Author: Elaine Brown
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 080700975X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
Through the story of a thirteen-year-old black boy condemned to life in prison, Elaine Brown exposes the 'New Age' racism that effectively condemns millions of poor African-Americans to a third world life. The story of 'Little B' is riveting, a stunning example of the particular burden racism imposes on black youths. Most astonishing, almost all of the officials involved in bringing him to 'justice' are black. Michael Lewis was officially declared a ward of the state at age eleven, and then systematically ignored until his arrest for murder. Brown wondered how this boy could possibly have aroused so much public resentment, why he was being tried (and roundly condemned, labeled a 'super-predator') in the press. Then she met Michael and began investigating his case on her own. Brown adeptly builds a convincing case that the prosecution railroaded Michael, looking for a quick, symbolic conviction. His innocence is almost incidental to the overwhelming evidence that the case was unfit for trial. Little B was convicted long before he came to court, and effectively sentenced years before, when the 'safety net' allowed him to slip silently down. Brown cites studies and cases from all over America that reveal how much more likely youth of color are to be convicted of crimes and to serve long-even life-sentences, and how deeply the new black middle class is implicated in this devastating reality.

Author: Elaine Brown
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 9780807009758
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
Through the story of a thirteen-year-old black boy condemned to life in prison, Elaine Brown exposes the 'New Age' racism that effectively condemns millions of poor African-Americans to a third world life. The story of 'Little B' is riveting, a stunning example of the particular burden racism imposes on black youths. Most astonishing, almost all of the officials involved in bringing him to 'justice' are black. Michael Lewis was officially declared a ward of the state at age eleven, and then systematically ignored until his arrest for murder. Brown wondered how this boy could possibly have aroused so much public resentment, why he was being tried (and roundly condemned, labeled a 'super-predator') in the press. Then she met Michael and began investigating his case on her own. Brown adeptly builds a convincing case that the prosecution railroaded Michael, looking for a quick, symbolic conviction. His innocence is almost incidental to the overwhelming evidence that the case was unfit for trial. Little B was convicted long before he came to court, and effectively sentenced years before, when the 'safety net' allowed him to slip silently down. Brown cites studies and cases from all over America that reveal how much more likely youth of color are to be convicted of crimes and to serve long-even life-sentences, and how deeply the new black middle class is implicated in this devastating reality.

Author: Rod Dreher
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1455521906
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
The Little Way of Ruthie Leming follows Rod Dreher, a Philadelphia journalist, back to his hometown of St. Francisville, Louisiana (pop. 1,700) in the wake of his younger sister Ruthie's death. When she was diagnosed at age 40 with a virulent form of cancer in 2010, Dreher was moved by the way the community he had left behind rallied around his dying sister, a schoolteacher. He was also struck by the grace and courage with which his sister dealt with the disease that eventually took her life. In Louisiana for Ruthie's funeral in the fall of 2011, Dreher began to wonder whether the ordinary life Ruthie led in their country town was in fact a path of hidden grandeur, even spiritual greatness, concealed within the modest life of a mother and teacher. In order to explore this revelation, Dreher and his wife decided to leave Philadelphia, move home to help with family responsibilities and have their three children grow up amidst the rituals that had defined his family for five generations-Mardi Gras, L.S.U. football games, and deer hunting. As David Brooks poignantly described Dreher's journey homeward in a recent New York Times column, Dreher and his wife Julie "decided to accept the limitations of small-town life in exchange for the privilege of being part of a community."

Author: Heike Raphael-Hernandez
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 0415943981
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Author: Paul L. Street
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 1461641683
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Anti-black racism is a stark presence in Chicago, a fact illustrated by significant racial inequality in and around contemporary "global" city. Drawing his work as a civil rights advocate and investigator in Chicago, Street explains this neo-liberal apartheid and its resulting disparity in terms of persistently and deeply racist societal and institutional practices and policies. Racial Oppression in the Black Metropolis uses the highly relevant historical and sociological laboratory that is Chicago in order to explain the racist societal and institutional practices and policies which still typify the United States. Street challenges dominant neoconservative explanations of the black urban crisis that emphasize personal irresponsibility and cultural failure. Looking to the other side of the ideological isle, he criticizes liberal and social democratic approaches that elevate class over race and challenges many observers' sharp distinction between present and so-called past racism. In questioning the supposedly inevitable reign of urban-neoliberaism, Street also investigates the real, racial politics of the United States and finds that parties and ideologies matter little on matters of race. This innovative work in urban history and cultural criticism will inform contemporary social science and policy debates for years to come.

Author: Thomas Sowell
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 0465058728
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Intellectuals and Race is a radical book in the original sense of one that goes to the root of the problem. The role of intellectuals in racial strife is explored in an international context that puts the American experience in a wholly new light. The views of individual intellectuals have spanned the spectrum, but the views of intellectuals as a whole have tended to cluster. Indeed, these views have clustered at one end of the spectrum in the early twentieth century and then clustered at the opposite end of the spectrum in the late twentieth century. Moreover, these radically different views of race in these two eras were held by intellectuals whose views on other issues were very similar in both eras. Intellectuals and Race is not, however, a book about history, even though it has much historical evidence, as well as demographic, geographic, economic and statistical evidence-- all of it directed toward testing the underlying assumptions about race that have prevailed at times among intellectuals in general, and especially intellectuals at the highest levels. Nor is this simply a theoretical exercise. The impact of intellectuals' ideas and crusades on the larger society, both past and present, is the ultimate concern. These ideas and crusades have ranged widely from racial theories of intelligence to eugenics to "social justice" and multiculturalism. In addition to in-depth examinations of these and other issues, Intellectuals and Race explores the incentives, the visions and the rationales that drive intellectuals at the highest levels to conclusions that have often turned out to be counterproductive and even disastrous, not only for particular racial or ethnic groups, but for societies as a whole.

Author: Steve Isoardi
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520932242
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
While he was still in his twenties, Horace Tapscott gave up a successful career in Lionel Hampton’s band and returned to his home in Los Angeles to found the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, a community arts group that focused on providing affordable, community-oriented jazz and jazz training. Over the course of almost forty years, the Arkestra, together with the related Union of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension (UGMAA) Foundation, were at the forefront of the vital community-based arts movements in black Los Angeles. Some three hundred artists—musicians, vocalists, poets, playwrights, painters, sculptors, and graphic artists—passed through these organizations, many ultimately remaining within the community and others moving on to achieve international fame. Based primarily on one hundred in-depth interviews with current and former participants, The Dark Tree is the first history of the important and largely overlooked community arts movement of African American Los Angeles. Brought to life by the passionate voices of the men and women who worked to make the arts integral to everyday community life, this engrossing book completes the account began in the highly acclaimed Central Avenue Sounds, which documented the secular music history of the first half of the twentieth century and which the San Francisco Examiner called "one of the best jazz books ever compiled."

Author: Hilary Klein
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
ISBN: 1609805887
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
Compañeras is the untold story of women's involvement in the Zapatista movement, the indigenous rebellion that has inspired grassroots activists around the world for over two decades. Gathered here are the stories of grandmothers, mothers, and daughters who became guerilla insurgents and political leaders, educators and healers—who worked collectively to construct a new society of dignity and justice. Compañeras shows us how, after centuries of oppression, a few voices of dissent became a force of thousands, how a woman once confined to her kitchen rose to conduct peace negotiations with the Mexican government, and how hundreds of women overcame ingrained hardships to strengthen their communities from within.

Author: Bryan Shih
Publisher: Bold Type Books
ISBN: 156858556X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
"Brilliant, painful, enlightening, tearful, tragic, sad, and funny, this photo-essay book is at its core about healing, and about the social justice work that still needs to be done in the era of hip-hop, Black Lives Matter, and the historic presidency of Barack Obama." -- Kevin Powell, author of The Education of Kevin Powell: A Boy's Journey into Manhood "A brilliantly conceived volume. Bryan Shih and Yohuru Williams demonstrate why the Panthers' story-its lessons and failures-even fifty years after its founding remains key to understanding national and international struggles for freedom and justice today." -- Cheryl Finley, professor and director of visual studies, Cornell University Even fifty years after it was founded, the Black Panther Party remains one of the most misunderstood political organizations of the twentieth century. But beyond the labels of "extremist" and "violent" that have marked the party, and beyond charismatic leaders like Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver, were the ordinary men and women who made up the Panther rank and file. In The Black Panthers, photojournalist Bryan Shih and historian Yohuru Williams offer a reappraisal of the party's history and legacy. Through stunning portraits and interviews with surviving Panthers, as well as illuminating essays by leading scholars, The Black Panthers reveals party members' grit and battle scars-and the undying love for the people that kept them going.

Author: Akinyele Umoja
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 945

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Book Description
An invaluable resource that documents the Black Power Movement by its cultural representation and promotion of self-determination and self-defense, and showcases the movement's influence on Black communities in America from 1965 to the mid-1970s. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement's emphasis on the rhetoric and practice of nonviolence and social and political goal of integration, Black Power was defined by the promotion of Black self-determination, Black consciousness, independent Black politics, and the practice of armed self-defense. Black Power changed communities, curriculums, and culture in the United States and served as an inspiration for social justice internationally. This unique two-volume set provides readers with an understanding of Black Power's important role in the turbulence, social change, and politics of the 1960s and 1970s in America and how the concepts of the movement continue to influence contemporary Black politics, culture, and identity. Cross-disciplinary and broad in its approach, Black Power Encyclopedia: From "Black Is Beautiful" to Urban Uprisings explores the emergence and evolution of the Black Power Movement in the United States some 50 years ago. The entries examine the key players, organizations and institutions, trends, and events of the period, enabling readers to better understand the ways in which African Americans broke through racial barriers, developed a positive identity, and began to feel united through racial pride and the formation of important social change organizations. The encyclopedia also covers the important impact of the more militant segments of the movement, such as Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam and the Black Panthers.