(Part 2) Best african-american & black biographies according to redditors
We found 1,010 Reddit comments discussing the best african-american & black biographies. We ranked the 399 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
DON'T WORRY CITIZENS!
Alice Miller, "The Drama of the Gifted Child"
> WAHHHHH! BEING SMART IS HARD!
Ta-Nehisi Coates, "Between the World and Me"
>Everyone's a little bit racist
Simone De Beauvoir, "The Ethics of Ambiguity"
>Existentialist navelgazing
Albert Camus, "The Plague"
> More existentialism, but this time people die
Brene Brown, "Daring Greatly"
>What if being some sort of cuck soyboy was actually kinda badass?
Atul Gawande, "Being Mortal"
> Killing them softly, with his loving take on the role of modern medicine in death.
Ali Rivzi, "The Atheist Muslim"
>Being an edgy teenager, but on "difficult" mode
Muhammad Yunus, "A World of Three Zeroes"
>Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions... also zero sex scenes.
ETA: short, possibly misleading synopses by someone who hasn't read these books.
It's a really tough question to answer for a non-American. I encourage you to keep your non-American heritage in mind when trying to understand why the word is off limits and why it's not actually creating more racism.
Depending on how you like to learn/understand things, here is a variety of resources for you:
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CNN talk with Marc Lamont Hill, I couldn't find the video in full on its own, so you can feel free to ignore the bias of the youtube speaker. Interview is from :40 to 6:10
Takeway quote from the above video: "I might see Trinidad James on the street and call him ‘my nigga.’ You know why? Because he is my nigga. And the difference between Trinidad James and you, is that Trinidad James has to deal with the same oppressive situations. He was born into a world where anti-black racism prevails. He lives in a world where police might shoot him on the street no matter how much money he has. We share a collective condition known as ‘nigga.’ White people don’t.”
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Q&A with Ta-Nahisi Coates, 4:58
Takeway quote from the above video: “I had a good friend who had a cabin in upstate New York, which he referred to as the ‘white trash cabin,’” Coates continued. “He was white. I would never refer to that cabin, tell him ‘I’m coming to your white trash cabin’ ― and I think you understand why.”
“The question one must ask is why so many white people have difficulty extending things that are basic laws of how human beings interact to black people,” he added. “And I think I know why.”
"When you're white in this country, you are taught that everything belongs to you"..."so here comes this word, that you feel like you invented, and now somebody is going to tell you how to use that word that you invented. You know, 'why can't I use it? Everyone else gets to use it? You know what that's racist that I can't use it!'"
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Book: The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why by Jabari Asim
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Book: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
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If, at the end of the day, you still think its divisive, that's ok. Here's Cornel West in a CNN interview on why that's ok.
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Let me know if you haven any other questions!
Handy that her book is already written!
https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Michelle-Obama/dp/1524763136
>Enthroning Kin Cotton, the cotton gin made the value of southern lands skyrocket and quickly dethroned rice and tobacco. King CoTton incessantly demanded more and more to stabilize its reign: more enslaved Africans, more land, more violence, and more racist ideas. Annual cotton production slammed through the ceiling of about 3,000 bales in 1790, reaching 178,000 bales in 1810 and more than 4 million bales on the eve of the Civil War. Cotton became America's leading export, exceeding in dollar value all exports...
Page 126. Footnote for this passage points to Peter Kochin's American Slavery and Holt's Children of Fire. Kendi gives a long and sustained analysis of the relationship between economics and slavery. I remember Zinn making similar points as well.
A great new book, out now!
Her autobiography is an amazing read, especially in the context of the current awareness of overwhelming racism and antiBlackness in the U.S. system of police and prisons.
Personally, 'credible' requires any amount of evidence beyond he said/she said. Pictures, DNA samples, old journal entries even (from the time when the event occurred and not therapist notes from 30 years later)... Eyewitness testimony is insanely bad. Most people aren't great at remembering faces two days after an event, much less decades later, and trauma-memory tends to be even worse. Picking Cotton is a good, readable book-length example of eyewitness gone wrong.
I think the statue of limitations (not applicable to the Kavanaugh situation, I know, but as long as I'm commenting already...) really needs to be cut down. Respecting baseless accusations that are later found to be hogwash casts an unfortunate shadow on legitimate cases.
Maybe one evidence-free accusation that is within the universe of probability is sufficient for disqualifying a person from the Supreme Court, and that all the Justices need to be completely Teflon-coated saints. Until we start hatching them from pods, however, the standard needs to be just a little lower.
I don't have strong feelings about Kavanaugh being a good/bad Justice or a good/bad person; I do have strong feelings about the standard of evidence and people treating accusations like Gospel.
What Taison says here is almost a pretty direct quote from the beginning of the latest book by Ibram Kendi. The book, called How to Be an Antiracist does a pretty nice job of clearly describing some of the issues with structural racism that we see today.
If you think Antiracism is a topic that is really interesting to you, I would recommend that book and also White Fragility by Robin Diangelo.
(Source: I work on a Structural Racism task force in my city in America and have done a lot of work in the field of Antiracism for the last 5 years or so.)
Some are probably less good than others, but that's what I'd throw out there. A direct assault is not always the best way.
The book: https://www.amazon.com/Picking-Cotton-Memoir-Injustice-Redemption/dp/0312599536
https://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+to+be+antiracist&s=g
There's also a book.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Antiracist-Ibram-Kendi/dp/0525509283/
Before I get to your question, let's be clear about the historical record on affirmative action.
For nearly the first 200 years of U.S. history, affirmative action was white. In every facet of American life -- jobs, access to housing, access to political power, et cetera -- white people received incredibly preferential treatment. One legacy of this is reflected in the current amount of wealth controlled by the median white family vs. the medium black family White affirmative action accounts for these differences, especially considering that white people not only received preferential treatment, but black people got purposefully ruinous treatment from every level of government. Review for a book about this idea
A family's wealth is created over generations. My family for example - my white grandpa and family were bean pickers during the Depression. After WWII, he got a middle class job in a steel mill with only an 8th grade education at a time when it was perfectly legal for blacks to be the last to be hired and first to be fired. With that job he bought a house in suburban Baltimore. He did it with a government insured mortgage thanks to the GI Bill. Keep in mind, due to perfectly legal housing discrimination, i.e. redlining, blacks were shut out from suburbs and mortgage loans when my grandpa bought. With his income and home equity, he sent 2 out of his 3 children to college, and helped them with home down payments. His home was purchased for $30k in the 1960s and sold in 2010 for $300k. That money helped finance my college education. Did my grandpa work hard? Absolutely. Was he advantaged over black people every step of the way because of his skin color? Absolutely. Did his skin color also advantage me? Absolutely. Historic white affirmative action directly affects me in a positive way.
Regarding your question: What we typically think of as "affirmative action" for black people started during the 1960s, and it only applied to federal government hiring and federal contractors, not the private sector. Racial/gender quotas were declared unconstitutional in Regents of University of California vs. Bakke in 1978. And nowadays the only sort of affirmative action that exists is really marginal. In fact in [Gratz V. Bollinger (2003)] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratz_v._Bollinger) university admissions that gave some small benefit in the admission process points systems to minorities were declared unconstitutional. So in reality affirmative action never happened on a large scale and was mostly scaled back in 1978 and then eviscerated in 2003. Affirmative action was never done vigorously across hiring. So to answer your question, affirmative action wasn't effective because it happened to a vanishingly narrow extent.
Regarding university admissions, legacy preferences, which give an advantage to children of graduates, are still perfectly legal and widespread. Legacy preferences obviously also advantage white people.
> Because, to me, it seems like black people have not improved intellectually
I'm curious as to why you think this. Do you mean this with regards to the racial achievement gap in schools, or wealth disparities, or some other quality? I heard an interview with a historian for this book he wrote. He made a really interesting point. Regarding lower outcomes (wealth, incarceration) generally for African Americans there are only two possible explanations: (1) There is something wrong with black people or (2) Discrimination (housing, employment, justice system) and intentional roadblocks to black success created the current situation of racial inequality.
Which explanation do you think is right? And why do you believe black people have not improved intellectually? Do you think it is bigoted to make a statement like the one you made?
You can pre-order it now
The book by Deacon Alex Jones is very interesting, too.
I read his godmother's autobiography a few years ago- it isn't quite as exciting as Tupac's story but it's pretty good. It also gives you a great insight into what it was like to grow up black in the US back in the 50s and 60s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assata_Shakur
http://www.amazon.com/Assata-An-Autobiography-Shakur/dp/1556520743
Whew, okay. Pulled out my actual computer to answer this.
So, a lot of what I could recommend isn't short stuff you could read in an afternoon because 1. it's depressing as fuck, and 2. it's likely heavy with the sheer volume of references wherein at least one book attempts to bludgeon you with the facts that "this was depressing as fuck." Frequent breaks or alternating history-related books with fiction/poetry/other topics is rather recommended from my experience. Can't remember if I got onto this topic through Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States or Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong or just some random book found in the library.
The very clean cut, textbook Wikipedia definition of "sundown town", aka "Don't let the sun set (down) on you here.", (Ref: BlackThen.com), is:
> sometimes known as sunset towns or gray towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practice a form of segregation by enforcing restrictions excluding people of other races via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation, and violence.
For my intro into the subject however, read Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America. This is a very emotionally draining, mentally exhausting book though, frequently with lists of atrocities in paragraph form. I think it's an important read, one which frankly should've been covered my senior year of highschool or so, but it's a difficult one. Also on my reading list is The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration which is a surprising and sneakily hopeful title for such a depressing topic, so only guessing the narration may be somewhat more accessible.
Also, 'cause I totally didn't run to my kindle app to list out titles before fully reading your post, here's some below, and relisted one above, by timeline placement, best as can be figured. These might not be the best on each topic, but they're the ones available to my budget at the time and some are still on my reading list.
The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion
Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America
The Mis-Education of the Negro
At the Dark End of the Street: A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power
Assata
Revolutionary Suicide
Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
Sister Outsider
See also:
Black Street Speech: Its History, Structure, and Survival
Women, Race, & Class by Angela Y. Davis
Black Feminist Thought
Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations by Bell Hooks
Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Several commenters here are still falling into the racist trap of believing black people are inferior, but only because conditions have made them inferior, rather than an innate inferiority. I posted this interview (starts at ~6:04 in the video) a little while ago, which addresses this exact issue. The book, Stamped from the Beginning, is also very good and highly recommended.
Skeletons of the Zahara was a best seller a few years back. It's the modern retelling of a true account of the American survivors of a shipwreck off the African west coast who are taken captive and then passed along as slaves by various tribes and Arabs for years, suffering many deprivations. It was pretty good and at least one screenwriter, Public Enemies writer Ronan Bennett is trying to adapt it.
What I remember most about the story is that the Americans were so hungry at one point they ate the dried skin off of each other's backs.
Actually, it is pretty much a parallel to 12 Years a Slave except a change of setting and the 'rescuer' being an African.
In that case, I'd definitely recommend Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It's written as a letter to his son about growing up black in the US and it's the best book I've read recently about the topic.
Obviously not the fine people at Grand Central Publishing Company.
Assata: An Autobiography
I took AP Lang in 2006. It's likely that this text will be one of the one's excerpted from on the AP test (not to mention it's fantastic and arguably one of the most important American autobiographies of all time):
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
A fantastic and often read text that explores the transformation and life of Malcolm Little, later Malcolm X, and still later El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Not a personal favorite but an important book in the American Canon written by one of the most influential men in the history of the United States.
Black Boy
A fictionalized, though not fictional, autobiography written by American author Richard Wright. Wright chronicles his life growing up in a surly, pernicious South and his eventual flight from it.
Hopefully these books will at least be a good place to start in your quest for a suitable book. Good luck in class next year! Its nice to see you're getting an early start on your reading; I put my AP Lang summer reading off until a week before class started, what a mistake that was.
> Because Michael Bay is the most trustworthy source
It's based on the non-fiction book 13 Hours by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Mitchell Zuckoff.
The book was hardly political, and more of an interview with the people there.
Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx https://www.amazon.com/dp/0743254430/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_22D9BbNA21TF9
You can already order it [here] (https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Michelle-Obama/dp/1524763136/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?crid=XOU064HX9GIC&keywords=michelle+obama+book&qid=1551322114&s=gateway&sprefix=miche&sr=8-2)
If you are interested in the Skeleton Coast, you should read Skeletons on the Zahara.
That one is good, but honestly, read Ta-Nehisi Coates' two most recent books. We Were Eight Years in Power as well as Between the World and Me.
The first one is several fantastic essays about black issues and the black experience in America. The second is written as a letter to his son about what it means to be black in America. They are very eye opening. Toni Morrison called BTWAM "required reading" for every American and I'd agree for both books. They're not too long and a great resource for understanding the Black experience written by a modern public intellectual at the pinnacle of his power. Seriously, the dude writes extremely well.
He didn't just say it, that was the title of his book.
No man. Gang violence in LA was around long before the crack epidemic put a financial motivation to the game. They did it just to have somewhere tangible to point their rage, and often just for a sense of identity. Drug-related violence amplifies these cultural issues for sure, but it didn't cause them.
source Really interesting and insightful read.
First, congratulations. Father of 3.5 here (the .5 is due in August). Some scattered pointers off the top of my sleep-deprived head:
So many more that aren't coming to me quickly, but I gotta get back to work. I might add to the list later.
Best of luck, and enjoy every second!
It worked for Jesse Jackson and Coca-Cola. He threatened them with a boycott until they gave his brother a printing press for dollars, I mean a Coca-Cola franchise in Atlanta.
http://www.amazon.com/Shakedown-Exposing-Real-Jesse-Jackson/dp/0895261081
To be honest, there's a lot of stuff that isn't explicitly social justice stuff that will give you the same basic information. Most of these issues have been around (and known) way prior to the recent rise in activism. Some of the books that were most useful to me were:
Look, the civil war was about SLAVERY. The entire existence of the confederacy was about the chattel slavery of African people. ( I highly recommend that you read Stamped From the Beginning). There is no other identity for a confederate sympathizer than a supporter of the enslavement and oppression of black people. Hell, the confederate flag didn't even become a thing until AFTER reconstruction in response to the new-found freedom of black people.
> What if someone's parents were both black confederate supporters, their grandparents fought in the civil war for the Confederacy, and they're proud of their cultural heritage? Should they hate their heritage and the culture they came from?
This is a very, very small population. If a black person, whose slave ancestor fought for the south, wants to display a confederate flag I think they are very confused about history.
>If someone is proud to have Spanish ancestry does that mean they support the Spanish inquisition, and are racist against south Americans?
Being Spanish isn't only about the Spanish Inquisition or about the mistreatment of the colonies.
>If someone is a proud American and proud of their family history of military service are they embracing Hiroshima?
I don't think every person who is proud to be an American is responsible for the country's war crimes.
>What about the vikings? If you're proud of your viking ancestry does it mean you believe in pillaging villages, and raping women?
I have never met someone who is proud of their viking ancestory who wasn't a neo-nazi, fascist, fascist adjacent, or an idiot high school kid. Also, "viking" isn't a heritage.
> If someone is proud to be Greek does it mean they believe in feeding Christians to lions?
No. Again, this is a false equivalency. The confederacy was ONLY about slavery. I grew up thinking the civil war was about "states rights." And, it was. State's rights to OWN MOTHER-FUCKING SLAVES.
Regarding some of the other suggestions so far: Reading Payne's book is fine, but keep in mind that her work is quite controversial. Moreover, much her work is self-published. There are many who feel her research lacks the academic rigor typically found in a field where research is peer-reviewed/published. Plus, there's also the profit motive, since she sets up workshops around the country and does quite well for herself. I'm not saying this is inherently wrong, but just to keep this in mind.
"The Invisible Thread" was an enjoyable read, although I found it to be a bit contrived. It's a feel good story, but I don't think you'll learn all that much from it.
Here are some additional suggestions going from more academic to less. Honestly though, to truly understand poverty from a big picture standpoint, it's best to draw from a wide range of topics and scholars.
The Origins of the Urban Crisis, by Thomas Sugrue. Pretty much required reading for those studying the roots of poverty in America. You'll learn about various factors like segregation, redlining, and other urban policies have formed the historical foundation for the cycle of intergenerational poverty that reverberates to this day. It's academic, but not nearly as bad as a lot of journals.
More Than Just Race, by William Julius Wilson. He actually has numerous books in this field that are great. As an African American and Harvard sociology professor, he has quite a bit of credibility in this field. That said, he does face some criticism, as his approach leans heavily toward structural factors and is said to be overly deterministic. Note, however, that just about every scholar has critics.
Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-Wage Labor Market, by Katherine Newman. This is a bit more accessible and personal, as she uses ethnographic portraits to complement facts and figures, giving the narrative a more personal feel, and offering readers real people they can empathize with.
There Are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz. This is a non-fiction book by an investigative journalist that is meant to be read by the masses, making it far more accessible. Great stuff.
The Other Wes Moore, by Wes Moore. An accessible autobiographical account of two boys name Wes Moore, both of whom grew up minutes away from each other, but ended up taking very different life paths.
By the way, where in the midwest are you? I just moved to Iowa City a week ago. The weather here is...weird. Everyone is warning me of the winters here.
There are some AMAZING resources here, so I'll just throw in a few others:
The Body Remembers
The Body Keeps the Score)
Enrique's Journey
Crossing Over
The Devil's Highway
Random Family
Lost Children of Wilder
Have you read Kendi's recent book on race in America, Stamped from the beginning? It would be a good (accessible, informative, and well-regarded--it just won two national awards) starting point for your research: https://www.amazon.com/Stamped-Beginning-Definitive-History-National/dp/1568584636
I love this book. It's a great play-by-play of the game with the recorded hopes and fears of the players during the actual game.
"They'll probably play here ... ooh, I didn't expect that."
It's well written with a good narrative that highlights the drama of the game, and includes little biographical and historical asides that bring the game out of the abstract and into a specific place and time, with a peek into the players' personalities and relationships.
It reminds me of John McPhee's excellent Levels of the Game (a similar group-biography organized around a play-by-play of a tennis match).
Have a read:
https://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates-ebook/dp/B00SEFAIRI#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1499680202621
Black Like Me
Survival Math, The Color of Law, Killing The Black Body, and Stamped From The Beginning are all really good ones as well. Not sure which avenue of "black books" you're trying to go down specifically so I just threw out some general titles. Let me know if you're looking for something unlike what I listed and I'd be happy to give more!
There's a whole book on Jesse Jackson
Al Sharpton
And Michael Richards was a racist assclown too. My only point is that being labeled a racist (fairly or unfairly) is a death sentence to anyone with ambitions in the public sphere and an destroy people's lives.
Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have been extorting for profit for decades. Here is a book about it: Shakedown
> Few writers have shifted political discourse in recent years quite as much as Ta-Nehisi Coates.
> His seminal longform essay “The Case For Reparations” single-handedly forced a nationwide discussion about reparations for African-American descendants of slaves. After that, his memoir “Between the World and Me” was broadly hailed as the most thought-provoking meditation on race in the U.S. in an entire generation. And there’s over a decade of columns he wrote for The Atlantic that gave rise to innumerable other conversations.
> But since 2018, Coates has taken a step away from non-fiction writing. He's focused on other projects, including completing his first novel, "The Water Dancer," which was released in September. The novel tells the tale of Hiram Walker, who was born into slavery in Virginia, and who comes to realize he possesses supernatural powers that could help him and others gain freedom.
> On Monday, Nov. 4, Coates will be in Miami at the Adrienne Arsht Center discussing the book. WLRN briefly talked with him in advance of the appearance.
>Have they encouraged black people to become police officers? Nope
Actually, Yup!
>The plans calls for . . . having the racial makeup of police departments reflect the communities they serve.
Which includes BLM encouraging black people to become police officers. If you had any real familiarity with BLM you'd know that encouraging black people to become police officers (which, make no mistake, is your advice to black people on how to protest) is a HUGE part of BLM.
I implore you to read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Read it or listen to the audiobook and get back to me. Give me your e-mail address and I'll even send you the audiobook on Audible. I'm not joking.
I think that is the thing to do, but it would mostly only help people who aren't born yet. Kids who are teenagers and on a bad track right now are screwed (not that all kids from welfare are shitty, btw, but still).
Have you read Whatever It Takes?
As /u/seppi56210 mentioned, /r/Catholicism is a great resource. Definitely check it out.
As for books outlining this journey, with you coming from a Lutheran background, I'd recommend Scott Hahn's Rome Sweet Home, Devin Rose's Navigating The Tiber, Trent Horn's Why We're Catholic and Deacon Alex Jones' No Price Too High.
As far as books dealing, historically, with the Reformation and Great Schism, that may depend on exactly how academic you want to get. What sort of historical context are you looking for? I'll see how I can help.
And, lastly, as for that Rosary... keep learning to pray it, and stick with it, even when it seems dry or mundane. I recommend the following reflections as starting points for meditations as you go through each decade:
The Joyful Mysteries
The Luminous Mysteries
The Sorrowful Mysteries
The Glorious Mysteries
I'll say an extra prayer for your journey today, and feel free to reach out via PM with any other questions or if you need any other guidance.
Peace to you!
DK
This has been going on for years Jesse Jackson does it too.
This is a good read.
http://www.amazon.com/Shakedown-Exposing-Real-Jesse-Jackson/dp/0895261081/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420467852&sr=1-3&keywords=shakedown
I like American Drean and Random Family for insightful reads targeting a lay audience.
Cutting edge work is going to be presented at WREC in a few weeks., check out the people talking, and the videos once they're posted.
It's already going to press.
Catholics understand that Christ established one Church. There is only one body of Christ and you are already part of it even if you are imperfectly joined to it. As Paul wrote to the Ephesians, we share the same body, spirit, hope, Lord, faith, baptism, God, and Father. But it was Christ's last prayer on earth that we be united so that the world would believe him. As a convert to Catholicism, I am honored that I was given the opportunity to answer Jesus' dying wish. How cool is that?
This weekend I went to a retreat held by a former Pentecostal minister who converted along with several members of his family and a large portion of his congregation. You might be interested in his book: http://amzn.com/0898709199
Pretty much anything by former Presbyterian minister Scott Hahn; he has an explanation of his conversion [here] (http://www.lighthousecatholicmedia.org/store/title/why-a-protestant-pastor-became-catholic).
There's former pentacostal pastor Alex Jones, who brought almost his whole congregation with him; he wrote [this book] (http://www.amazon.com/No-Price-too-High-Pentecostal/dp/0898709199) about the decision.
There's [this testimony] (http://chnetwork.org/2014/06/father-raymond-ryland-on-whose-authority/) by Fr. Raymond Ryland, a former Anglican minister.
Ulf Elkman was a prominent megachurch pastor before his conversion; he talks about it [here] (http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/2014/04/24/megachurch-pastor-ulf-ekman-we-need-what-the-lord-has-given-to-the-catholic-church-to-live-fully-as-christians/)
Then there's lots of [personal conversion stories] (http://chnetwork.org/category/conversion-stories/) of lay folks. And there's quite a few of us here on /r/Christianity; feel free to ping us, as well.
Hey, it's a book!
Read "The Other Wes Moore" by Wes Moore... good read.
On the basis of Indian Creek Chronicles, I'd say there's a good chance you'd get a great deal out of The Outermost House, one of the classics of modern American naturalist non-fiction. The premise if very simple -- the author, Henry Beston, spent a year living in virtual solitude on the easternmost house on the American coast, keeping notes on what he observed. The result is a brief, zen-like meditation on nature's movement through a single place over a single cycle of the seasons. Highly influential.
Since it looks like you're interested in the cultural conflict between modernity and tradition, I'd suggest The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, which follows the treatment of a young Hmong girl whose immigrant parents struggle with the California health care system in dealing with her undiagnosed seizures.
Great to see John McPhee on your list -- hands down one of my favorite non-fiction writers. Just about anything he's written will be compulsively informative and shift the way you think about his chosen topic. Levels of the Game is a brilliant depiction of a single game between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner, that delves into the way in which personal biography informs how an athlete plays and ultimately contributes to the meaning of the game.
Along similar lines, Yusanari Kawabata's The Master of Go deals with damn near close to all of the themes at heart in the books listed above, and will likely teach you a little about the ancient game of Go, if you have any interest in that. An idiosyncratic pick, perhaps, but it's one of my favorite novels.
If you're interested in this (how policies that are racist are a manifestation of self-interest), I really recommend this book that just came out: Stamped from the Beginning.
I read this book a few years back and it's stuck with me for a while. I'm not really the biography type, though. It's called Monster: The Autobiography of an LA Gang Member. And before you dismiss it, it's pretty much like IRL GTA:SA. It was a really awesome read.
There's a great, easy to read book called Skeletons on the Zahara that deals heavily with this subject. 10/10 would recommend
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316159352/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_yd4hzbCD8512F
> This is a particular case where some dude was sent to jail for life (life ruined btw) for a crime he didn't commit because
Picking Cotton is a really good book about another similar case. A man called Ronald Cotton was sent to prison for raping a woman who was 100% sure he was the man who did it, even specifically tried to sear the rapist's face into her memory during the rape so she'd be able to identify him later. Only to misidentify Cotton and have the actual criminal tied to other similar cases in the area confess to her case as well later on. She went on to apologize to Cotton, they became friends and do speaking tours about the experience together.
John McPhee's Levels of the Game is a great illustration of Arthur Ashe playing Clark Graebner in the 1968 US Open. It shows what went through Ashe's and Graebner minds when they were playing and you can really see how much strategy goes into a tennis match.
The way both Ashe and Grabner's personal stories are woven into the narrative is nice too. You can see that L. Jon Werthiem was, inspired by this book when he wrote Strokes of Genius, as they both are stuctured similarly.
After reading this, I really appreciate how talented Arthur Ash was, and also how much skill serve-and-volley tennis takes.
http://www.amazon.com/Levels-Game-John-McPhee/dp/0374515263
I really recommends this to any tennis fan, player or not!
I'm really bad at reading through just one book at a time, so I'm in the middle of a few at the moment.
-A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
-Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (admittedly, it's been a while since I've picked this one up)
-Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
I just finished a great book called The Other Wes Moore, also. It was super interesting.
I'm a big fan of non-fiction books, in case that wasn't immediately apparent by the list.
If you have one the kindle version (also free) seems to have much cleaner text https://www.amazon.ca/Narrative-Life-Frederick-Douglass/dp/0486284999
If you would like to read one book that may expand some of your thinking on this topic, consider reading Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Edit: Forgot to mention this book The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
The Long Walk
Skeletons on the Zahara
Both non-fiction stories of survival that I thought were incredible.
Also, not strictly survival but very good non-fiction adventure reads in the same vein are A Man's Life and The Hard Way by Mark Jenkins.
Picking Cotton A sad, but ultimately heartwarming story of false rape accusation. Just read it and really enjoyed it.
Sorry about the delayed response.
How well do you know the L.A. Four?
So, the LA Four were just the football tossing older kids on 71rst street. I saw them everyday. Some days they were kinda nice and other days they were the older jocks on the block who threw a football around. Actually one of my most persistent memories of them was the 4th of July and the chaotic activity that came with it. One year was roman candle fights, the next year was m-80s carelessly tossed into the air using a wrist-brace style sling shot.
What really makes them go out and commit an atrocity on Reginald Denny like that for no reason?
So this is a complex question and answer. I would suggest watching the 2017 documentary LA 92. It explains the thinking. I don't agree with their actions or condone the activity but I understand the warped conclusion they came to. The best way I could explain is that they were definitely gang related (Eight Tray Gangster Crip) but they also had an awareness of social injustice which sounds like two clashing ideologies but in a sense they kind of compliment each other.
The four had a nihilist bent and had the concept of hope stripped from their lexicon at a very early age. They had checked out from society for a variety of reasons and were to a degree, outsiders. There is the context of police harassment (LAPD under Chief Daryl Gates) and a sense of not being able to get ahead/move forward/contribute to society (i.e., crack by way of Freeway Rick Ross and the CIA) but no real enemy to attack.
Deny I would argue was largely symbolic, it could have been anyone.
By the way, if you really are interested in learning about the culture of the time that led up to the riots one book thats not really talked about but is tied into the location is 'Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member' by Sanyika Shakur. https://www.amazon.com/Monster-Autobiography-L-Member/dp/0802141447
It talks about the gang culture that was in play during that era. Harrowing shit for real.
Also good is Crips and Bloods: Made in America its not LA Riot specific but it does draw out the direct linage to the Watts Riots and the creation of the Bloods and Crips (and how the initial goal of the Crips is 100% counter to the monster that its been for the past decades) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdv08c0aiTE
What were you doing at the time?
During the riots? First night was trying to make sure our house did not burn down. What people miss is that they think it was all black and brown people just burning down their own communities - thats just a few opportunistic folks. Most of us were just trying to save our homes. The main street, Florence contained lots of small and large businesses, on the backside of florence was 71st to the north and 73rd to the south. The fires that burned the business on Florence crawled back to the unfortunately located homes that were on the backside of Florence.
The first night black, mexican, korean and taiwanese folks came together with water hoses to help each other out. Furniture and goods were moved out to the street.
Day two was spent on the sidewalk with our shit just sitting out. We spent that day helping each other move our saved goods back into the homes that did not burn.
We had no water and power for a week. I specifically remember picking up kerosine lamps and playing cards so we had something to do in the evenings. For a week we just played cards by lamplight before heading to sleep.
Did you watch everyone else and did you see the cops come back?
See above, kinda. I missed the first part of the day, I was a Dodgers game and came back to everything on fire.
To answer your first questions...
What did you do during the L.A. riots?
See above. Just trying to make it through the shit.
Do you know any person who died or injured in the rioting?
Nope.
How close to the point do you feel you might be hurt or killed in the riots, especially with the epicenter of them?
First night was hell with everything burning. Oh yeah, the sight of Korean shop owners with very serious looking guns on the roofs of stores was a mindfuck.
Do you feel safe when the California Army National Guard and federal troops were dispatched to L.A.?
Not in the fucking slightest. It actually made shit feel scarier. I can still see the pink cheeked 19 year old kid holding his M16 scared shitless while everything around him was ablaze. I was afraid he would shoot me unprovoked.
In the days, weeks, or months after the riots, were there few tensions, security, racism, fighting, etc?
Hmm. Not really tension or fighting or racism but a lot of emotional unpacking. The riot did not just happen overnight, it was not a catalyst but an eventual breaking point for people. Lots of dialog opened. I do remember the "Black Owned Business" signs at actual black owned businesses (to prevent rioters from attacking...this was a second and third day preventative measure) BUT I also remember lot of non black owned stores putting the signs up as well.
Because I lived through the riot I find that I can really relate to citizens of war torn countries. It affects you on a deep level when physical landmarks you use to define your reality are suddenly gone and but a memory. Its literally a world changing action. I am still working through it all in therapy fucking 26 years later.
He wants minorities (blacks) to get a fair share of contracts in the city? I suggest you read this book to find out how minority contracts in the city are handled.
In terms of BLM, it might be worth reading some stuff by Ta-Nehisi Coates too; his book Between the World and Me is pretty good but his longform journalism for the Atlantic is better: check out "The Case for Reparations" and "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration". For a counterpoint, check out RL Stephens's critique of Coates here and in this excellent interview.
It's poetry, but Citizen by Claudia Rankine is quick and examines the ways that structural racism infiltrates people's daily interactions. Here's an excerpt.
Edit: one more, Keeyanga Yamahtta Taylor's From #blacklivesmatter to Black Liberation is excellent!
I recently read The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass. It's a really great book that gives a very unbiased almost clinical account of slavery and, at least of me, that makes it that much more intense and saddening. It reminded me of Night in that it provides clinical, levelheaded presentation the holocaust and I could help but seeing the awful similarities between the two. I read some depressing books.
Monster by Sanyika Shakur
This is an autobiography, but a riveting read and one hell of a tale. Aside from gang culture you get to see the perspective of a young boy see the gang life, live it as one of the most notorious members of the Crips in Los Angeles, do numerous stints in jail, and then change how he lives.
http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Autobiography-L-Member/dp/0802141447/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407216076&sr=1-1&keywords=monster+sanyika+shakur
Skeletons on the Zahara
A supposedly true story (and pretty decent read) about exactly what you're talking about.
synopsis: This week, Ana Marie Cox (@anamariecox) sits down with human rights lawyer, activist, and author Arjun Sethi (@arjunsethi81) to discuss the one year anniversary of his book, American Hate: Survivors Speak Out —as relevant as ever after the massacres in El Paso… and, in the short time since, the arrests of six white men on charges related to mass violence. Arjun and Ana also discuss their frustration with how hate crimes are typically depicted in the media, and how the average American can get involved in the fight against white supremacy.
Then, Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) from The Atlantic discusses his bestelling new book, How to Be an Antiracist. In soft-spoken, gentle urgency, Ibram guides us through the idea “there is no neutrality” in the face of racism: there is only racism and anti-racism. Ibram and Ana then discuss his various encounters with cancer; exploring a profound extended metaphor between the disease and racism in America.
show notes
Really? I'm probably biased because he was front-and-center for those Tuna Bowl games, but I'll forever remember him as a damn Jet.
"Just give me the damn ball."
Such a fine piece of literary art.
Shitty parental relationships seem to be the foundation for wicked people. Granted people have their own agency and may go as far from the apple tree as they wish, but your upbringing is a baseline of values & expectations.
The Other Wes Moore is a sober read into that.
I'm not really sure what you mean by "achieving welfare in a community" but the first book I thought of is "Random Family". Its very, very good. It's a bit longer than what you were looking for but it zips along once you get into the story.
http://www.amazon.com/Random-Family-Drugs-Trouble-Coming/dp/0743254430
there's tons of research showing that corporal punishment may bring a short term obedience, it is counterintuitive to healthy raising of children.
Watching ("Waiting for Superman" or reading any books about Geoffrey Canada ("Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun" or "Whatever it takes") will reveal how the Harlem Children's Zone is using that research to teach parents how to better raise their children, resulting in smarter kids that are getting out of dire straights and into college and getting better jobs.
there's "raising my kids however i want" and then there's child abuse, and its real, and its harmful, and it will end.
There's another dude with my name and exact same birthday (day and year) with multiple felonies. It happens. See The Other Wes Moore.
http://www.amazon.com/Random-Family-Drugs-Trouble-Coming/dp/0743254430
Politicians rail about welfare queens, crack babies and deadbeat dads, but what do they know about the real struggle it takes to survive being poor? Journalist LeBlanc spent some 10 years researching and interviewing one extended family-mother Lourdes, daughter Jessica, daughter-in-law Coco and all their boyfriends, children and in-laws-from the Bronx to Troy, N.Y., in and out of public housing, emergency rooms, prisons and courtrooms.
LeBlanc's close listening produced this extraordinary book, a rare look at the world from the subjects' point of view. Readers learn that prison is just an extension of the neighborhood, a place most men enter and a rare few leave. They learn the realities of welfare: the myriad of misdemeanors that trigger reduction or termination of benefits, only compounding a desperate situation. They see teenaged drug dealers with incredible organizational and financial skills, 13-year-old girls having babies to keep their boyfriends interested, older women reminiscing about the "heavenly time" they spent in a public hospital's psychiatric ward and incarcerated men who find life's first peace and quiet in solitary confinement.
More than anything, LeBlanc shows how demanding poverty is. Her prose is plain and unsentimental, blessedly jargon-free, and includidng street talk only when one of her subjects wants to "conversate." This fine work deserves attention from policy makers and general readers alike.
Ohh this one is a beauty
For risk-your-life adventure, try Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King. Eurpoean sailors get shipwrecked off the coast of Africa in 1815.
Try reading a book about being Black.
Black like me - John Griffin, review by Washington Post
Read around the same time as:
Johnny got his Gun - Dalton Trombo.
both books had significant impact on my formative years, and at one point i had chapter 5 of Daltons book memorized for its impact alone. here is a link if you'd like to read more of johnny got his gun.
years later i watched in fascination when Metallica used clips from a movie they found for their One video that was made from the book.
i recognized the patterns of speech but had no idea it had been made into a movie. the movie is really hard to watch. but i did... it reminds me of 'Life is Beautiful', but without the humour.
Thanks! I just wish I could say there were more good things on the list.
And thanks for the Patton recommendation, I'll check that out.
I do recommend anything by John McPhee in the strongest possible terms. It's all non-fiction, and always interesting and often very funny, and about a tremendous range of topics.
Like fishing? Read The Founding Fish, which is all about the American Shad, and I mentioned before.
Like boats? Looking For a Ship is about the merchant marine.
Planes, trains, and automobiles (and more boats)? Uncommon Carriers deals with all of them, and why almost all lobster eaten in the US comes from Kentucky.
Care for tales about why New Orleans is doomed, pissing on lava , and debris flows in LA? The Control of Nature covers those.
Fruit? How about Oranges?
Geology? The Annals of the Former World is a compilation of several shorter books more or less following I-80 across the US.
Sports? Tennis (and basketball to a lesser extent). He's also written about lacrosse in various magazines.
...And a ton of other stuff, ranging from bears to farmers markets to nuclear energy to lifting body airplanes to Switzerland.
http://www.amazon.com/Just-Give-Me-Damn-Ball/dp/0446521450
> Manning to the wide open Sanders for the TD
http://www.amazon.com/Just-Give-Me-Damn-Ball/dp/0446521450
What academic, except for Jordan Peterson, respects Murray as an academic? Again, the man doesn't work for a college or university—he publishes bullshit books and papers for the Koch-funded American Enterprise Institute so that the hillbilly Republican party can cite something when it needs to argue that black people are intellectually inferior to whites.
Besides, the entire premise of Murray's book is totally false—it's as though you're trying to compare the IQ scores of different kinds of hobgoblins. And, as I said, and as you ignored, racial categories were invented by slave traders and purity-of-blood-obsessed Spanish royals in the 16th century. They don't actually exist. More information can be found about this in Stamped From The Beginning, written by a guy who actually works at a university, unlike Charles Murray.
And, again, I would invite you to examine Murray's sources, as well, though you have already refused to do so. The respected academics he mentions have been arrested in England for pro-Nazi activities. Many also publish in Mankind Quarterly, which, if you examine its website, appears to concern itself with nothing but phrenology—truly the realm of real intellectuals.
The Bell Curve also drew heavily from research paid for by the Pioneer Fund, which is linked to eugenics, Nazis, white supremacists, you name it. Wickliffe Preston Draper, the Fund's head, was in favor of sending all African Americans to Africa and contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money to oppose the Civil Rights Movement, for instance. The Pioneer Fund is essentially the frontal lobe of Strom Thurmond.
If you looked at the Pioneer Fund's wikipedia page, which I know you won't, as well as that page's endless list of sources, you might start to wonder if this is the side you want to be on. And, again, you insist on sources from me, but Peterson never quotes from the left-leaning academics he so thoroughly despises. (Peterson also quotes from Wikipedia in his books.) We wouldn't want to quote from Marx, either, because the 20th century has already proven that Karl's ideas are extremely tempting.
Here are two more quotes for you to ignore:
> No fewer than seventeen researchers cited in the bibliography of The Bell Curve have contributed to Mankind Quarterly. Ten are present or former editors, or members of its editorial advisory board. This is interesting because Mankind Quarterly is a notorious journal of “racial history” founded, and funded, by men who believe in the genetic superiority of the white race. source
I'm not able to quote the rest from that site, as it requires a subscription. But there's plenty of information about Murray's sources elsewhere.
> ...by scrutinizing the footnotes and bibliography in The Bell Curve, readers can more easily recognize the project for what it is: a chilly synthesis of the work of disreputable race theorists and eccentric eugenicists. source
I'm also still waiting for you to address the remainder of the points in my previous response.
Assata
> "starving for the reality of First Century Christianity"
Check out Alex Jones's story. He wanted to do church the way the early Christians did it, and whoops, became Catholic.
Edit: oh, and may as well link the Contemporvant parody: http://youtube.com/watch?v=3RJBd8zE48A
There is a good book on this topic called How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram Kendi, which you can find on Amazon here, or perhaps at your local library.
Isn't Black Like Me required reading in high school?
It was in mine
Edit: Really? Down votes for providing links to the interview, info about the event and books about the event? Ok reddit...
Video interview with the GRS agents. Very clearly state that 2 "wait" and 1 "stand down" order was given by the CIA station Chief, "Bob".
CIA/DS/Obama Administration has all the reasons in the world to cover their ass on this. These guys have 0 reasons to lie. 2 of them died while saving those trapped. Only other GRS agents (including Glen Doherty who died during the attack) and a few JSOC guys came to their aid, who happened to be located in Tripoli at the time. Glen Doherty had to pay off a pilot with $30k in cash to fly them to Benghazi to help his other GRS agents out. They received 0 help from anyone else despite their repeated calls for help.
Haven't seen the movie yet, but their book 13 Hours gives an incredibly detailed first hand account authored by the 3 guys who survived
So does Eyes On Target
So does Benghazi: The Definitive Report
They also outline the complete bullshit the administration and DS stated as reasons that a greater rescue attempt was not attempted. If anyone is interested I can lay out the scenarios.
I think I agree with you, although its kind of hard to tell. Also, for whatever reason tennis has had a strangely high number of very good black players considering that it is (or at least used to be) such a wealthy sport. Arthur Ashe was a top level player despite the fact that for a long time the only people he could practice against were other black players, who frankly weren't that good. Then when a lot of other players were boycotting South African tournaments because of apartheid he decided to go play there to draw attention to how arbitrary apartheid was. He is almost certainly the best philanthropist tennis player of all time but the only people who seem to know about him are tennis fans.
edit: I got most of this info from this book, which might be interesting to you based on the fact that you know who Althea Gibson is.
OP, click this link to learn a bit about eye witness testimony.
If you want a more in depth case study, pick up a copy of Picking Cotton. Hell, if you want, I'll buy you a copy.
Also to add, since I'm no expert in this field, I would suggest further reading on this topic including:
It is laid out pretty clearly by the survivors that they were told to stand down. If you dont believe them than i dont know what to tell you
Here is some evidence that I know more about the fog of war than you And my assertions that you have never served is based on the way you speak callously and with disrespect to those that fought and survived; and those that fell.
The fact is a stand down order was given. That shouldnt of happened. All I said was this needs them be investigated in order to prevent from happening again. Clearly better lines of communication need to be implemented.
Do you have anything constructive to add to this discussion; or just more strawman arguements and accusations??
Picking Cotton. A must read. Should be required in high school.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0312599536/ref=redir_mdp_mobile
> so I only have to pay federal income and capitol gains.
The slaves from various plantations used to argue about who's master was nicer, more wealthy and provided better living conditions.
Yes, that actually happened, which can be read about here:
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Yeah, so because Bush was bad, Jackson's [extortion from businesses] (http://www.amazon.com/Shakedown-Exposing-Real-Jesse-Jackson/dp/0895261081) and [whoring for the drug war] (http://books.google.com/books?id=2gEPHslMsKgC&pg=PA115&lpg=PA115&dq=jesse+jackson+war+on+drugs+thomas+szasz&source=bl&ots=VXv1MHGK0M&sig=1OnEo1UqI1YjOgvJ3P04E3iUDy8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Jmj-U8_eFtO7ogTM94K4BQ&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=jesse%20jackson%20war%20on%20drugs%20thomas%20szasz&f=false) can be excused
And Rangel's support of [the destruction of the black community] (http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/31/how-charlie-rangels-outrage-shifted-from), [the draft] (http://rangel.house.gov/press-release/rangel-introduce-legislation-reinstating-draft-and-requiring-women-register-selective), and [his corruption?] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_B._Rangel#2008.E2.80.932010:_Ethics_issues_and_censure), well, he's not George Bush. I don't know what that proves. And he's black, even though he's a wealthy black elite, and the assumption that blacks are a giant extended family, where help for one is help for all, is extremely racist.
Isn't Jesse Jackson always on MSNBC? And who owns MSNBC?
Lol, this entire thread is one giant circle-jerk.
I haven't read the book yet but it's out now:
http://www.amazon.com/13-Hours-Account-Happened-Benghazi/dp/1455582271
I'd trust the guys on the ground and what they say long before I trust any government official. 6 hours in, someone should have been on the ground helping. You can get troops in from all over Europe and the rest of Africa in that time. Someone fucked up. Reddit will NEVER admit it because (D) was in charge at the time but someone fucked up big and people died because of it.
Also, the fact that the consulate had no security.....just lol. It's in fucking Libya and they have unarmed dudes standing at the gate. Yeah, no fuck ups there.
Ah yes, the wonderful human nature argument. Despite the fact that humans have been hunter-gatherers who had little to nothing in the way of private property for 99% of human history, you believe that capitalism is human nature.
You believe that there is no connection between capitalism and racism, despite the obvious fact that neither can exist without the other.
You are socially liberal but fiscally conservative, meaning that you're okay with LGBTQ folks as long as they accede to being exploited by capitalists.
You believe it's better to live in a society in which the 0.1% possess absolute power, rather than a society in which the economy would be democratized.
You believe that communism is responsible for tens of millions of deaths, but that capitalism has never harmed anyone anywhere.
You believe that a child mining the rare earth metals for your phone in the Congo has just as much of a chance of success as the children of billionaires.
Despite being unable to define the systems that you support, you believe that they will succeed. Absolutely, this is a recipe for success: proceeding with total unawareness of the world around you.
>Rassismus hat immer etwas mit Machtstrukturen zu tun.
Sieht ganz so aus. Professor Ibram X. Kendi bringt das in seinem Buch How to Be an Antiracist auf den Punkt.
In diesem Licht betrachtet, erfüllen auch Zustände wie dieser hier die Kriterien für Rassismus: Keiner der deutschen Uni-Chefs kommt aus Ostdeutschland