Antiracism, Cultural Competency & Civil Rights

"Through the stories of five American families, a masterful and timely exploration of how hope, history, and racial denial collide in the suburbs and their schools Outside Atlanta, a middle-class Black family faces off with a school system seemingly bent on punishing their teenage son. North of Dallas, a conservative white family relocates to an affluent suburban enclave, but can't escape the changes sweeping the country. On Chicago's North Shore, a multiracial mom throws herself into an ultra-progressive challenge to the town's liberal status quo. In Compton, California, whose suburban roots are now barely recognizable, undocumented Hispanic parents place their gifted son's future in the hands of educators at a remarkable elementary school. And outside Pittsburgh, a Black mother buys a home on the same street where the author grew up, then confronts the destructive legacy left behind by white families like his. Education journalist Benjamin Herold's ability to braid these compelling human stories together with local and national history makes Disillusioned an astonishing reading experience, along with an urgent argument that America's suburbs and their schools are locked into a destructive cycle that has brought the country to a point of crisis. For generations, white families have reaped the benefits of massive federal investment in suburbia, then moved on as social and political infrastructure began to fail, leaving the mostly Black and brown families who follow to clean up the ensuing mess. Now, though, the suburbs are caught between rapidly shifting demographics and the reality that endless expansion is no longer feasible. Forced to confront truths that their communities were built to avoid, everyday suburban families find themselves at the center of the nation's most pressing debates: How do we repair America's divided communities? How do we build a future for all our children? In exploring these questions, Herold pulls back the curtain on suburban public schools and school boards, which he persuasively argues are the new ground zero in the fight for the country's future. Herold brings together research on the effects of racism on everyone with empathetic portrayals of families of wildly different backgrounds and perspectives. Nothing short of a journalistic masterpiece, Disillusioned brings readers face-to-face with the roots of America's discontent. Then, alongside the Black mother from his old neighborhood, who contributes a powerful epilogue to the book, Herold offers a hopeful path toward renewal"--

"When the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, the black community owned less than one percent of the United States' total wealth. More than one hundred and fifty years later, that number has barely budged. The Color of Money seeks to explain the stubborn persistence of this racial wealth gap by focusing on the generators of wealth in the black community: black banks. With the civil rights movement in full swing, President Nixon promoted "black capitalism," a plan to support black banks and minority-owned businesses. But the catch-22 of black banking is that the very institutions needed to help communities escape the deep poverty caused by discrimination and segregation inevitably became victims of that same poverty. In this timely and eye-opening account, Baradaran challenges the long-standing belief that black communities could ever really hope to accumulate wealth in a segregated economy"--Back cover.

Despite political and social progress, African Americans still lag far behind economically.

"A groundbreaking expose�� of racism in the American taxation system from a law professor and expert on tax policy. Dorothy A. Brown became a tax lawyer to get away from race. As a young black girl growing up in the South Bronx, she'd seen how racism limited the lives of her family and neighbors. Her law school classes offered a refreshing contrast: Tax law was about numbers, and the only color that mattered was green. But when Brown sat down to prepare tax returns for her parents, she found something strange: James and Dottie Brown, a plumber and a nurse, seemed to be paying an unusually high percentage of their income in taxes. When Brown became a law professor, she set out to understand why. In The Whiteness of Wealth, Brown draws on decades of cross-disciplinary research to show that tax law isn't as color-blind as she'd once believed. She takes us into her adopted city of Atlanta, introducing us to families across the economic spectrum whose stories demonstrate how American tax law rewards the preferences and practices of white people while pushing black people further behind. From attending college to getting married to buying a home, black Americans find themselves at a financial disadvantage compared to their white peers. The results are an ever-increasing wealth gap and more black families shut out of the American dream. Solving the problem will require a wholesale rethinking of America's tax code. But it will also require both black and white Americans to make different choices. This urgent, actionable book points the way forward"--

"Learn how to address racial wealth disparity in the United States today From the life, professional experiences, and research of former Harvard Business School professor Steven Rogers, comes his boldly stated, A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues. This informative epistle investigates the causes of racial wealth disparity in the United States and provides solutions for addressing it. Through extensive data and historical research, anecdotes, teaching, and case studies, it presents practical ways White people can work with and help the Black community. It teaches readers that eliminating the $153,000 wealth gap between Black and White people is the solution to over 75% of our problems and offers solutions to help improve Black-White racial relations in the United States. In straightforward language, filled with facts, stories, advice, and sometimes even humor, A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues encourages every White person to share his/her wealth with the Black comm unity--plain and simple. This book recommends that you spend a portion of your annual household budget with Black-owned companies. If more money is spent at Black-owned businesses, those companies can grow and create more jobs for Black people. Rogers also proposes White people make large savings deposits into Black-owned banks. These are the financial institutions that are the backbone of the Black community that provide loans to the Black community for businesses, education, automobiles, and home mortgages. And finally, he resolutely encourages White people to support government reparations to Black Americans who are descendants of Black men and women, who were enslaved from 1619 to 1865. Those who read the book will: Understand the root causes of racial disparities in America Discover how you can personally contribute to reducing the inequality between Black and White people in the United States today Get concrete recommendations on how to redirect your spending to Black-owned insti tutions to help decrease the racial wealth gap."--

"The great American racial wound is periodically hidden from our view, covered over by civil rights legislation, by the economic success of a few people of color who are held up as evidence of its suture, and by the widespread denial of its existence by white Americans. Now, as the number of Black men and boys shot down by the police or by armed white citizens mounts, as anti-immigration rhetoric increases in stridency and Band-Aid solutions by “progressives” are offered in response, as income inequality deepens, the scab is torn away. Structural inequality seems more entrenched than ever and the denial of white Americans both more inexplicable and more intractable. However, the evidence of ongoing racism seems insufficient either to convince white Americans that racism is both real and matters or to compel them to address racism in any systemic way."

A compelling study of a subtle and insidious form of racial inequality in American law and culture. Why does racial equality continue to elude African Americans even after the election of a black president? Liberals blame white racism while conservatives blame black behavior. Both define the race problem in socioeconomic terms, mainly citing jobs, education, and policing. Roy Brooks, a distinguished legal scholar, argues that the reality is more complex. He defines the race problem African Americans face today as a three-headed hydra involving socioeconomic, judicial, and cultural conditions. Focusing on law and culture, Brooks defines the problem largely as racial subordination-"the act of impeding racial progress in pursuit of nonracist interests." Racial subordination is little understood and underacknowledged, yet it produces devastating and even deadly racial consequences that affect both poor and socioeconomically successful African Americans. Brooks addresses a serious problem, in many ways more dangerous than overt racism, and offers a well-reasoned solution that draws upon the strongest virtues America has exhibited to the world.