Book Selections

Metaracism: How Systemic Racism Devastates Black Lives--and How We Break Free-review

"Draws a direct line between redlining, incarceration, and gentrification in an American city. This book shows how a century of redlining, disinvestment, and the War on Drugs wreaked devastation on Black people and paved the way for gentrification in Washington, DC. In Before Gentrification, Tanya Maria Golash-Boza tracks the cycles of state abandonment and punishment that have shaped the city, revealing how policies and policing work to displace and decimate the Black middle class. Through the stories of those who have lost their homes and livelihoods, Golash-Boza explores how DC came to be the nation's "Murder Capital" and incarceration capital, and why it is now a haven for wealthy White people. This troubling history makes clear that the choice to use prisons and policing to solve problems faced by Black communities in the twentieth century-instead of investing in schools, community centers, social services, health care, and violence prevention-is what made gentrification possible in the twenty-first. Before Gentrification unveils a pattern of anti-Blackness and racial capitalism in DC that has implications for all US cities"--

"The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the least examined crisis in American history. Beginning with the myths inspired by Reagan's war on drugs, journalist Donovan X. Ramsey's exacting work exposes the undeniable links between the last triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement and the consequences we live with today--a racist criminal justice system, continued mass incarceration and gentrification, and increased police brutality. When Crack Was King follows four individuals to give us a startling portrait of crack's destruction and devastating legacy. Elgin Swift, an archetype of American industry and ambition and son of a crack-addicted father who turned their home into a "crack house"; Lennie Woodley, a former crack addict and a sex worker; Kurt Schmoke, former mayor of Baltimore and an early advocate of decriminalization; and lastly, Shawn McCray, community activist, basketball prodigy, and a founding member of the Zoo Crew, Newark's most legendary group of drug traffickers"--

"In this honest and welcoming book, diversity and inclusion expert, professor, and award-winning speaker Dr. Omekongo Dibinga argues that we must embark on a massive undertaking to re-educate ourselves on the stereotypes that have proven harmful, and too often deadly, to the Black community"--

Arab Americans are one of the most misunderstood segments of the U.S. population, especially after the events of 9/11. In Arab America, Nadine Naber tells the stories of second generation Arab American young adults living in the San Francisco Bay Area, most of whom are political activists engaged in two culturalist movements that draw on the conditions of diaspora, a Muslim global justice and a Leftist Arab movement.Writing from a transnational feminist perspective, Naber reveals the complex and at times contradictory cultural and political processes through which Arabness is forged in the contemporary United States, and explores the apparently intra-communal cultural concepts of religion, family, gender, and sexuality as the battleground on which Arab American young adults and the looming world of America all wrangle. As this struggle continues, these young adults reject Orientalist thought, producing counter-narratives that open up new possibilities for transcending the limitations of Orientalist, imperialist, and conventional nationalist articulations of self, possibilities that ground concepts of religion, family, gender, and sexuality in some of the most urgent issues of our times: immigration politics, racial justice struggles, and U.S. militarism and war.

Reveals how presidents deploy a rhetoric that attempts to attract many racial and ethnic groups, but ultimately directs itself to an archtypal white, Middle-American swing voter.

An "erudite, comprehensive" analysis of Latinx identity in the United States as it relates to American culture, society, and politics (Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, author of Racism Without Racists) "Latinx" (pronounced "La-teen-ex") is the gender-neutral term that covers one of the largest and fastest growing minorities in the United States, accounting for 17 percent of the country. Over 58 million Americans belong to the category, including a sizable part of the country's working class, both foreign and native-born. Their political empowerment is altering the balance of forces in a growing number of states. And yet Latinx barely figure in America's ongoing conversation about race and ethnicity. Remarkably, the US census does not even have a racial category for "Latino." In this groundbreaking discussion, Ed Morales explains how Latinx political identities are tied to a long Latin American history of mestizaje--"mixedness" or "hybridity"--and that this border thinking is both a key to understanding bilingual, bicultural Latin cultures and politics and a challenge to America's infamously black-white racial regime. This searching and long-overdue exploration of the meaning of race in American life reimagines Cornel West's bestselling Race Matters with a unique Latinx inflection.

Explores the ways science, politics, and large corporations affect race in the twenty-first century, discussing the efforts and results of the Human Genome Project, and describing how technology-driven science researchers are developing a genetic definition of race.;Explores the ways science, politics, and large corporations affect race in the twenty-first century, discussing the efforts and results of the Human Genome Project, and describing how technology-driven science researchers are developing a genetic definition of race

Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism--and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas--from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities--that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves. Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society. Praise for How to Be an Antiracist "Ibram X. Kendi's new book, How to Be an Antiracist, couldn't come at a better time. . . . Kendi has gifted us with a book that is not only an essential instruction manual but also a memoir of the author's own path from anti-black racism to anti-white racism and, finally, to antiracism. . . .  How to Be an Antiracist gives us a clear and compelling way to approach, as Kendi puts it in his introduction, 'the basic struggle we're all in, the struggle to be fully human and to see that others are fully human.' "--NPR "Kendi dissects why in a society where so few people consider themselves to be racist the divisions and inequalities of racism remain so prevalent. How to Be an Antiracist punctures the myths of a post-racial America, examining what racism really is--and what we should do about it."--Time