’ or putting limits on awards in lawsuits (like for exploding products, leaking barges, or environmental catastrophe). “If parties who are harmed cannot sue immoral or negligent corporations or professionals for significant sums, the companies are free to harm the public in unlimited ways in the course of making money.” Liberals look at freedom in a different way: freedom to express one’s creativity, to pursue one’s interests; or freedom from anxiety, from hunger, exploitation, environmental degradation. To achieve these freedoms, we need groups of people working together, doing what they do best. A recent interview with the president of Princeton University, Christopher L. Eisgruber, confirmed something I'd noticed but wasn’t sure was a blip or a real, observable phenomenon. Eisgruber said that the students at Princeton gave him enormous hope for the future. They are engaged, and their values are right side up. I only hope they continue to exhibit those values in their jobs and at the ballot box in the years to come, and perhaps even help other people understand the ‘strict father’ (I can’t help but think of a spanking father and all that entails) model is an unsatisfactory way for adults to engage with their world. Read this book. It’s important. It’s short. ...more |
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Jun 23, 2017
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Jun 24, 2017
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Jun 10, 2017
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Paperback
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1631491628
| 9781631491627
| 1631491628
| 4.16
| 1,293
| Jun 2016
| Jun 06, 2016
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it was amazing
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This book infuriated me but also lowered the decibel level of my political retorts. I can clearly see now the utter cynicism with which Republican str
This book infuriated me but also lowered the decibel level of my political retorts. I can clearly see now the utter cynicism with which Republican strategists set about grabbing as many seats as they could with the intent to hold onto them for a decade or more by controlling the redistricting process. “When you have power you exercise it.” The gerrymander is the reason Blue states can appear to vote Red. What is so pitiful is that we can still hear voters talking about what they believe like it actually makes any difference to the operatives in Congress. It is difficult to keep the partisanship out of discussions of politics, but I am going to try because the issue discussed in this book, gerrymandering, was/is really practiced by Democrats as well as Republicans. The Republicans, under the leadership of a legendary Republican campaign strategist called Lee Atwater, recognized in the 1980s that controlling the right to draw the lines of voting districts could mean greater Republican representation in local, state, and national races. They began a strategy which would not see results for thirty years. This decade it has come to fruition. Several states are laboring under gerrymanders so severely skewed to the Republicans that although Democrats win a majority of the votes, their representation actually falls. This book gives some of the background, especially for those states we watch closely in the national elections: Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania. An international non-profit which specializes in vote monitoring around the world turned its analytic eye on the United States, the “greatest democracy in the world” according to some, and discovered that North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania had electoral representation more skewed to favor one party than many third-world countries. Wisconsin, the state that brings you Speaker Ryan, has greater than 50% Democratic votes but has 60+% Republican seats. Wisconsin’s redistricting is currently handled by their Republican legislature, which allowed the national Republican party, with funds provided by Koch Brothers, to draw their redistricting maps. In closed sessions, deep secrecy, late night and storm days they would gather to prevent transparency of their process and to ensure Republican voters were the largest voting block in most districts. Even in a largely Democratic state, they managed to break, stack, crack, pack the districts with enough Republican voters to grab Congressional and state seats, and the governorship. Wisconsin used to be a Deep Blue state. In November 2016 a federal court ordered that the voting districts in Wisconsin be redrawn by November 2017. Wisconsin Republicans (including Paul Ryan) refused, and appealed the decision to the Supreme Court (SCOTUS). Meanwhile, voters in Wisconsin are seriously disenfranchised. This is happening now, folks, and can be watched as it progresses through the courts. Pennsylvania is the third most voter-obstructed state. Last year a youth pastor, Carol Kuniholm, noticed extraordinary discrepancies between the schools in some city districts and suburban schools and discovered one of the main reasons was underrepresentation due to gerrymandering. Kuniholm began a movement in PA which has taken on enormous momentum within the state and is garnering national recognition. You can watch progress of her attempt to introduce a bill to require an independent nonpartisan committee to decide contiguous, compact districts that do not break communities, cities, or racial blocks at fairdistrictspa.com. She wants nothing less than the democratic process to work as intended. Daley shows that state legislature-managed redistricting can be severely partisan. Citizens in some states have managed to pass referendums requiring nonpartisan independent committees to manage redistricting. The independent committee works well in Iowa but is still subject to vicious partisan wrangling in Arizona. Some academics have taken on the challenge of trying to envision a better, more democratic process and Daley discusses these at the end of his book. And this is the part of the book that I liked best of all. At the end Daley points out that gerrymandering has been ‘stealing people’s votes’ for centuries and it may have come up against its logical limits this decade. Because of the advances in computer modeling, coupled with voter awareness and rage at the government we have been handed, it may be possible to do something completely different. He points out that if Hillary had won the electoral college vote, she would have faced the same intransigence in Congress that stymied Obama. Instead, we got Trump. Daley quotes a Republican operative, Grover Norquist, talking with utter cynicism to a Conservative Political Action conference in 2012: ”We are not auditioning for a fearless leader. We don’t need a president to tell us what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We just need a president to sign this stuff. Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States.”The GOP will keep Trump around as long as he can sign stuff and listens to what they say. So, okay. This is what we are dealing with. It means we need to pay attention, focus our energy, rely on each other, and tell our legislators we want fairness and representation. This book is a very easy read because it is so eye-opening. It gives you the basics, suggests a fix, and points a direction. What more do we need? ...more |
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Mar 09, 2017
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Mar 10, 2017
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Mar 09, 2017
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Hardcover
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B00L0F01NK
| 4.40
| 298,206
| 2012
| Jul 29, 2014
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it was amazing
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This essay, read by Adichie on audio, concerns her upbringing in Nigeria and what she noticed in America after moving here to live and work. It strike
This essay, read by Adichie on audio, concerns her upbringing in Nigeria and what she noticed in America after moving here to live and work. It strikes me as a perfect kind of essay to give American teens in school to read/listen to because they can then discuss her ideas in the context of "this American life." She is clear that one doesn't have to hate men or wear un-sexy clothing to be a feminist. A feminist is someone who allows every person, whatever their sexuality, to use all parts of their personality and skill set. She was a wonderfully rich speaking voice and speaks slowly and clearly enough that even unfamiliar ideas have time to catch hold before the next sentence comes up. Best of all, Adichie is a black woman explaining why we are not talking now about human rights, or black rights, or any other kind of rights. We are focussing today on women's rights, and she keeps eyes on the prize. Worthwhile. Just realized Adichie had done a 30-minute TED talk of this in 2013, from which the audio script is drawn. She has remastered and smoothed the talk since this time, but the essence is here, and she is a lovely spokesperson for women's rights. So glad this has caught fire. It goes without saying that around the world nations and cultures are yearning to hear this message. I have posted a clip of the 45-minute remastered audio version of this talk on my blog. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Jan 13, 2017
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Jan 13, 2017
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Kindle Edition
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1603094008
| 9781603094009
| 1603094008
| 4.49
| 28,381
| Jan 20, 2015
| Jan 20, 2015
|
it was amazing
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Book 2 in the
March
series about the life and work of civil rights activist John Lewis is absolutely propulsive in telling the story of racial pre
Book 2 in the
March
series about the life and work of civil rights activist John Lewis is absolutely propulsive in telling the story of racial prejudice in the southern United States in the early 1960s. As with Book 1, the early frames describe a cold day in January 2009 when all of Washington, D.C. and many more gathered in front of the Capitol Building for the inauguration of President Barack Obama. The joyous scenes in 2009 are interleaved with the contrasting history some 50-odd years earlier when black people were protesting the right to sit at the same lunch counter with whites. John Lewis was involved in these nonviolent “actions” at that time which entailed silent continued resistance to refusals to serve, waiting until nightfall or arrest, whichever came first, only to be replaced by others once the first protesters were taken to jail. It was nonviolent on the protester side, but not on the side of those who disliked the protests. Not just the eating locations, but movie theaters, swimming pools, buses were all segregated and targeted for protests. The actual start of the Freedom Rider action, testing the Boynton v. Virginia Supreme Court ruling which outlawed segregation and discrimination on buses and in bus terminals, is a fascinating one which the authors tell in great detail. The continued pressure of constant resistance across the southern states provoked violent push-back, but the peaceful protests were surprisingly effective. As the movement grew bigger, it had to accommodate many more points of view and opinions, and in some cases was encouraged to lose its pacifist methods. This section of the civil rights movement led by John Lewis at least held to its position through the early 1960s, though more radical voices were warming up in the wings. Part 2 of the three-part series draws to a close with the hugely-successful March on Washington in August 1963, but the book's final frames show an explosion at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in September that same year, less than one month later. Violence now came unprovoked and the pressure to resist in kind was building. All the time protesters asked for national guidance and support, without definitive response or intervention by national leadership. These books are terrific material for teens on up, reminding us of the difficulties faced in the struggle for racial equality not so very long ago. The authors have won all kinds of prizes, awards, and praise for this series, deservedly. Highly recommended. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Dec 06, 2016
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Dec 06, 2016
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Paperback
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1603093001
| 9781603093002
| 1603093001
| 4.35
| 55,627
| Aug 13, 2013
| Aug 13, 2013
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it was amazing
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The third book in the graphic novel series
March
won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2016, prompting me to have a look at
The third book in the graphic novel series
March
won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2016, prompting me to have a look at the series. Book 1 depicts John Lewis’ childhood in rural Alabama, where he grew up on a farm. His personality was revealed early, and his relatives took to calling him “preacher.” He cared more about words and concepts than the back-breaking reality of labor in the fields. He liked to wear a tie and read books any day and escaped to school even when he was needed in the fields at home. The "boy preacher" gave his his first sermon five days before his sixteenth birthday, inspired by Rosa Parks' protest in Montgomery, Alabama, fifty miles away. First frames for this series open in Washington, D.C. in January 2009 and Lewis’ history is told in flashbacks. Black and white drawings of Representative Lewis’ office in Cannon House Office Building are interspersed with visions of his childhood. It is more than fifty years between the two periods and yet they are connected in some way we know will be made clear. Our perception of those fifty years changes like a hologram as we read, sometimes thinking fifty years sounds like a long time, and then realizing it’s only fifty years, and yet how radically different living conditions were then, outside of cities. Blacks were still being blatantly discriminated against in every way, and the first civil rights legislation was just being proposed, passed, and enacted. This book follows Lewis from his early schooldays, through high school and his first discovery of the “social gospel” being taught by Martin Luther King, Jr. Lewis knew after hearing King one day on the radio that the gospel King was spreading was something he believed in whole-heartedly. And he gravitated to places where that message was being taught, ending up in Nashville, Tennessee with a group of like-minded activists. The first book ends with a series of sit-ins in Nashville cafes and restaurants, forcing them eventually to serve black customers along with whites. The authors simplify the twists and turns in Lewis’ life, but hover carefully over turning points, and moments of decision. This biography is aimed at young adults, not children. But even young adults may need someone to explain how and why there was so much opposition to integration, unless they have already seen and felt those sentiments in their lives. I expect black youth will know exactly what Lewis is telling them, and white youth will be aghast, even disbelieving, unless they, too, live in the south. But these books are absolutely necessary at this time, to refresh our collective memories. It is not so long ago that all of us can’t get first hand corroboration of Lewis’ history, and remind ourselves those attitudes were not appropriate then, and they aren’t appropriate now. The encapsulation of a real life in a series of picture frames and dialog boxes is a difficult thing to pull off, but Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell do it beautifully, never talking down to the reader, nor reaching so high that the concepts can’t be grasped immediately, viscerally even. This is life and death stuff, and they leave a little of the horror in for us to contemplate, but the steady focus and preparation necessary to challenge political power comes across as well. As does the bravery of those who dared to resist. Highly recommended for a basic understanding of what the fight for civil rights looked like from an individual's perspective in the south of the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s. Conditions experienced by blacks, attitudes of whites, the time period, the first resistance groups, and key figures are introduced. More material and discussion will be needed to answer the questions students and readers will surely have when confronted with this information for the first time. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Dec 06, 2016
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Paperback
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1612196322
| 9781612196329
| 1612196322
| 3.91
| 3,255
| Aug 02, 2016
| Aug 02, 2016
|
it was amazing
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The best part of this book comes near the end, in Trump’s Atlantic City casino. “Akio Kashiwagi was one of the world’s five biggest gamblers, literallThe best part of this book comes near the end, in Trump’s Atlantic City casino. “Akio Kashiwagi was one of the world’s five biggest gamblers, literally a one-in-a billion customer, who…in May 1990 was sitting at a green-felt table at Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino calmly wagering $14 million an hour. He had been there for nearly a week.” Johnston prepares us for nearly two hundred pages with Donald’s history of self-promotion, alignments with shady racketeers, tax dodges, questionable accounting practices, and the real sleaze of a man who’d reached his intellectual limit selling real estate. The reader literally becomes queasy imagining the damage this man could do when handed the keys to the country. The story at the casino is told in minute detail, how $18.8 million in $5K chips are stacked on the table and floor beside Kashiwagi at the baccarat table as he reached the pinnacle of his win in the double-or-nothing wager he had with the house. He was still in the black by the middle of the next week, and Trump could not sleep. It is in the middle of this story when I realize that this is one of Trump’s biggest moments…a game…for money. I can’t tell you how it turns out—the book is worth seeking out, Johnson tells the story so well—but it does have something to do with reputation and the real wealth of both men, not the heralded fake wealth bragged about. It is a fight to the death, considering mob-boss friends hold the velvet stage curtains behind which both men hide. In the final pages Johnston's skill as an investigative journalist and writer come across clearly. He focuses the last part of the book on Trump’s little known mob connections, and criminal associates. Knowing bad folks, as Johnston points out, proves nothing. But Johnston goes on to show how Trump profited by his relationships with folks who commonly transgressed the law. Trump cared about money, and measured his worth by it. He measures other people's worth by their beauty or wealth...or power. The ups and downs in the legal battle over Trump University alone should have given the American voting populace pause because it showed Trump’s desperation and his rhinestones-for-diamonds charlatanism. Johnston gives a good overview of the bribery, threats, lawsuits, misdirection, and outright lies involved with this case. Right after this section is one on supposed donations to charity that got all tied up in donations to and from his own foundation. I wasn’t going to read anything about Trump right away because I was in a deep funk after the election, but a discussion with another Goodreader led me first to TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald by Timothy O’Brien, and before I finished that, to Johnston’s book. TrumpNation first came out in 2005, and was reissued in early June 2016 with a new introduction. O'Brien has a fascinating in-depth section on the Koch-Trump rivalry (Koch was mayor of NYC in the 1980's) and a hilarious description of Trump's purchase of New York's fabled Plaza Hotel. O’Brien was an editor at the NYT before moving to become executive editor of Bloomberg View. He actually edited some of Johnston’s work when both worked at the NYT. Johnston is a specialist in tax law and reporting, earned a Pulitzer in 2001 for his reporting on taxation, and was able to see some of his suggestions adopted by Congress into tax law shortly afterward. The material in Johnston's book and O'Brien's overlaps: both are sobering assessments of the man they watch, and detailed in what they focus on specifically. Johnston’s book came out in English and German in Aug 2016, but he’d been researching Donald Trump for almost thirty years. Johnston met Trump back in the 1980’s, when he was investigating money flows, taxes, and tax avoidance, and casinos. There were so many folks involved in Trump’s success that investigations into his financial reporting went nowhere. He was both too big and too inconsequential. Trump's net worth was nothing like he claimed, but there was so much money going in and out of his accounts. It was going somewhere. Johnston makes an excellent observation early in the book, in his bio of Fred Trump, Donald’s father. ”When Fred Trump was under intense criticism for plans to destroy a popular Coney Island attraction…where he wanted to build the first apartment project bearing the family name, Fred Trump shifted the focus of news coverage by hiring a bevy of beauties in hard hats and polka-dot bikinis to hand out bricks to locals and city dignitaries…Decades later, of course, Donald Trump would surround himself with models to attract television cameras and would have his third wife pose nearly nude aboard his Boeing 757 jet for a men’s magazine while he looked on during a photo shoot.”Hard to believe near-nakedness distracts anyone from hanging onto their pocketbooks anymore--isn't that the oldest con of all? But so it goes. Donald continues to point to sexy beauty and away from his own indiscretions. Johnston starts Trump’s family history with the observation that the family name was once Drumpf, changed in 1648, too early to implicate Donald, but not too early to influence his sense of himself. Johnston points out various meanings of the word: ”Donald no doubt enjoys the bridge player’s definition of trump: a winning play by a card that outranks all others. But other definitions include ‘a thing of small value, a trifle’ and ‘to deceive or cheat’ as well as ‘to blow or sound a trumpet.’ As a verb, trump means to ‘devise in an unscrupulous way’ and ‘to forge, fabricate or invent,’ as in ‘trumped-up’ charges.” Johnston has just the right amount of amused skepticism and new information to hold us in thrall rather than have us toss the book across the room in a rage. O’Brien’s book is liable to make us too angry to read more about the man. Johnston keeps us reading and thinking. It is absolutely unbelievable that Trump was victorious in November. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 30, 2016
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Dec 2016
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Dec 01, 2016
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Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
1568584636
| 9781568584638
| 1568584636
| 4.54
| 36,620
| Mar 08, 2016
| Apr 12, 2016
|
it was amazing
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The insights and understanding shared with us in this dazzling work of erudition and scholarship entirely make up for its enormous length. One wonders
The insights and understanding shared with us in this dazzling work of erudition and scholarship entirely make up for its enormous length. One wonders how it can be that such a book has not been written to date, the need for such a work obvious from the moment Kendi begins to trace the evolution of America’s history of racist ideas, from the pre-revolutionary settlers and the sermons of Cotton Mather right through Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. DuBois, and Angela Davis. By the end we have a framework to evaluate and calmly deconstruct the words of Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton and the voices raised in Black Lives Matter. The work has a momentum that develops from a stately walking pace in slave times, gathering steam after the Civil War and World War I, until we experience a positive torrent of ideas, criticisms, actors, detractors in the 1990s, and 2000s when everyone has a megaphone and it seems no one is listening. Kendi strips all qualified “asks” away and insists that black people be accepted in the fullness of their humanity: good or bad, talented or not, criminal or not. This often surprising history reminds us how completely our opinions are shaped by political and economic realities rather than by the most logical or rational argument. In the 1600’s Cotton Mather was a product of his time: blacks were inferior in every way except for their physicality, but they should be baptized. Jefferson thought they weren’t as inferior as all that, but some blacks are more enlightened than others, and even those must rely on white people for their “safety and happiness.” The “time wasn’t right” to free the slaves. This was also the opinion of George Washington. William Lloyd Garrison believed fervently that blacks should not be slaves, but they were not the social equal of whites. “It is not practicable to give undeveloped Black men the vote.” This was the opinion of Abraham Lincoln as well, who wanted to free the slaves and send them back to Africa. W.E.B. DuBois was a well-educated black man who believed black men could be the equal of white men, but perhaps just some black men, not the great unwashed. And finally, Angela Davis thought black people shouldn’t copy or aspire to white life in any way, that black people, including black women, were absolutely the equal of whites in every way, if only they had equal opportunity. In every period Kendi discusses, the latest scientific theories would be put forth to “prove, undeniably” that black people were inferior to white people, in structure, in mind, in morals, in attitudes. Kendi discusses each with a dispassion bordering on amused curiosity. Each argument is eviscerated with cool observation before he moves on to the next attempt to convince white people that black people were worthy. By the end, he has taught us to evaluate each argument ourselves without falling into heated rhetoric or getting tangled in “should” and “oughts.” Kendi himself has concluded the only way black people would not be discriminated against in some way is if everyone recognize that blacks are at least as talented or flawed as whites and should be treated accordingly, that is to say, with the same amount of attention and acceptance of their potential talent, as for their potential for error. Anything less is racist. I became utterly rapt when Kendi enters the period of Angela Davis and the modern day us. This is recent memory, and anyone can get first-hand corroboration on what people were thinking just forty years ago, as well as investigate the thickets surrounding any race discussions today. We, all of us, but especially white people, were lied to about what black people were about in this period. Because we were segregated, it was hard to get a clear idea or perspective on what was happening in each community. Kendi calls Davis’ first book, Women, Culture, and Politics, published in 1989, an “instant classic.” Davis wrote many more books once she began teaching classes in the university system in California. She understood right from her youth in Birmingham, Alabama that uplift suasion (becoming acceptable to whites by copying their attitudes, look, & culture), or assimilation (actually becoming more white through intermarriage & cultural overlap) were not going to give black people rights or respect. Black people needed then, and need now, the protection of the law. Enforceable law. Kendi writes beautifully, in a totally engaging way, but the size of this tome may be a little intimidating. To assist uptake of his ideas, Kendi has provided a detailed Prologue and Epilogue. I recommend you read those, and then begin with the Angela Davis section. The momentum one attains in this whirlwind of ideas, popular figures, and known events will allow one to grasp his major theses. Then go back and allow Kendi to carefully outline his research and thinking as it developed. It's worth studying. This book won the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 25, 2016
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Dec 13, 2016
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Nov 16, 2016
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Hardcover
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0316265403
| 9780316265409
| 0316265403
| 3.90
| 1,147
| Sep 17, 2015
| Jun 07, 2016
|
it was amazing
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Emotions are funny things…some flit through us at the speed of light, barely registering on our face or consciousness, while others linger, hovering o
Emotions are funny things…some flit through us at the speed of light, barely registering on our face or consciousness, while others linger, hovering over us, coloring our perceptions of each new day. Descartes thought here were six basic emotions: wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy, and sadness, but most of us can name several more of which we have intimate knowledge. There are emotions that we experience only once or twice in a lifetime and yet someone somewhere has probably identified and named that particular feeling. It is reassuring and something joyous, I think, to discover that some strong emotion is shared. Tiffany Watt Smith does not attempt a comprehensive catalog, but she makes the excellent point that we need more words for our feelings rather than trying to narrow the breadth and width of human experience into discrete and limited categories. It is a marvelous, revelatory read. Watt Smith worked in theatre before beginning an academic career. Somehow that seems entirely appropriate to emotion-spotting. An actor with a range of experiences may need some prompting on how they should feel about a certain scene, and the words help to place them in a context. Or perhaps the actors are teaching us as audience an emotion we instinctively recognize but have never been able to put into words. The book is filled with a sense of good humor. Even in definitions of those feelings we would be happy to do without, like disappointment and despair, Watt Smith does not leave us feeling bereft. She always puts in a little upswing at the end which shows us the way out, or makes us smile in relief and pleasure that we are not there now. I particularly liked her discussion of compassion in which she recognizes that ”For Tibetan Buddhists, the wish to free a person from suffering is ideally experienced in equanimity, with a quiet confidence. For many of us, however, compassion is considerably more anxious territory…requiring a person to discover very vulnerable parts of themselves…Only the wisest can bend themselves to another’s pain without being rendered numb and helpless themselves: the “compassion fatigue” we hear about in the caring professions today.”Her discussion of contempt puts me in mind of Donald Trump, as do many things these days. Contempt is a performative emotion in that it turns a spectator into a participant, inviting a conversation. One can watch a spectacle, but once one acts or speaks in contempt, one is provoking a response. Disgust is a prime candidate for a “universal” emotion as it is instantaneous and involuntary, though Watt Smith points out that often “something out of place” is often the culprit to feelings of involuntary disgust: a hair in one’s soup, soup on one’s beard or clothing, or simply a disagreeable smell where we don’t expect to find it. There is a word which has no equivalent in English, though I have seen the emotion described in a novel by a woman of Bangladeshi descent, called maya-lage . Watt Smith calls it fago in this book, which is a type of love and pity felt for those in need, mixed with sadness, sorrow, and compassion. It is the feeling one gets contemplating the fate of those who experience an earthquake, or other natural disaster. I can’t recommend this book more highly for all of us, but especially for those in the creative professions. It is filled with irresistible descriptions of feelings we may have experienced but for which we had no words, and may inspire attempts to capture those emotions as they cross the mind-body divide. The author goes around the world seeking words that express a human state. It is completely absorbing. One doesn’t have to read the entries in order—one is encouraged to skip around. You will not want to miss those definitions which appear in countries we just visit—that a nationality has created a word for a sensation may mean the emotion is important in a certain culture, like han, a feeling of sadness and hope at the same time…a yearning for things to be different (Korea), or torschlusspanik, a German word for the agitated, fretful feeling that time is running out, or “gate-closing panic.” I am quite sure the Chinese must have similar expression somewhere, knowing what I do about their culture. I must mention the extraordinary capture of a national characteristic in the term greng jai: “the feeling of being reluctant to accept another’s offer of help because of the bother it would cause them.” Greng jai is a Thai phrase. Buy this one. Watt Smith is a delightful companion, and many of the words you will want to find again. Tiffany Watt Smith gives a short talk on her work. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Sep 20, 2016
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Sep 30, 2016
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Sep 14, 2016
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Hardcover
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my rating |
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4.00
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it was amazing
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Nov 07, 2021
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May 22, 2020
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4.30
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it was amazing
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Jan 25, 2019
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Dec 21, 2018
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4.05
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it was amazing
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Feb 17, 2019
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Sep 25, 2018
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4.26
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it was amazing
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Sep 09, 2018
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Jul 31, 2018
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4.47
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it was amazing
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Mar 17, 2018
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Feb 23, 2018
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3.97
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it was amazing
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Mar 12, 2018
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Feb 02, 2018
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4.49
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it was amazing
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Feb 18, 2018
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Jan 23, 2018
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4.23
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it was amazing
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Mar 21, 2018
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Jan 22, 2018
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3.87
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it was amazing
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Jan 08, 2018
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Dec 31, 2017
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3.81
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it was amazing
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Jan 22, 2018
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Dec 24, 2017
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4.03
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really liked it
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Dec 24, 2017
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Dec 20, 2017
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4.29
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it was amazing
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Sep 29, 2017
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Aug 21, 2017
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3.96
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it was amazing
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Jun 24, 2017
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Jun 10, 2017
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4.16
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it was amazing
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Mar 10, 2017
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Mar 09, 2017
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4.40
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it was amazing
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Jan 13, 2017
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Jan 13, 2017
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4.49
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it was amazing
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Dec 06, 2016
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Dec 06, 2016
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4.35
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it was amazing
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not set
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Dec 06, 2016
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3.91
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it was amazing
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Dec 2016
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Dec 01, 2016
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4.54
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it was amazing
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Dec 13, 2016
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Nov 16, 2016
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3.90
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it was amazing
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Sep 30, 2016
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Sep 14, 2016
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