(Part 3) Best social activist biographies according to redditors
We found 120 Reddit comments discussing the best social activist biographies. We ranked the 49 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 41-60. You can also go back to the previous section.
Showtime is now developing their debut memoir, Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story, into a television series, Variety reports. With the working title Sissy, the show would chronicle the adventures of Tobi Gibran, a nonbinary college graduate who moves from small-town North Carolina to New York City in search of a queer utopia.
​
LOLLL this will peak more people imo. IDK when NYC will get over itself and realize most people aren't into their "value" system of anything flies. I agree with other's in the comments: what a trite boring show.
Lou Sullivan: Daring to Be a Man Among Men. Reeeaaad iiittt. Lou was the first openly gay trans man, living and transitioning in the 70s and 80s before "trans" and "gay" even really existed as separate concepts. He wrote a lot both privately and publically about his experience and he was a vital advocate for trans people in the medical world (in the US) as taught doctors and medical students that queer trans people existed. His networking with fellow trans men led to the creation of FTM International, the first organisation of its kind.
Along with the history, the book details his struggles with identity and his entry into gay male culture -- even before having surgery of any kind. It's engaging and at times quotes extensively directly from Lou's journals. Highly recommended.
The "disease" Pellagra is interesting to read about. Essentially, it is actually a vitamin deficiency caused by diet, but in the early 1900's it was thought to be a communicable disease. It especially affected the poor in the southern US and was treated almost like leprosy until a doctor named Joseph Goldberger began to study it.
The Dark Matters tv show on the Science Channel did a segment about it
Book about Joseph Goldberger
The vast majority of what the UN does involves taking statistics given by countries at face value. They do not have their own data collection.
http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/wikileak-that-has-michael-moore-howling.html?m=1
>The statistics and numbers that Michael Moore cites in the video at the top of the blog entry and that the international community has access to with relation to the Cuban healthcare system have been manipulated by the dictatorship. Katherine Hirschfeld, an anthropologist, in Health, Politics, and Revolution in Cuba Since 1898 describes how her idealistic preconceptions were dashed by 'discrepancies between rhetoric and reality,' she observed a repressive, bureaucratized and secretive system, long on 'militarization' and short on patients' rights. This is a scholarly analyis that looks at the Cuban healthcare throughout Cuban history and offers a fair analysis. It is not a political tract. In conclusion, there is a health care system which is rather decent for regime elites and tourists and another one for everyday Cubans that is a disaster. A lot of the footage of the state of real health care in Cuba was provided by Dr. Darsi Ferrer who later became an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.
https://www.amazon.com/Health-Politics-Revolution-Cuba-Since/dp/0765803445/ref=freecubafoundati
I believe The Economist had some interesting articles about this as well.
Freeman Dyson's Disturbing the Universe is pretty fantastic, going from his experience in WW2 to his development as a scientist during the atomic age and involvement in ethics and space exploration/futurism.
> When Assassins Creed: Black Flag revealed that you could go whaling in the game PETA made a stink about it. That's really pointless... It's a video game.
That is fundamentally misunderstanding how PETA operates.
PETA follows a "no bad press" method of activism. As such, it's not silly. PETA gets their name and cause into popular discussion with little more than a press release.
IMO, This is why people dislike them.
Side note read Dan Matthew's book Committed, he is the guy behind a lot of PETA's controversial campaigns and he goes into detail about some of the early ones. As well as his philosophy for activism.
I highly recommend to all queer people reading "Exile and Pride" by Eli Clare. In it, he discusses the intersection of disability and queerness and it is a fascinating and easy read.
Here's the link to amazon, but I found my copy much cheaper elsewhere, and it it fantastic in my opinion:
http://www.amazon.com/Exile-Pride-Disability-Queerness-Liberation/dp/0896086062
edit: just realized that you can buy it used on amazon in paperback for under ten bucks.
http://www.amazon.com/Greenpeace-Ecologists-Journalists-Visionaries-Changed/dp/1594861064
http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Eco-Warrior-Dave-Foreman/dp/051788058X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413065830&sr=1-3&keywords=Dave+Foreman
It sounds like you just need something new to happen, like you're stuck in a rut, one that isn't fulfilling all your needs, the need for a taste of chaos and danger in particular (I can relate to that to some extent).
Something I've been meaning to read when it gets warm out that might be of interest (since you mentioned having the "peaceful artistic" side in addition to the chaos and danger-seeking side), is an autobiography about doing international humanitarian aid. I don't know if you've ever thought about doing international aid work (peace corps, USAID, etc), but it's the sort of thing that fulfills that taste for chaos while giving the opportunity to do something that means something.
Other than that, maybe see about volunteering in the worst neighborhood in your area (if there's a soup kitchen or homeless shelter, or something along those lines)? That would definitely provide the experience of being in the thick of it, and the opportunity to experience the chaos and violence that tends to break out in places like that. It doesn't hit the 'violence button' directly, but it would cover a lot of the parts of it, including the 'service' and 'battle' ideas; there are a number of battles that need people to get into the thick of it and fight it, and that goes beyond the most literal sense of the terms. And something like that wouldn't have the 4 year obligation, and wouldn't have the 24/7 total life immersion that the Army has.
Just saying, if you get creative with what might fulfill the base needs that you're wired to seek out, there are probably a number of options.