Author: Rodney D Smith
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780997524109
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 184
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Book Description
Are We Really Crabs in a Barrel challenges a long-held belief that has permeated the African American community that suggests that Blacks, generally, are not supportive of each other. Author and educator, Rodney D. Smith, tenaciously confronts the age-old myth that African Americans stand in the way, and even thwart the progress of other African Americans, similar to what has been viewed as analogous behavior in crabs--the marine life form. The gaze of Black America is the central target of the book as it aims to get the Black community, collectively, to see itself differently. Smith astutely asserts that "we [Blacks] often compare ourselves to crabs without giving full consideration to either life form, humans or crabs." He states further that "we must consider that crabs are not intended to live in barrels, and neither are humans." Throughout the book, Smith implores the reader to see the proverbial barrel as one and the same with the dire conditions many African Americans find themselves in today. America's racialized history of degradation, marginalization and discrimination is understood as, not only the backdrop to contemporary setbacks, but is recognized as the key determinant for many of today's barriers and obstacles. In the end, Are We Really Crabs in a Barrel is a direct challenge to Black America and an inferred challenge to the rest of America to interrogate some of the conditions history has caused. It is also a call to action. It urges Black hands and minds to concentrate their energies on collective transformation in order to combat the long-standing effects of racism. Above all, Smith encourages African Americans to question, and in due course, change their less than favorable attitudes and behaviors toward each other.
Author: Marcus Garvey
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 048611385X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
This anthology contains some of the African-American rights advocate's most noted writings and speeches, among them "Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World" and "Africa for the Africans."
Author: Caspar Henderson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022604470X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 448
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Book Description
From medieval bestiaries to Borges’s Book of Imaginary Beings, we’ve long been enchanted by extraordinary animals, be they terrifying three-headed dogs or asps impervious to a snake charmer’s song. But bestiaries are more than just zany zoology—they are artful attempts to convey broader beliefs about human beings and the natural order. Today, we no longer fear sea monsters or banshees. But from the infamous honey badger to the giant squid, animals continue to captivate us with the things they can do and the things they cannot, what we know about them and what we don’t. With The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Caspar Henderson offers readers a fascinating, beautifully produced modern-day menagerie. But whereas medieval bestiaries were often based on folklore and myth, the creatures that abound in Henderson’s book—from the axolotl to the zebrafish—are, with one exception, very much with us, albeit sometimes in depleted numbers. The Book of Barely Imagined Beings transports readers to a world of real creatures that seem as if they should be made up—that are somehow more astonishing than anything we might have imagined. The yeti crab, for example, uses its furry claws to farm the bacteria on which it feeds. The waterbear, meanwhile, is among nature’s “extreme survivors,” able to withstand a week unprotected in outer space. These and other strange and surprising species invite readers to reflect on what we value—or fail to value—and what we might change. A powerful combination of wit, cutting-edge natural history, and philosophical meditation, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings is an infectious and inspiring celebration of the sheer ingenuity and variety of life in a time of crisis and change.
Author: Citizens Against Government Waste
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 146685314X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212
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Book Description
The federal government wastes your tax dollars worse than a drunken sailor on shore leave. The 1984 Grace Commission uncovered that the Department of Defense spent $640 for a toilet seat and $436 for a hammer. Twenty years later things weren't much better. In 2004, Congress spent a record-breaking $22.9 billion dollars of your money on 10,656 of their pork-barrel projects. The war on terror has a lot to do with the record $413 billion in deficit spending, but it's also the result of pork over the last 18 years the likes of: - $50 million for an indoor rain forest in Iowa - $102 million to study screwworms which were long ago eradicated from American soil - $273,000 to combat goth culture in Missouri - $2.2 million to renovate the North Pole (Lucky for Santa!) - $50,000 for a tattoo removal program in California - $1 million for ornamental fish research Funny in some instances and jaw-droppingly stupid and wasteful in others, The Pig Book proves one thing about Capitol Hill: pork is king!
Author: Brian McClellan
Publisher: Sherian Pub
ISBN: 9780979567650
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221
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Book Description
'I Love Black People! I Just Can't Help It.' 'A Love Letter to Black People: Audaciously Hopeful Thoughts on Race and Success' by Brian McClellan is a book sure to challenge and inspire those who have this type of deep affection for the Black community but also deep concerns for its future. Inspired in part by the historic political success of Senator Barack Obama, 'Love Letter' explores the unique way high achieving African Americans view race and success and why, for the love of the Black community, all Black people must apply these lessons. The insightfulness of McClellan's discussion in 'Love Letter' is bolstered by a supporting survey about race and success completed by more than 100 young, Black business and community leaders. Their opinions regarding provocative racially charged topics such as 'acting white' are inspirational, thought-provoking and sometimes more provocative than the questions themselves. 'Love Letter' is a must read for those who love Black people and just can't help it!
Author: Benjamin Keach
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Grace (Theology)
Languages : en
Pages : 540
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Book Description
Author: Jeff VanderMeer
Publisher: FSG Originals
ISBN: 0374710775
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM ALEX GARLAND, STARRING NATALIE PORTMAN AND OSCAR ISAAC The Southern Reach Trilogy begins with Annihilation, the Nebula Award-winning novel that "reads as if Verne or Wellsian adventurers exploring a mysterious island had warped through into a Kafkaesque nightmare world" (Kim Stanley Robinson). Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide; the third expedition in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition. The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself. They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding—but it's the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.
Author: Heather McGhee
Publisher: One World
ISBN: 0525509585
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 465
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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • One of today’s most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of color. WINNER OF THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ms. magazine, BookRiot, Library Journal “This is the book I’ve been waiting for.”—Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist Look for the author’s podcast, The Sum of Us, based on this book! Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out? McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm—the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she meets white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams, and their shot at better jobs to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country—from parks and pools to functioning schools—have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world’s advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare. But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: the benefits we gain when people come together across race to accomplish what we simply can’t do on our own. The Sum of Us is not only a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here but also a heartfelt message, delivered with startling empathy, from a black woman to a multiracial America. It leaves us with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than a zero-sum game. LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL
Author: Sharon M. Draper
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1442489138
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 25
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Book Description
The death of high school basketball star Rob Washington in an automobile accident affects the lives of his close friend Andy, who was driving the car, and many others in the school.
Author: Travis Nichols
Publisher: Coffee House Press
ISBN: 1566892708
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 287
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Book Description
Titled after the US Air Force song, this engaging debut explores the legacy of the Greatest Generation from the perspective of Generation Y, the fallout of war through the eyes of a pacifist, and the enduring human desire for love, adventure, truth, and understanding. Pensive in the wake of 9/11, a young man—our “correspondent between the past and the present”—launches a mission to reunite his beloved grandfather, an American bombardier, with Luddie, the woman who saved him during WWII. Armed only with the address on the back of an old photograph and his grandfather’s memories, the young man begins writing letters to Luddie. Undaunted by her lack of response, the narrator travels to Poland with his girlfriend and grandfather. As they come closer to finding the site where the bombardier was shot down, the letters to Luddie become more personal and the saga of a family with a long and storied history emerges. Beautifully orchestrated and eloquently original, each sentence slowly builds upon the next in a charming style both poetic and engrossing. A tale of soldiers and saviors, of burning and bombing, of fathers and sons and brothers and lovers, this is also the story of what we find when we dare to revisit the past. Born in Iowa in 1979, Travis Nichols now lives in Chicago. An editor at the Poetry Foundation, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Believer, Details, Paste, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and The Stranger. Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder is his first novel.
