Reddit mentions: The best african-american & black biographies

I love science books. These are all on my bookshelf/around my apt. They aren't all chemistry, but they appeal to my science senses:

I got a coffee table book once as a gift. It's Theodore Gray's The Elements. It's beautiful, but like I said, more of a coffee table book. It's got a ton of very cool info about each atom though.

I tried The Immortal Life of Henrieta Lacks, which is all about the people and family behind HeLa cells. That was a big hit, but I didn't care for it.

I liked The Emperor of all Maladies which took a long time to read, but was super cool. It's essentially a biography of cancer. (Actually I think that's it's subtitle)

The Wizard of Quarks and Alice in Quantumland are both super cute allegories relating to partical physics and quantum physics respectively. I liked them both, though they felt low-level, tying them to high-level physics resulted in a fun read.

Unscientific America I bought on a whim and didn't really enjoy since it wasn't science enough.

The Ghost Map was a suuuper fun read about Cholera. I love reading about mass-epidemics and plague.

The Bell that Rings Light, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, Schrödinger's Kittens, The Fabric of the Cosmos and Beyond the God Particle are all pleasure reading books that are really primers on Quantum.

I also tend to like anything by Mary Roach, which isn't necessarily chemistry or science, but is amusing and feels informative. I started with Stiff but she has a few others that I also enjoyed.

Have fun!

You are baptized, so you're Catholic.

1. To rejoin the Church you start attending Mass on Sundays, you can go to confession, and you talk to the priest. You'll probably have to go through RCIA before you can receive Communion (and you'll be confirmed).
   
   
2. You'll find that the church stances depend on the core beliefs and practices; it depends on what you mean by stances. Some things are matter of faith - we are required to assent to the teachings that all killing of the innocent is absolutely evil, etc. Does that mean we do it well all the time? No. It is absolutely useless to try to convince the Church to change on those things, so the best way to take them is to say, "I do not see how this can be, but the Church says it" and ask God for insight. As you learn more about the Faith, you start to see how everything fits together, and how "necessary evils" that the Church forbids are often the result of other evils that the Church also forbids. (Note that this has to do with beliefs of the Church; ideas of specific churchmen are in a different level; being Catholic doesn't mean you have to support a specific economic idea, even if some do. It's more about keeping the Truths of the Faith in view.)
   
   
3. The Church has not split in any major way since the Orthodox wandered outside into the garden, where they seem happy to remain. There are factions inside the Church who are grumbling at each other - the way to understand this is that the Church is a family which includes everything that goes along with it - the devoted children who believe Dad is basically God, the rebellious teenagers who don't want to listen to Dad because he's not cool (but will call to be picked up late at night when they're worried), the Mom who loves Dad beyond belief but can't understand what he's doing, the Grandma who keeps talking about how it was in her day, and so on. Remember that anyone who says "The Church says" or "You must say" needs to back it up with the Magisterium. The way the Church works is that we trust in the Authority of God, who manifests His Authority through the world; if you have a question you ask your pastor; if he's wrong, God will let you know in time. Becoming more Catholic than the Pope is not recommended - knowing the Truth the Church teaches is good, but if you cannot see how something said applies, it may be your understanding that is missing. Living in the Church is much more about those around you and trying to be Christ to them than determining the exact doctrinal specifications - salvation is a process not a checklist.
   
   
4. I would recommend reading some books - Rome Sweet Home is good, as is No Price Too High. You can also start going to your local parish, and get to know the pastor. After Mass, tell him you're interested in the faith and would like to go to dinner or something at some point. You might find a rare grouchy priest, but God will look out for you. You may also want to see if there's an FSSP parish nearby, they'll do the older form of the Mass, which can be quite beautiful and often strikes people differently.
   
   THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER THAT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON EARTH CONSISTS OF SINNERS
   
   You will meet bad Catholics, good Catholics, extremely holy Catholics, racist Catholics, altruistic Catholics, annoying Catholics, intelligent Catholics, dumb Catholics, reddit Catholics, traditional Catholics, and more. The Church on earth "the Church Militant" has many imperfections, many people working out their salvation in fear and trembling. We are called to be loving to them as Christ would be loving to them, which is what He wants us to do. God so loves everyone that He wants to share the joy of this love with us, and the way to do that is to sacrifice for others as Christ sacrificed for us all.

I don't rely on "paleo" evidence to determine appropriate human diets, but I do like reading it. I think the best application for it is learning about the environment that our basic systems evolved within. But the maximum you can conclude from the best paleo evidence is that whatever diet was consumed was sufficient for reproductive success under the conditions that existed at the time. The milieu of human evolution involved: a specific environment and climate (African savannah); a spectrum of foods eaten; a certain amount of exercise (lots, constantly); frequent parasitic infection and physical wounds that had to be survived; whatever microbiome we had then; food scarcity; complex cultural factors; and selection pressure to have many children and see them into adulthood, but not to live a long time.

Whatever we can conclude about diet applies only to that environment. If some of the variables change, uncertainty is introduced. A trait or strategy that was beneficial could become the opposite, or could be completely irrelevant. Thus, I prefer to look to human populations from the last 100 years. Not only do they live in an environment much more similar to mine, but we can actually gather accurate data on their dietary patterns and their health outcomes.

That said, I like this book for thoughts on dietary animal products and macronutrient ratios: The Paleoanthropology and Archaeology of Big-Game Hunting

A short paper as a reminder that all "just so stories" should be questioned, because even the most basic "paleo" hypothesis, the thrifty genotype, is contested: Evolutionary Perspectives on the Obesity Epidemic

This one is fascinating for social factors: Egalitarian Behavior and Reverse Dominance Hierarchy

And this one is just a great ethnology, especially for considering gender roles and what makes us happy: Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman

I pretty much only read non-fiction, so I'm all about books that are educational but also interesting :) I'm not sure what your educational background is, so depending on how interested you are in particular subjects, I have many recommendations.

Naked Statistics and Nate Silver's Book are both good!

Feeling Good is THE book on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.

The Omnivore's Dilemma is good, as is Eating Animals (granted, Eating Animals is aimed at a particular type of eating)

Guns, Germs and Steel is very good.

I also very much enjoyed The Immortal Live of Henrietta Lacks, as well as Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman :)

edit to add: Chris Hadfield's Book which I haven't received yet but it's going to be amazing.

As /u/seppi56210 mentioned, /r/Catholicism is a great resource. Definitely check it out.

As for books outlining this journey, with you coming from a Lutheran background, I'd recommend Scott Hahn's Rome Sweet Home, Devin Rose's Navigating The Tiber, Trent Horn's Why We're Catholic and Deacon Alex Jones' No Price Too High.

As far as books dealing, historically, with the Reformation and Great Schism, that may depend on exactly how academic you want to get. What sort of historical context are you looking for? I'll see how I can help.

And, lastly, as for that Rosary... keep learning to pray it, and stick with it, even when it seems dry or mundane. I recommend the following reflections as starting points for meditations as you go through each decade:

The Joyful Mysteries

The Luminous Mysteries

The Sorrowful Mysteries

The Glorious Mysteries

I'll say an extra prayer for your journey today, and feel free to reach out via PM with any other questions or if you need any other guidance.

Peace to you!

DK

>So your response comes down to "You just don't understand" and "you're not educated"

Well, when answering these specific questions, yes.

>Maybe it's just not reasonable to expect a white person to truly have a black point of view.

I would never "expect a white person to have a black point of view". That is exactly the point I am trying to make. No white person can understand "a black point of view" on a fundamental level, but a white person can understand an extensive historical record of oppression and recognize how it changes the lives of the historically oppressed, especially when those very same people describe a way in which that historical oppression manifests in the present day.

>Maybe it's not reasonable to expect a person of any race to put somebody else's interests before their own.

Eh, I don't really expect people to do this. I want them to do it. I believe wholeheartedly that putting another's interests before your own is one of the most amazingly unique, human things that we are capable of doing. Action that can be interpreted as selfless is something that separates us from most, if not ALL less intelligent animals. If you don't agree, I'm not necessarily surprised. I don't expect you to hold this view. I only hope.

>Re-examine your beliefts.

Always do, always will ;-)

In fact, should you happen upon me in the correct scenario, you might see me arguing against stereotypically-"SJW" viewpoints, precisely because I have done my best not to accept wholesale the ideas of any other person, ever.

I'll (potentially) end this discussion with the following quote, from YOU:

>If you don't want me to judge black politicos based on what I see and hear from them, then I need access to their real message. Not the PR message tailored for those like me, the raw and uncut message. That is what you should be basing your faith in these people on.

If you want access to the "real message", then I advise you not reject the message given to you on first glance. For fuck's sake, go to one of these "segregated" discussion groups that spawned this thread and actually spend some time meeting people who are different from you and listen. Try your best not to resolve to attack the messages therein and instead question them as a child would, in an attempt to understand from a more fundamental and deeper level. I know I have; it's precisely why I've gone from someone who rejects this type of theory to someone who feels deeply committed to it.

I have spent more time on this website than I care to admit attempting to understand the actual arguments of people who rail against "SJWs" and their ilk. I've done hours upon hours of research, dissected innumerable arguments. I grew up in an environment where I was friendly with and regularly conversed with people who are very ideologically different that I am now. I implore you to really consider how much you've attempted to challenge yourself on this issue and others, as my genuine belief is that anyone who spends enough time on this topic will come to believe something much more similar to what I believe. I would be insane to not believe otherwise.

____

tl;dr: I really hope you read the entirety of the above and consider it, but if you don't (and especially if you do) I request that you immerse yourself for a bit longer than you are used to in some of the following material. Note that I would never assert that none of the below is infallible or devoid of bias, but it is certainly worth your time and (I believe) would be a significant challenge (in the competitive sense) to the way you think about these issues. Let your ideas battle it out after you consume the following media, really wrestle with the minutiae of everything you take in. It's worth it.

1. 13th - A highly critically acclaimed documentary, noted for how meticulously it pursues and highlights the facts of race in America
   
   
   
2. Between the World and Me - A short book taking the form of a letter from black father to black son, written by one of the greatest living American writers (IMO)
   
   
3. The Case for Reparations - An article by the same author detailing the ways in which the legacy of slavery still holds black Americans down. One of the best pieces of journalism I've ever read, and extremely informative. (I'd like to point out that reparations for slavery - that is, monetary recompense for slavery - are not something that all "black politicos" believe should happen, nor something that I necessarily believe should happen either)
   
   There is plenty more, but the first and third listed here are particularly easy to consume and I'd suggest you read/watch them.
   
   
   EDIT: would also love some recommendations of movies/documentaries/books that YOU believe would change MY beliefs. I'm always in search of that.

• The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract This book will give you a great overview of the game from 1870 to 1999. Breaks the game down by decades and what the game was like and how it changed. Also ranks the top 100 players at each position. Really anything by James is an entertaining read, but this is the must have for baseball conversation.
  
• Baseball Prospectus - Baseball Between the Numbers A good introductory course into the newer sabrmetrics. It will answer many questions in depth about what was going on as far as player evaluation in Moneyball.
  
• Tom Tango - The Book Much more advanced sabrmetrics but very current and groundbreaking. The author started on the internet, and last offseason secured a job working for the Seattle Mariners.
  
  The next three are to give you a better view of the game from the players/owners perspective.
  
  
• Veeck as in Wreck Bill Veeck was one hell of a guy. His father was president of the Cubs in the 30's, and Bill would go on to own his fair share of teams. Always an individual, he stood against the baseball ownership cabal on many occasions. Spent the last years of his life watching the Cubs from the center field bleachers. His autobiography is humorous and insightful. A must read for any baseball fan.
  
• Buck O'Neil - I was Right on Time Called the soul of negro league baseball, Buck O'Neil recounts his playing days in the negro leagues, and covers many of the legends in a very matter of fact way.
  
• Jim Bouton - Ball Four Last but not least is former Yankee star, now washed up knuckleballer Jim Bouton recalling the inaugural season of the short lived Seattle Pilots. Baseball players in all their vulgar glory. Also will teach you the fine art of "shooting beaver".

> The reason money is so important is because they do need people's votes.

And that is why both parties ultimately work for the same people. The rich. Because they need their money.

> He got in because tons of idiots wanted to have a beer with him.

It's actually quite a bit more sophisticated and sinister than that. Politicians get people to vote for them by creating in the minds of their target audience something like a personal connection - an identification. Bush excelled at doing this with the Republican base. Obama excels at doing it with the Democratic base. That is the purpose that things like books, websites named "myBarackObama.org", and the marketing campaigns fulfill.

So in the same way that Conservatives looked at Bush, and thought he was a good guy, down to earth, homey, unpretentious in that aw-shucks way middle America likes so much (basically all those things that presses that demographics' subconscious buttons) Liberals looked at Obama, at his life-story narrative, his cool, calm, rational demeanor, abundantly apparent intelligence and eloquence, and that just pressed all their buttons the right way. And this is why despite all the evidence to the contrary, they persist in thinking he somehow means well, is trying to do good, is trying to help the little people, etc. etc. Even though in reality he's just like Bush. Just a guy who wanted to get his ass into office, and to get there he cut deals w/ the establishment and basically sold out, and now that he's in office he's basically doing what the powerful, the rich, the interest groups that really call the shots in the country, want done.

> You mean cutting taxes on the rich while initiating a massive ground war

Both of which Obama continued. The Iraq withdrawal btw was plans drawn up during BushCo.

> undermining dictators through NATO actions with no boots on the ground

Aka starting yet another War for Oil. The US simply doesn't care about dictators, as long as they're "our bastards." Only if they have something we want, or are completely uncooperative in our scheme to militarily dominate and control their part of the world, do we demonize them and seek to regime change them.

So in fact, the proper way to assess Obama is that he continued all of Bush's wars, tried to complete the task of finishing the conquest and pacifying them, and even started new ones of his own.

> raising taxes on the upper class

He's just posturing for re-election purposes. He's not serious about it.

http://www.ianwelsh.net/tax-increases-on-the-rich/

Stop second-guessing your choice of major. Keep your eyes on what you actually want, and remember that the steps along the way will all build there eventually. Check in on your plans when you're picking classes each semester, to make sure you're still on course and still want that ultimate goal. The REU and some lab time will all help.

Try reading some science-related books, not actual science but stuff about scientists themselves or stories about specific scientific discoveries. Like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Double Helix, Eighth Day of Creation, The Disappearing Spoon, and Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman. Your school should have copies of most of them, and they aren't textbook-heavy (though not quite as light as fiction novels).

Don't forget to stay at least a little rounded. Someone on just about every recruitment weekend for grad school will ask about your hobbies. I'm pretty sure they're required to do so :) Or you'll discover you and your interviewer both do ceramics and can chat about that, leaving a stronger impression than if you were yet another person talking about science. It's good to be done with the requirements, but make sure you keep up something outside your major, even if it's just ultimate frisbee.

That one is good, but honestly, read Ta-Nehisi Coates' two most recent books. We Were Eight Years in Power as well as Between the World and Me.

The first one is several fantastic essays about black issues and the black experience in America. The second is written as a letter to his son about what it means to be black in America. They are very eye opening. Toni Morrison called BTWAM "required reading" for every American and I'd agree for both books. They're not too long and a great resource for understanding the Black experience written by a modern public intellectual at the pinnacle of his power. Seriously, the dude writes extremely well.

Catholics understand that Christ established one Church. There is only one body of Christ and you are already part of it even if you are imperfectly joined to it. As Paul wrote to the Ephesians, we share the same body, spirit, hope, Lord, faith, baptism, God, and Father. But it was Christ's last prayer on earth that we be united so that the world would believe him. As a convert to Catholicism, I am honored that I was given the opportunity to answer Jesus' dying wish. How cool is that?

This weekend I went to a retreat held by a former Pentecostal minister who converted along with several members of his family and a large portion of his congregation. You might be interested in his book: http://amzn.com/0898709199

This is an absolutely fascinating story. In college I took this History of Science course and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was one of the course books. It was a great read, very fair to all sides with good research but really great storytelling too. Totally recommend it if you like nonfiction that has to do with science but is actually written for fun reading.

The story of Henrietta Lacks is super interesting, but also really sad. Her cells were harvested at a blacks only hospital without her consent or notification. Later, the doc who harvested them went on to make buckets of money selling the cell line to researchers all over the place. People still make buckets of money off that line, and her family never saw, and will never see, a dime of it.

It wasn't all bad, though, as her cell line also helped to produce standards for cell culturing/storage/growth/an entire industry that all began with her cell line. It literally started a new era of research.

If you ever get a chance to read Skloot's book give it a read. Very eye-opening for me in terms of patient rights and medical ethics at the time.

EDIT: As /u/Halsfield pointed out, there actually has been a legal development in the situation. Two of her surviving family members now sit on a committee that controls scientific access to the DNA, as well as recognition in published papers using this line. There's no reported financial compensation, but apparently the family wasn't all that interested in cashing in. In fact, it sounds like it's opened up a ton of lucrative speaking engagements for her remaining family. I'm glad to see a happy ending, hats off to Rebecca Skloot. Without her, Henrietta would be nothing more than a footnote in history.

EDIT2: I am not as good with details as I'd hoped. Hopkins, where she was admitted, had a black wing and a white wing, and the Dr. who collected the sample did not make buckets of cash. It did spring a healthy business producing/shipping the cells to other researchers, but buckets of money might not be the best description. For clarity's sake I'm leaving my original comment as is.

Thanks! I just wish I could say there were more good things on the list.

And thanks for the Patton recommendation, I'll check that out.

I do recommend anything by John McPhee in the strongest possible terms. It's all non-fiction, and always interesting and often very funny, and about a tremendous range of topics.

Like fishing? Read The Founding Fish, which is all about the American Shad, and I mentioned before.

Like boats? Looking For a Ship is about the merchant marine.

Planes, trains, and automobiles (and more boats)? Uncommon Carriers deals with all of them, and why almost all lobster eaten in the US comes from Kentucky.

Care for tales about why New Orleans is doomed, pissing on lava , and debris flows in LA? The Control of Nature covers those.

Fruit? How about Oranges?

Geology? The Annals of the Former World is a compilation of several shorter books more or less following I-80 across the US.

Sports? Tennis (and basketball to a lesser extent). He's also written about lacrosse in various magazines.

...And a ton of other stuff, ranging from bears to farmers markets to nuclear energy to lifting body airplanes to Switzerland.

John McPhee's Levels of the Game is a great illustration of Arthur Ashe playing Clark Graebner in the 1968 US Open. It shows what went through Ashe's and Graebner minds when they were playing and you can really see how much strategy goes into a tennis match.



The way both Ashe and Grabner's personal stories are woven into the narrative is nice too. You can see that L. Jon Werthiem was, inspired by this book when he wrote Strokes of Genius, as they both are stuctured similarly.

After reading this, I really appreciate how talented Arthur Ash was, and also how much skill serve-and-volley tennis takes.

http://www.amazon.com/Levels-Game-John-McPhee/dp/0374515263

I really recommends this to any tennis fan, player or not!

On the basis of Indian Creek Chronicles, I'd say there's a good chance you'd get a great deal out of The Outermost House, one of the classics of modern American naturalist non-fiction. The premise if very simple -- the author, Henry Beston, spent a year living in virtual solitude on the easternmost house on the American coast, keeping notes on what he observed. The result is a brief, zen-like meditation on nature's movement through a single place over a single cycle of the seasons. Highly influential.

Since it looks like you're interested in the cultural conflict between modernity and tradition, I'd suggest The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, which follows the treatment of a young Hmong girl whose immigrant parents struggle with the California health care system in dealing with her undiagnosed seizures.

Great to see John McPhee on your list -- hands down one of my favorite non-fiction writers. Just about anything he's written will be compulsively informative and shift the way you think about his chosen topic. Levels of the Game is a brilliant depiction of a single game between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner, that delves into the way in which personal biography informs how an athlete plays and ultimately contributes to the meaning of the game.

Along similar lines, Yusanari Kawabata's The Master of Go deals with damn near close to all of the themes at heart in the books listed above, and will likely teach you a little about the ancient game of Go, if you have any interest in that. An idiosyncratic pick, perhaps, but it's one of my favorite novels.

Classism definitely exists, but like everything else doesn't exist in a bubble. Class, race, gender, sex, age...these things all intersect and interact in ways that make social realities for people. Academics (which I am not) have different opinions about the extent to which one is more important than another. I would say yes, historically it has been far more difficult for a person of color to move up in American society and yes, that is still the case today. But I'm just a guy on reddit who likes to read. If you're interested in this stuff here's where I started: The Color of Law, New Jim Crow, Ta-Nehisi Coates, the autobiography of Malcolm X, The Warmth of Other Suns

This isn't heavily science-y and a bit journalized, but I really enjoyed Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadaver's by Mary Roach. I also like Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne. There's a lot of overlap with what he teaches at his UChicago Eco & Evo course. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre is also wonderful, but will likely make you angry. Yet another interesting read is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

I have been trying for a week to come up with a way to respond to this with, but I have completely failed, because I'm not sure how some (not I said "some", not "all") women freely choosing to wear full-face veils in Western countries is comprable to genital mutilation and disfiguring violence. I understand that they all come from the same culture, but that doesn't mean that they all necessarily go together. Male genital mutilation (circumcision) and eating Kosher are both part of my cultural heritage and I do neither of those things, yet still feel connected to the culture in other ways.

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. You seem to care very passionately about this issue, and I really admire that. If you really do care about these issues, I hope you don't mind my recommending some books for you to read: Unveiling the Truth: Why 32 Muslim Women Wear the Full-Face Veil in France, and The Politics of the Veil are good ones. I also suggest both Infidel and Murder in Amsterdam, and perhaps those two first since they're opposites. Depending on which one you end up agreeing with, the other two may not be worth reading to you, although I'd still urge you to read opinions that differ with yours, if only to help you strengthen your arguments.

My go-to book for a reference on discrimination against Asians and the construction of Asian masculinity within a white supremacist society is "Asian American Sexual Politics: The Construction of Race, Gender, and Sexuality" by Chou http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14366163-asian-american-sexual-politics

There are tons of other brilliant books but I have yet to find one as eloquent as this piece.

In the book, Chou stresses that the construction of Asian masculinity is intrinsically tied to construction of masculinity for other people-of-color, like black people. Therefore, there are many overlaps between the social troubles that Asian folks face in Western countries with other people-of-color, even though not all of them are the same.

I am very interested in the African-American experience, because I feel that they experience racism much more deeply and appreciates the perniciousness of white supremacy more viscerally.

Many excellent books have came out this past year, such as:

Tears we Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson
https://www.amazon.com/Tears-We-Cannot-Stop-America/dp/1250135990

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
https://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/0812993543/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

And some classics:

White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son - Tim Wise

What does it Mean to be White - Robin DiAngelo

The Heart of Whiteness - Robert Jensen

I am not your Negro - James Baldwin

Any speech by Martin Luther King and Malcom X is just as good as any of these books. For a brief review on the history of racism and white supremacy in the United States with actual footages, I have found "Eyes on the Prize" series on YouTube offer a more than excellent recount https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts10IVzUDVw

There are many African Americans who see parallels between their own struggle with those of Asian folks Why Black America should care about the Death of Danny Chen, therefore we must return the favor and stand with them and not against them in their struggle for human rights. And on the global scale, China and other countries in Asia must stand with African nations, we might fight the battle against white supremacy. We either rise together or we both get destroyed by this white supremacist world, there is literally no other way

Are you looking for a textbook or non-fiction books?

I am a microbiologist so these books are biased towards that:

The Coming Plague. Its a little sensationalist but its a good read.

The Hot Zone This is the book that got me into microbiology and started me on the path to being a microbiologist.

The Immortal Life of Henriatta Lacks Light on the science but still puts a personal context to science especially tissue culture.

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History Good historical look on a disease that we still fear today.

Not a book but check out This Week in Microbiology and This Week in Virology podcasts. Great and informative.

Ooh! I used to love reading new things that teachers left out for us when we finished tests early or whatever. I don't know what kind of reading you typically arrange, but can I suggest bringing some comics? Even when the subjects aren't distinctly for teens, the medium can be a good way to introduce new topics and characters that they typically wouldn't pick up (kind of like your "ooh, Teen Vogue -- just kidding, it's also political news" plan).

Off the top of my head, I can recommend March, which is about John Lewis and the civil rights movement; Ms. Marvel, who is a young Muslim American superhero; American Born Chinese, which is a really well done coming-of-age story. Just something to consider if you ever want new things to bring in for teens.

I love these lists that everyone has compiled here, I've seen some amazing books that I've read and have yet to read. But since no one's mentioned this one, I'd to add a book that I think is really significant to AskWomen and the state of our society today:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It's about how a black woman died of cervical cancer in the 50s, then doctors took her cancer cells to experiment on without telling her family, and they're basically the only human cells to be replicated in the lab without dying so they've been used in all of medicine, including to develop vaccines like polio -- and yet her descendants live without healthcare. It's an amazingly well written, interesting, and exciting book.

Other than that I recommend Mary Roach as an author, she is very fun to read. My favorites are Gulp: Adventures in the Alimentary Canal and Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

I love this book. It's a great play-by-play of the game with the recorded hopes and fears of the players during the actual game.
"They'll probably play here ... ooh, I didn't expect that."

It's well written with a good narrative that highlights the drama of the game, and includes little biographical and historical asides that bring the game out of the abstract and into a specific place and time, with a peek into the players' personalities and relationships.

It reminds me of John McPhee's excellent Levels of the Game (a similar group-biography organized around a play-by-play of a tennis match).

Almost anything by Oliver Sacks is fantastic. On The Move was great. I listened to it as an audiobook in lab. Very motivating!

Not a new release, and I know there is some controversy, but I loved The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Middlesex. Fiction, not a new release, but a great story with some science mixed in (I may be biased because I happened to be reading this while taking developmental biology and learning about sex determination).

I was like you until senior year in high school when I started reading for pleasure. My first two books were Yeager and Malcolm X. For me reading these autobiographies moved me and taught me some stuff that made reading seem both fun and productive. Later that year I went back and read most of the required books that I faked my way through in the previous years of high school. I've since come to appreciate literature and become a reader of most every kind of book and these two books really got me started. I think it was because at that age I wanted to know what living a life was truly all about.

Don't let the fact that you didn't get fully involved in the Foundation as some impediment. The lack of a strong character based plot makes that book kind of a chore. If there are a few historical characters you are really interested in why not find the best biographies associated with them and give them a shot? It worked for me!

If you guys are interested, there's already a book on the Bulls last season. It's called Playing for Keeps

It's written by the great David Halberstrom. He got full access to following the team that year. It's not just the last season but also mini biography on most of the players and coaches, but mostly centered around Jordan.

The book is really good and would have been even better if Jordan didn't renege on his promise to sit down after the season 1-1 with Halberstrom.

BTW, the book is really great at showing how much the players HATED Krause and how hard it was for Jackson to try to balance the stars and keeping management out of the way, all while coaching that year on his own expiring contract. It has other great details, like how at the end Reinsdorff would negotiate with Jordan 1-1, no one else, no agents. They'd sit in a room and work it out on their own.

Gang Leader for a Day is now on my must-read list, but it's not the book I was thinking of. This was 2003-4 that I took the class.

The cover is brighter. Like a vibrant contrast-y orange/yellow and bright lighter shade of blue.

I'm really glad you are interested in the topic of race in America. Especially its intersection with politics. It's a serious issue that needs more attention. Here are several books I recommend to get you started:

https://www.amazon.com/Race-Human-Diversity-Biocultural-Approach/dp/0131838768/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1473351402&sr=8-3&keywords=human+diversity

https://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/0812993543/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473351442&sr=8-1&keywords=coates

https://www.amazon.com/Race-Matters-Cornel-West/dp/0679749861/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473351540&sr=8-1&keywords=race+matters

If you don't have the money to purchase one right now I'd be glad to try to find a pirated version for you. If I can't find one (or your not comfortable with pirating) I'm sure some redditors would be happy to crowd fund your curiosity on this subject and buy a few books for you to get started.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, very interesting story about human cell research, the woman whose cells made it possible, and her daughter. It is a compelling true story and describing it makes me want to read it again! And I second (or third) the Mary Roach books; they are sometimes LOL funny.

I'm sorry. I know what you're going through is really hard.

Cancer is part of the reason I started reading Stoic philosophy tbh. To calm that animal fear of death we all carry.

I'm coming to that moment in my own life as well. Someone I love very much is very ill and I suspect it will come to this sooner rather than later in our family.

I was thinking, I'll probably be the last of my little family to die. Everyone I love will die before me.

My mother will die- she's very ill.

My husband is much older than me.

My sister is older w approaching health issues of her own.

And my younger brother is struggling w mental illness.

I'll probably have to bury them all one by one someday. I dunno that anyone will be left to bury me.

On my worst days I'm sad about it. I feel sorry for myself. Why me? I never asked for it.

But then on other days, I'm grateful for the opportunity. It's one final duty to discharge, one last chance to honor someone very special in my life.

Who else would I want to shoulder my burden?

If I'm not the one to bury them all, then it'll fall to my brother. I love him but his life is a mess even in the best of times. Leave my sister to do it? Her big heart might crack under the strain.

We shared a little bit of time together and it's been lovely. I can do my part.



The funny thing is I'll be dead soon, too. Whether it's a week from now or 100 years it doesn't much matter I guess. I must've read it somewhere but can't recall where (Marcus Aurelius probably):

'We're all dead already, we just haven't been buried yet.'

I try to live my little chunk of time in a way that will leave people around me with a good memory and a warm feeling in their hearts.

Take my blessings with you. I wish you well! Say hi if you see me somewhere on the other side.

Edit: I'm a big reader. These are the books that helped me through the worst of it. Maybe they can help you, too.

• Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, free online ebook
  
  
• The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It's a super interesting read, all about how cancer has dogged the human race for millenia. How treatment has stumbled and how it's advanced. It really put things in perspective for myself and my mother. Cancer is just one of those human things we all might become subject to
  
  wiki, author discusses book, Amazon
  
  
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It brings up interesting questions about what it means to live and what it means to die. Like what are you? What's the smallest part of you that is still you? Are you dead if parts of you live on? What if all your DNA lives on and gets replicated over and over for decades, resulting in more biomass than you ever were. What if your DNA goes all over the world, into space even, long after you've succumbed? Are you really dead? How should your family think of you if the last 60+ years of medical research hinge upon the fact that "you" never really died at all?
  
  wiki, Amazon

I am a few years older than you and I have been going hard with books lately. It's not amazing, but I am on track to finishing about ~400 books by the time I am 30. I am also going for quality more than quantity. As in, if I feel like I didn't digest a particular book, I will keep at it and put other books on hold.

In any case, here are my top 3 recommendations:

1.) The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

2.) The 48 Laws of Power

3.) The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Also, Influence by Robert Cialdini is excellent. One of my favorites.

A little cautionary warning about asking people for recommendations though: Be careful about following other people's lists because those book won't vibe with you the same way. Each of us had our own unique life experiences, so you should be ideally choosing your own books. Lists are good for clues/inspiration though. Frequently, books choose me, not the other way around.

Also, try to keep track of the books (and knowledge) you read. I keep a single page HTML page with all the books I read along with a short note in reverse chronological order. I also have the option of putting this list online in the future if I need to.

If you're keen to learn more, there is an excellent book about the woman whose cells were used to create the HeLa line - 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.' When I did research we worked with HeLa cells and it was pretty interesting to hear about the person who 'donated' them.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181

If you want to learn more about Buck, I highly recommend reading his autobiography and then following it up with Joe Posnanski's The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America. The autobiography is a quick, easy read and you'll learn Buck's story as well as the story of the Negro Leagues in general. But I recommend following it with Posnanski's book to really get to know Buck as a person. Posnanski traveled around the country with Buck for a year towards the end of Buck's life and wrote this book about the experience. While some of the stories from the autobiography are retold, Posnanski's book functions more as a portrait of the man than simply a history. I really can't say enough about this book. It will make you laugh and cry, etc., etc. Just read it. And then spend the rest of your life wishing you could have given Buck O'Neil a hug.

I just went and stared at my bookshelves and realized that there was a distinct paucity of minority characters.

However, some general recommendations:

feed for the teenager uninterested in the world at large or the dystopian fiction fan.

My Date with Satan Short stories, usually from a female perspective. High schoolers would probably delight in the bad language and messed up characters.

Trickster's Choice; A young adult girl-power fantasy/spy novel with a lot to say about colonialism. My strongest recommendation on this list. Lots of major minority characters also.

Infidel; A heavy-handed memoir about triumph by a woman who "escaped" Somalia and is now a European politician. Controversial for a multitude of reasons and has nothing nice to say about Islam, but you know your students better than I do.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for the scientifically inclined.

Wicked for modern classic fans who'd appreciate deeper meanings.

Happy birthday!
If you're not down for heights, I think a neat bucket list item is to go on a road trip! Take a long weekend off and go somewhere cheesy, check out the largest bowling pin, take in some weird sights. It's fun, even though its not really possible where I'm from.

As a good non-fiction book, The eternal life of Henrietta lacks. Haven't had a chance to read it, but I love pop science works. I'm not super schooled of microbiology and this seems very nice mix of history, microbio, and a bit of rights of the deceased.

Man, that whole list is completely wrong. The list should be edited to anonymous, pseudonymous, and pseduepigrahs.

But on topic, if we are to accept that there are many biblical authors, We know that god has interacted with them all. I believe some, if not all directly. The only silent covenant I'm aware of where God beamed something into someones head, is Josiah, but he didn't write any books.

So god is directly involved with the authors if we are to accept the traditional attributed authors. So he's sort of coauthoring a book. Like what celebs/important figures do now when they write a tell all book. Like "The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley"

Came here to say Oliver Sacks (neuroscience).
I picked up a used copy of the DSM-IV casebook; it's very cheap since the DSM-V has come out. Diagnoses may be outdated but the stories are still there!

There are casebooks in other fields, too-- Surgery, multiple specialities, medical ethics, [pediatrics] (http://www.amazon.com/Files-Pediatrics-Fourth-Edition-LANGE/dp/0071766987/ref=pd_rhf_se_s_cp_9_EQ6W?ie=UTF8&refRID=1WJ16SB6971PCJ94TK2S). Your college library ought to have new-ish ones you can read for free.

I'm also encouraged by reading scientific journal articles in medical fields (research is exciting).

Other stuff: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks isn't about a doctor, but it's about a patient and the HeLa cell line that's been so important to medicine. My decision to go into medicine was affected by The Plague, a novel by Albert Camus about a plague-stricken city. (Main character is a doctor, though not exactly a modern MD.)

David Halberstam is probably the most well-known NBA author in long-form content. "The Breaks of the Game" is an incredible account of the Blazers 79-80 season. "Playing for Keeps" is a narrative about MJ's career and impact. These are older works though.

As far as newer stuff, the Bill Simmons "Book of Basketball" is a monstrosity that has amazing in-depth content, provided you like Simmons.

The "FreeDarko Presents: The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History" is from 2010 and has amazing artwork and a unique perspective. I would highly recommend it.

So you're saying the state can't refuse service, but everyone else can.

Please please please read some history. Start with March, which is a comic book, and an easy read.

Check out The Autobiography of Malcolm X! It's great because Malcolm X's imagery is incredibly vivid and engaging. He provides an interesting point of view from which to see the Civil Rights Movement. It'll help students get into the reasons for his beliefs and how his own views have changed throughout his life, from before he joined the Nation of Islam and until he left it (and got assassinated).

The autobiography was essentially compiled by Alex Haley from a series of interviews he had with Malcolm X. It's written in Malcolm X's voice, so authorial intrusion isn't an issue with this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Malcolm-Told-Alex-Haley/dp/0345350685

Chicago gang life is essentially a shadow government keeping its own brand of order in the ghetto, its pretty scary in some ways, but also actually really interesting to read that there really are "rules" and people enforcing the rules....

here's an interesting book about a university of chicago sociologist who hung out with them for a while.

good read

https://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X

Nice! I am glad they are not fronting with it. The chicago book was written by a sociologist who spent time with a gang that was deling crack. Very interesting. Glad you don't see it. In his case the whole neighbour hood knew about it and you couldn't really separate their lives from the crack gang.

Edit: This is the book im referring to: Gang Leader for a day

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It was fascinating and read like fiction, despite the fact that the whole thing was non-fiction.

The Rebel Sell: Why The Culture Can't Be Jammed by Joseph Potter and Andrew Heath

The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," The Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction by Rachel P. Maines. A really awesome history of the medicalization of women's orgasms and sexual issues.

That's pretty tough... I think if I had to pin down one book that really affected me it'd have to be The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Extremely well researched and fantastically written. A great example of well done literary nonfiction!

Have you seen their Highlights for High School feature?

Also, there are sites like Academic Earth that might be useful.

Here are a few blogs with potential. You'll have to decide for yourself if they have inappropriate content.

Here are a few book recommendations covering various fields, in no particular order (though they should all read #1):

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything
   
2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
   
3. Einstein: His Life and Universe
   
4. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
   
5. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
   
6. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
   
7. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
   
8. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
   
9. This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
   
10. Cosmos
    
11. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
    
12. The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy
    
13. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
    
14. The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human
    
15. The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
    
16. Thinking, Fast and Slow
    
17. Chaos: Making a New Science
    
18. Isaac Newton
    
19. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
    
20. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
    
    And here's a video interview with Richard Feynman they might enjoy.

For 5 I will ask: Do you understand celibacy for Jesus and for St Paul?

And as for 7, we believe in one baptism so there cannot be multiple - those validly baptized are baptized into the Body of Christ, which is the Church. The Church currently graciously relieves some of the requirements that would otherwise bind those baptized outside the Catholic Church so as to reduce sin.

If you'd like more reading, Rome Sweet Home and No Price Too High are both great, and the second lets you make jokes about Deacon Alex Jones (they're turning the Protestants Catholic!).

The current work by Timothy Sandefur on Frederick Douglass certainly suggests a strong libertarian bent on his view of life. Further, many of Douglass’ works focus on the very point of my post.

I think it depends on the definition of libertarian, and this subreddit is a strong indication that this definition is hardly a consensus.

https://www.amazon.com/Frederick-Douglass-Self-Made-Timothy-Sandefur/dp/1944424857

It's a great book. And I'm totally a "Michael Jordan is Jesus" guy. He dunked for our sins. That type of mentality. Lazenby did a great job of tearing all of that down.

At the same time holy shit Michael Jordan is still the greatest basketball player ever. But he was also a human being.

If you want a slightly more reverential view I recommend Playing for Keeps by David Halberstam: https://www.amazon.com/Playing-Keeps-Michael-Jordan-World/dp/0767904443

http://www.amazon.com/The-Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181

This is a very good book, highly recommend. And it touches on the chicken heart.

In that case, I'd definitely recommend Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It's written as a letter to his son about growing up black in the US and it's the best book I've read recently about the topic.

Pretty much anything by former Presbyterian minister Scott Hahn; he has an explanation of his conversion [here] (http://www.lighthousecatholicmedia.org/store/title/why-a-protestant-pastor-became-catholic).

There's former pentacostal pastor Alex Jones, who brought almost his whole congregation with him; he wrote [this book] (http://www.amazon.com/No-Price-too-High-Pentecostal/dp/0898709199) about the decision.

There's [this testimony] (http://chnetwork.org/2014/06/father-raymond-ryland-on-whose-authority/) by Fr. Raymond Ryland, a former Anglican minister.

Ulf Elkman was a prominent megachurch pastor before his conversion; he talks about it [here] (http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/2014/04/24/megachurch-pastor-ulf-ekman-we-need-what-the-lord-has-given-to-the-catholic-church-to-live-fully-as-christians/)

Then there's lots of [personal conversion stories] (http://chnetwork.org/category/conversion-stories/) of lay folks. And there's quite a few of us here on /r/Christianity; feel free to ping us, as well.

For some reason, reading this and the comments/questions below made me think of the book Gang Leader For A Day by Sudhir Venkatesh. Some really interesting insight on the sociology of gangs in Chicago and it reads really fucking well for a non fiction book. I felt like I was just reading a story instead of some dry set of facts. I highly recommend this book.

Hopefully, this brings attention to the role that John Lewis played in the civil rights era.

I know of him, but I don't know as much as I should, so I ordered the graphic novel he made called March. Apparently it's very good.

Maybe this doesn't fit, but if you're looking to learn more about it Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets provides some really great insights into the gang community and how the day-to-day is run as well as the community efforts the gang bring in an effort to deter being reported to the police

There's a great, easy to read book called Skeletons on the Zahara that deals heavily with this subject. 10/10 would recommend

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316159352/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_yd4hzbCD8512F

For the Black Panthers:

There's Malcolm X's biography recorded and written by Alex Haley, writer of Roots.

Another book called Black Against Empire: History of the Black Panther Party, supposedly very good.

For the Irish Republican Army:

Here's an extensive list from Goodreads.

Hope that helps you get started, OP. Knowledge is power. :)

EDIT: and you can always posit specific questions to /r/AskHistorians. They'll take a while to formulate and you may not get a response, but when you do it's usually a good one.

The story of Henriette Lacks is pretty cool.

I also enjoyed the story of The Girl in the Picture

I have a fondness for british history, in particular the tudor era, the napoleonic era, and the victorian era and those times also have some fascinating women. Elizabeth I comes to mind, I've been meaning to read this novel about her life, having enjoyed the author's take on Hevry VIII. I also watched The Duchess which told the colourful but tragic story of the Duchess of Devonshire.

If you listen to podcasts, you could check out Stuff You Missed In History Class. They've recently done episodes on women like Jane Austen and Yaa Asantewaa. There was a really good one about foot-binding, which wasn't about women in particular but did look very much at how the tradition affected women (and how women propagated this tradition.)

>Isn't every living thing?

No. I'm actually reading a book about that right now. Good book, pretty entertaining and informative, I recommend.

Islam: A Short History - Karen Armstrong

Islam: The Straight Path - John Esposito

The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Alex Haley

More advanced (should have some understanding of Islam before reading):

The Great Theft - Khaled Abou El Fadl

The Story of the Qur'an - Ingrid Mattson

John Lewis wrote an award winning graphic novel titled "March" that explains a lot about civil rights history in the sixties. https://www.amazon.com/March-Trilogy-Slipcase-John-Lewis/dp/1603093958

I always recommend this book when it comes to good baseball books - I was right on time by Buck O'Neil - He covers a long time and tells some really cool stories about the Negro Leagues as well. - https://www.amazon.com/Was-Right-Time-Buck-Oneil/dp/068483247X

I do agree that the media has failed us all. The discussion has become so warped and compartmentalized that it has ground to an invective-laced stalemate.

My only suggestion is to expose yourself to stories told by African-Americans. Skip the news, go straight to a primary source. The best one off the top of my head is this book.

It's the letters the author wrote to his son before he went off to college. The author knew his son would be out there in the world without him, and he wouldn't be around to explain the things he'd have to deal with, so he told him the story of his experience as a black man in America.

If you do decide to read it I'm sure you won't agree with everything in it, and I don't think any reasonable person should expect you to. It's just a very sober, very well written look at the other side of the story.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0062003216/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1411926356&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40#productDescription_secondary_view_pageState_1411926368113

“A hilarious blend of razor-sharp satire and memoir...Using his own story and humor, Thurston demonstrates that the best way to ‘be’ anything is to simply be yourself.” ( Publishers Weekly)

Between the World and Me - Ta-Nahesi Coates

Written as a memior, but ending more as a personal essay on race and growing up. If you liked Amos Oz you'll like this.

The Long Walk

Skeletons on the Zahara

Both non-fiction stories of survival that I thought were incredible.

Also, not strictly survival but very good non-fiction adventure reads in the same vein are A Man's Life and The Hard Way by Mark Jenkins.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks


Synopsis: Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more. Henrietta's cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can't afford health insurance. This phenomenal New York Times bestseller tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew.

Mary Roach is another great nonfiction author.

>Have they encouraged black people to become police officers? Nope

Actually, Yup!

>The plans calls for . . . having the racial makeup of police departments reflect the communities they serve.

Which includes BLM encouraging black people to become police officers. If you had any real familiarity with BLM you'd know that encouraging black people to become police officers (which, make no mistake, is your advice to black people on how to protest) is a HUGE part of BLM.

I implore you to read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Read it or listen to the audiobook and get back to me. Give me your e-mail address and I'll even send you the audiobook on Audible. I'm not joking.

I think I agree with you, although its kind of hard to tell. Also, for whatever reason tennis has had a strangely high number of very good black players considering that it is (or at least used to be) such a wealthy sport. Arthur Ashe was a top level player despite the fact that for a long time the only people he could practice against were other black players, who frankly weren't that good. Then when a lot of other players were boycotting South African tournaments because of apartheid he decided to go play there to draw attention to how arbitrary apartheid was. He is almost certainly the best philanthropist tennis player of all time but the only people who seem to know about him are tennis fans.

edit: I got most of this info from this book, which might be interesting to you based on the fact that you know who Althea Gibson is.

While not war related, March has a lot of historical context. It details the civil rights movement told through the perspective of Civil Rights leader John Lewis. Great comic, highly recommend.

> the rich white kid had to work hard and deal with a lot of shit too?

That may be true, in which case he can tell the college about it and they can take it into account.

> I didn't say it did.

But given that colleges do take into account more than just test scores, using test scores as your only evidence that "more qualified" candidates are being passed up is basically saying that test scores = qualifications.

Look, I used to be like you. I literally wrote an editorial against affirmative action in my local newspaper when I was in high school. I don't think anybody could have convinced me then that affirmative action was OK, and I don't expect to be able to convince you now. Just know that those of us who support affirmative action, even though it may in some sense "disadvantage" the races we belong to, do so because we feel that the deck is deeply, deeply stacked against black people in this country, and that without accounting for that deck-stacking when we make decisions about who to offer the opportunity to go to college to, we perpetuate and amplify the effects of that deck stacking. We live in a world where coloblind policy would perpetuate and reinforce a very much not colorblind history and a society that doesn't actually operate in a colorblind way. As a result, we favor policy that we believe at least progresses toward a world in which colorblind policy would create colorblind outcomes, even if it means accounting for color today.

That's not a thing I can convince you of in a night, and it may not be a thing that you ever believe at any point in your life. All I ask is that you don't dismiss our argument out of hand.

And hell, if you're bored, and interested in getting a deeper perspective on this stuff, maybe even peruse materials on how black people actually are uniquely disadvantaged in the U.S.

Maybe check out similar CMVs.

Or read Coates's fantastic piece about how housing policy continued to prevent the accumulation of wealth in the black community decades after slavery ended, or his beautiful memoir to his son.

Read about how black people have been intentionally targeted for disproportionate incarceration by the society, and imagine the effect that having your race associated with poverty and crime has on popular perceptions of you by society.

That's just a handful of examples, and you don't have to engage with them now of course. Just know that many of us who have have come to the conclusion that the treatment of black people in the United States is and has been uniquely horrific, and we can't rely on colorblind institutions to make amends. Thus - affirmative action.

I loved Dreams from My Father and [The Color of Water] (http://www.amazon.com/Color-Water-Tribute-Mother-Anniverary/dp/159448192X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417378244&sr=1-1&keywords=the+color+of+water), and they're relatively recent.

There are reasons some books become classics though - you should check out [Voices in the Mirror] (http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Mirror-Autobiography-Gordon-Parks/dp/0385266987/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417378538&sr=1-1&keywords=gordon+parks+autobiography), [Black Boy] (http://www.amazon.com/Black-Boy-Record-Childhood-Youth/dp/0061130249/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417378427&sr=1-1&keywords=black+boy), [Invisible Man] (http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Man-Ralph-Ellison/dp/0679732764/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417378361&sr=1-1&keywords=invisible+man), and [Black Like Me] (http://www.amazon.com/Black-Like-John-Howard-Griffin/dp/0451234219/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417378875&sr=1-1&keywords=black+like+me) for instance

Biographies of the Prophet (peace be upon him)

Martin Ling's "Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources"
| Amazon
| PDF
| Audiobook

Sheikh Safi-ur-Rahman al-Mubarkpuri "The Sealed Nectar"
| Amazon
| PDF (Older edition)


Autobiographies

Muhammad Asad "The Road to Mecca"
| Amazon
| PDF

Jeffrey Lang "Even Angels Ask: A Journey to Islam in America"
| Amazon

| PDF

Alex Haley and Malcolm X "The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley"
Amazon
| PDF

Other recommendations

Firas Alkhateeb "Lost Islamic History"

Hamza Tzortzis "The Divine Reality: God, Islam & The Mirage Of Atheism"

Given your background, some speakers you may find beneficial:

Sheikh Hussain Yee - From Buddhism to Islam

Abdur-Raheem Green - How I Came to Islam

Joshua Evans - How the Bible Led Me to Islam: The Story of a Former Christian Youth Minister

Not necessarily CLS-specific but I think The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks should be required reading for any healthcare or biology student. It's a fascinating book (and I don't usually read non-fiction for fun) about race, class, and ethics in the clinical and research laboratory. It doesn't take a heavy handed or academic approach at all, it's very readable.

Very much liked
The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat - a book about the discovery of penicillin that aims to correct decades of misinformation

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mold-Dr-Floreys-Coat/dp/0805077782/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341580039&sr=8-1&keywords=mold+in+dr+floreys+coat

Also, for a bioethics book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is great
http://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341580111&sr=1-1&keywords=henrietta+lacks

To be honest, there's a lot of stuff that isn't explicitly social justice stuff that will give you the same basic information. Most of these issues have been around (and known) way prior to the recent rise in activism. Some of the books that were most useful to me were:

1. Whatever it takes by Paul Tough https://www.amazon.com/Whatever-Takes-Geoffrey-Canadas-America/dp/0547247966/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485119870&sr=8-1&keywords=whatever+it+takes
   
   
2. Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Like-John-Howard-Griffin/dp/0451234219/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485119901&sr=8-1&keywords=black+like+me
   
   
3. Pretty much all of the major slave narratives (Frederick Douglass, Olaudah Equiano - there are a couple others that I can't recall right now).
   
   
4. Anything by Toni Morrison (I've only read The Bluest Eye).
   
   
5. Virtually anything by oppressed people anywhere at any time. Vaclav Havel and Ghandi are both extremely relevant and timeless.

> I've said this numerous times. One of, if not the biggest focus of her campaign is that she is a woman.

I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt and acknowledge that you posted this 2 hours ago and...hell...sometimes I forget what I said two hours ago, too. But now I am reminded that you've said "numerous times." Now you're saying that you never said that the biggest part of her campaign is her gender but that you are annoyed that it's mentioned at all. It's almost like you're weaseling out of a bullshit claim by moving towards an absurd one (I've been letting this slide, but now I'll point out that Obama rose to national prominence by giving a speech about race. He wrote a book about his heritage. It was a major part of his campaign! Clinton has a line in her stump speech, but it's essentially a throwaway for the people who are genuinely excited about this historical possibility).

On the other hand, you gave me a 4th example of her gender being mentioned by herself or by people within her campaign. Assuming there have been fewer than 12 public statements made by her campaign and/or its surrogates over the course of the election, that would account for 33% of the campaign. That is pretty big. So...maybe I'm wrong? (lol)


ETA: Links to Obama's shameful explotation of his race in the 08 campaign--"More perfect union" speech--http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88478467

Amazon link for Dreams from my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance--https://www.amazon.com/Dreams-My-Father-Story-Inheritance/dp/1400082773 (note that subtitle)

Skeletons of the Zahara was a best seller a few years back. It's the modern retelling of a true account of the American survivors of a shipwreck off the African west coast who are taken captive and then passed along as slaves by various tribes and Arabs for years, suffering many deprivations. It was pretty good and at least one screenwriter, Public Enemies writer Ronan Bennett is trying to adapt it.

What I remember most about the story is that the Americans were so hungry at one point they ate the dried skin off of each other's backs.

Actually, it is pretty much a parallel to 12 Years a Slave except a change of setting and the 'rescuer' being an African.

It's not a textbook, and perhaps it goes against your "not be popular science" stipulation, but The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is an amazing book... genetics, cancer biology, medicine, some historical perspective of those fields, tied into one real-life family with its own deep story. I think you will find it awesome and accessible.

Rebecca Skloot's book about Henrietta Lacks is a really great read. Whole heartedly recommend reading it.

It wasn't just to change his opinion, but to really understand how society treats LGBT.

Reminds me a lot of Black Like Me, where in the '50s a white guy changes his skin (with medical help and makeup) to become a black man so that he can understand what it means to be black in America.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is one of the more recent NYT bestsellers that is also a pretty good biology read. The Hot Zone is a classic, and although it is dated, it will probably regain some of its formal popularity due to the [current ebola outbreak] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_West_Africa_Ebola_outbreak). I would recommend Creighton if you want a "fun" read, but his works are fictional, predictable, and often infuriatingly inaccurate.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. So while it doesn’t scream “happy birthday,” and I guess it isn’t what you’d call inspiring, I found it both interesting and compelling. Very readable. It got kind of trendy, and apparently Oprah did a thing for HBO, which usually kind of scares me away, but it’s a good book all the same.

Here’s the Amazon link.

It's got John Lewis in is sit-in comeback tour!

Seriously though, read March. It's harrowing and inspiring and the art is pretty solid.

I gave my brother (who never EVER reads, and doesn't like "hard books") How to stop time also by Matt Haig, he read it in one sitting and then went out and got the rest of his books and read them all in a couple weeks. Christopher Moore is also great, Sacre Bleu is my favourite.

​

for non-fiction: Letter from Birmingham Jailby Martin Luther King, Jr. anything by Audre Lorde or James Baldwin and Anne Frank and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for showing him how to appreciate life.

• March is a series of three graphic novels about the civil Rights movement, it's very exciting while staying extremely historically accurate. I highly recommend this. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1603093958/
  
• Maus by Art Spiegelman about the Holocaust using anthropomorphic animals. It's based on his parents experience of the concentration camps. https://www.amazon.com/Complete-MAUS-Art-Spiegelman/dp/0141014083/
  
• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is set in Tehran, Iran during the 1960's. Telling a very personal tale about life there before, during, and after the Islamic Revolution. https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Persepolis-Marjane-Satrapi/dp/0375714839/

I'm going to recommend Gang Leader for a Day. It's a memoir of a sociology PhD student studying the Chicago projects. His highly personal interactions with its residents -- who ranged from drug dealers and prostitutes to store owners and mechanics -- allowed him to gain unprecedented access to a world that those outside of it barely understood.

His anecdotes brought his cast of characters life: JT, the regional head of the Black Kings gang who justified his crack-cocaine deals were good for his community because he was taking money from society's dregs and redistributing it to the project; or Autry Harrison, a former pimp who severed his formal gang ties to become a Boys & Girls club director; or Officer Jerry, the crooked cop who stole from the project's residents and even threatened Sudhir on numerous occasions if he ever published his research; or Taneesha, who attempted a career as a model while attending college at night before her jealous "manager" beat her badly for signing a contract with a legitimate agency. Although I felt like I was reading the script to a movie at times, this highlighted to me my ignorance of what life in the Robert Taylor Homes project was like.

My primary issue with the work was a lack of discussion about his research itself. He would write, a few times, something like (I'm paraphrasing here) "everything about sociological theory says X, but what I've witnessed is Y" without delving into the details. These moments peppered throughout his narrative would have allowed for a somewhat more formal discourse by introducing some interesting ideas about what sociologists think and how his research differs. His published research must discuss these issues at depth, but an informal, less pedantic approach could have been incorporated into this book.

Believing in equality, and marching against Trump in a show of solidarity for those values, is the point - "achieving equality" happens through legislation and societal evolution. Kind of like how women had to march for suffrage, but the march didn't "achieve" suffrage. If you honestly don't understand the purpose of protest, I suggest you read "March: Book One", or "Freedom is a Constant Struggle".

For your second question: women are still paid less for the same job a man has (the discrepancy of which is even worse for women of color), women are still vastly outnumbered in positions of power (CEOs, World Leaders, etc.), and when they do find themselves in those positions, like Hillary Clinton, they are derided for everything from the pitch of their voice, to the clothes they wear, to their ability to overcome their "emotions".

And I swear to God, if you try to reply with some "but things are so much better!" line: things were also better for women after they won the vote, but it still took until 1993 for Marital Rape to be considered a crime in the U.S. "Progress" is not a road that just ends, where we all pat each-other on the back and look out at our utopia - because humans will always be imperfect, and there will always be something to improve.

These two ethnographies are easy/pleasant reads, frequently used in undergraduate courses:

• Marjorie Shostak, Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman
  
• Jean L. Briggs, Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family
  
  Ethnographies written almost solely for the purpose of introducing hunter-gatherer societies to college freshmen/sophomores include ...
  
  
• Richard B. Lee, The Dobe Ju/'Hoansi
  
• Colin Turnbull, The Mbuti Pygmies: Change and Adaptation
  
• James F. Downs, The Two Worlds of the Washo: An Indian Tribe of California and Nevada
  
• E. Adamson Hoebel, The Cheyennes: Indians of the Great Plains
  
• N. A. Chance, The Iñupiat and Arctic Alaska: An Ethnography of Development
  
• Hart, Pilling, & Goodale, The Tiwi of North Australia
  
• Robert Tonkinson, The Mardu Aborigines: Living the Dream in Australia's Desert
  
  These teaching ethnographies have been around for decades, so while they don't reflect current scholarship, it should be possible to pick them all up for a couple of bucks each, and I think you'd get a lot out of browsing them that's lost in comparative work.

Book is actually pretty good.

Darn, you beat me by 10 minutes. It was a pretty good book. boop

There's a graphic novel about Rep John Lewis and his time as a civil rights marcher with Dr. King in the 1960s. I went to Washington with a delegation of teachers this summer and got to meet him. He's amazing.

Skeletons on the Zahara

A supposedly true story (and pretty decent read) about exactly what you're talking about.

It isn’t exactly the same, but “Gang Leader for a Day” is fantastic: https://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X

In the UK, John Lewis is a major department store chain.

In the US, John Lewis is a Civil Rights icon who marched with MLK and was arrested over 40 times for peaceful protests. He also authored a NYT bestselling graphic novel and as a Congressman led the recent House sit-ins.

Both are cool. But I like our John Lewis better.

I second the recommendation of Erik Larson.

I have recently read and loved The Hare With Amber Eyes and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

This book might help: http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Black-Baratunde-Thurston/dp/0062003216/

Baratunde (the author) went to school at Harvard and talks a bit about the flavor of racism in the area. Also, it's a great book and he's really funny.

To add, you can find a lot of his smaller work on The Atlantic, here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/author/ta-nehisi-coates/

His biggest, prize-winning, piece is this one from 2014: The Case for Reparations

His recent, massively successful and also award-winning book is: Between the World and Me

And if you're into that sort of thing, as Obama mentioned in his recent address to Howard U, Coates is also the writer for the latest Black Panther superhero comics run.

As you might gather, Coates is relatively narrow in his range of topics though. His topic is race in America, about which he talks both from a deeply personal perspective and from a deeply historical perspective. He is respected as a writer/journalist who not only talks about the problems of racism in current times, but who can connect current problems with the whole history of the United States drawing on both academic historical scholarship and in particular the African-American intellectual tradition.

>Gangs are for adults who never grew up

If you have any interest in actually understanding the composition and function of gangs I recommend reading Gang Leader for a Day. Here is a brief article about the book.

Flip the script and read about a fascinating and real life case of cellular infinity: The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

There is a trilogy of graphic novels about him (he's actually one of the authors) that I would highly recommend to everyone. Here's the first book if anyone is interested.

I said this a minute ago in another thread, but The Soul of Baseball by Joe Posnanski is fantastic. He follows Buck O'Neil (who all but created the Negro League Museum here in KC on his own) on a road trip. It gave me a whole new perspective on baseball and the Negro Leagues. Buck was known for his crazy stories, and you'll get a ton of them.

Nobody but you is claiming race should be the only factor. If you don't understand the historic roll race
(and racism) has played in America, and how it impacts us today, and why it's important we attempt to fix the systemic issues it has caused, that's on you. Maybe go read a book?

Ghost in the Wires - The story of famed hacker Kevin Mitnick

Any Mary Roach Book if you like Science

In the Heart of the Sea - The true story behind Moby Dick

The Omnivore's Dilemma - A great walk through our food landscape

Gang Leader for a Day - Behavioral Economist embeds with a Chicago Gang

Shadow Divers - My first audiobook. It's a thriller about a scuba discovery of a Nazi Submarine on the Eastern US coast.

The Devil In The White City - A story about a serial killer at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893

good book on this general topic

he asked people and families that, their answer was that the projects are what they know, where their friends and family are, where they fit in. some tried moving to the suburbs and didn't like it.

Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets is a great book. It focuses on a Chicago gang.

Check out Gang Leader for a Day

While it might not get in to specifics for your project, you may find more resources. If you do have the time, it's a great read.

Frederick Douglass: Self-Made Man by Timothy Sandefur

Short & great

If you haven't, you should read Black Like Me. It gives some anecdotal accounts of what it is like to be black in an area that has segregated businesses.

I think you'd find The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a very interesting read.

If you like non-fiction:

Periodic Tales - Hugh Aldersey-Williams


Dark Money - Jane Mayer


Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Yep, I'm supes liberal. Sorry.

If you're interested and haven't read it already, I heartily recommend Playing for Keeps. It tells you everything about Jordan from his upbringing right up to his second retirement in 1998. It does a great job of describing how he was forced to insulate himself from the rest of the world because of his becoming the "most recognizable American in the world."

Edit: I accidentally a word

This isn’t a good look for you.

Try reading a book.

https://www.amazon.com/Frederick-Douglass-Self-Made-Timothy-Sandefur/dp/1944424857

Or even a speech by the great American you disdain.

'HeLa' is a reference to a strain of human cells that labs use for testing. I can strongly recommend this book about their source. It's absolutely fascinating and heartbreaking:

https://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181

This book may interest you: http://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X

No affiliation with it, other than I read it a few years ago and it was really interesting.

I thought "On Speed" was a good read. https://www.amazon.com/Speed-Benzedrine-Adderall-Nicolas-Rasmussen/dp/0814776396/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1487033664&sr=8-2&keywords=on+speed

Also, it doesn't get much better than "The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks" https://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487033763&sr=8-1&keywords=the+secret+life+of+henrietta+lacks

Ultimately, it all boils down to the existence of god(s). If they can show that one exists, fine; if not; there's your answer.

As far as developing a deeper understanding of Islam itself, for a start try Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book "Infidel"... http://www.amazon.com/Infidel-Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali/dp/0743289684

There's always the web... http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Good luck...

If this interests you, then you should read Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets, the book written by Sudhir Venkatesh (the sociologist from the article) about the Black Disciples (the gang from the article.) I just finished it a month or so ago and it was fantastic.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
It's 400pgs but ridiculously amazing.

I think you'd really enjoy this book then; it's about a grad student who spent some time observing the gangs at the Robert Taylor homes for his research.

Hey there, white dude here as well. I highly recommend reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. That book utterly changed my life and I can't recommend it enough. It highlighted a lot of my own internal biases and caused me to do a lot of rethinking about myself and the world around me. Totally changed my perspective.

You might be interested in the book Black Like Me, in which the white author darkened his skin to experience life in the Jim Crow South as a black man. I haven't read it since 8th grade English, but I remember it being fascinating and heartbreaking.

I'm finishing up American Gods. In the last 60 or so days I've read that, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and The People in the Trees. All very good. All very different.

I've been so off my exercise jam lately, but obvi with this new free time I'm going to get back into the gym. I'm pretty artistic, but I'm not very handy. I wish I could make at least somewhat practical shit like that. I already have enough art on my walls.

If you would seriously like to learn something of the mindset and daily life of a Chicago gang member I would recommend the book, Gang Leader for a Day.

It is basically a sociologist who spends time with a black gang on the south side of Chicago and details the environment and mindset.

Please read the The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400052181/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_lFFGwb4HMQB9G not justifying or defending anything. I think the Internet is full of Donald Trumps and very rarely a thought out and balanced close look at both sides of the issue. This book did that.

>I think it matters where "she" claims to empathize with the struggles and feelings of people who were actually born as women and then runs around lecturing other men like she has any authority on the matter.

She definitely doesn't have authority on matters during childhood or before her transition age, but if she can pass as a woman on the street, for instance, then she can definitely be an authority on how random women are treated by strangers. If she passes for a woman at work, then she can definitely comment on the treatment of women in the workplace.

Basically, her capacity to speak with authority on the matter is a function of how consistantly she passes in a given context, and if how independent that context is to a woman's life in the period before Wu's transition age.


> It's like a white guy arbitrarily declaring himself African American and claiming he fully understands and empathizes with race-based issues the moment he makes said declaration; it's completely idiotic.

Well, no, it's not quite the same, because it's really fucking hard to pass as an African American when you have white skin and facial features.

There was one man, many decades ago, who did everything short of plastic surgery in order to pass as an AA man, and he wrote a book about how he was treated.

I wonder if anyone during that time were likewise trying to claim he could speak with no authority on the treatment of black people because he wasn't born black.

>So he failed to consider that those crack dealers or drug dealers or gangsters are trying, in some twisted bumfuck way to try and get themselves out of the situation by slinging crack at the corner. Nobody was born with a desire for a hard life. When your whole family is in tatters and there is no generational wealth to inherit except bloodshed and poverty and undereducation, when the only option to get out of the hood is via a body bag or peddling dope, when the only heroes one has growing up is either in jail or absent and the whole neighbourhood is a fucking ghetto spliced with the thunderdome, how does one expect to have upward mobility?

I seriously think people fail to understand that for many people who grow up in these situations, selling drugs and a life of crime has more opportunity in it then going to school and getting a job. The book [Gang Leader for a Day] (http://www.amazon.ca/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X) by [Sudhir Venkatesh] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudhir_Venkatesh) has an in depth description of a man who grows up in the ghetto, goes to college, gets a white collar full time job and then comes back to his home because he see's no opportunities for him to make real wealth at his full time job. More importantly, his book shows you how fucked up and intricate gangs are to both supporting and bringing down these communities. I really suggest anybody read it who wants to have a better understanding of why a life of crime looks like a better option for so many young people.

Ultimately this video, and anything that says "if black people just stopped _ then __ wouldn't happen" is simplifying something that is so much more complex. Life is not black and white (no pun in intended).

> Hope the elders of those cliques squash this shit soon.

Seriously, even the gang leaders that ran robert taylor homes and cabrini green understood that shootings are no good for anybody.

edit: for chicagoans that haven't read gang leader for a day, I suggest it. Good read of how an understaffed Chicago PD and gang members used to work together to make a "uneasy pact" of sorts.

Was he inspired by this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/0451234219/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_t4Fnxb2EB1PDP

The officer suddenly discovered his minority status as an adult, without the years of dealing with prejudice, discrimination, racial jokes, denial of the benefit of the doubt, and the coping mechanisms that come from going through that on a daily basis.

It's like an IRL version of the movie "Black Like Me". Wikipedia. Summary. Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0674004329

I read this book about a tribe in Botswana. It's one of the more inhospitable places on the planet, yet the researchers found that they worked short hours. Their study inspired this paper http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society which is a cornerstone of modern thought on foraging tribes.

https://smile.amazon.com/March-Trilogy-Slipcase-John-Lewis/dp/1603093958

Hey now. If we're going to be good people...

Once again, just reiterating what was clearly explained above, and somehow making it a counterargument...

> Your Line: Like what the fuck are you even talking about niggas have BEEN trying to invest in their fucking future
> for decades and have been shut out at every opportunity. Community growth is borderline impossible when
> America has helped to create a permanent underclass.



> My Line: Unfortunately, the black race has not reached this level of communal success. This is due to many
> factors that are tightly interlinked with history (slavery creating a class system based on race), economics (race
> then making upward mobility an impossible task), and psychology (racism causing self-hatred among the black
> community).

Consensus: Same thing explained, but repackaged as a weak defence.

Bro, either your comprehension skills are low, or deductive reasoning is not your strong-suit, but you are missing all the points. Not trying to end careers today, so I'm going to drop this. Tonight go to your local bookstore, pick up the Malcom X Autobiography. Read it. Valuable information on this whole topic. If that's too daunting, go on the internet, read the lyrics. Slowly this time.

Clearly, "The Story of O.J." is too intelligent for some.

https://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X this is about a sociology student who had the opportunity to follow gangs around in the ghetto and lead them for a day

Another good book that discusses this is Marjorie Shostak's book Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman. In it Nisa describes a sexual openness. Since everyone in the family sleeps together they are exposed to sex at a young age and obviously want to learn more about it and to do this start exploring their own bodies and the bodies of their peers at a young age. It seemed as though although the adults tried to stop this, the attempts at stopping them were half-hearted as it was seen as something that all children do and must do in order to learn.

In Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman anthropologist Marjorie Shostak describes that it is common for !Kung marred men and women to "take lovers" and have extramarital sex, albiet clandisnedly.

I read the book for a cultural anthropology class and was able to geturn the book afterwards for a full refund, so I no longer have it to cite page numbers, but I recall that there's an entire chapter on the subject.

Random books off the top of my head...

'The Movie Goer'

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl

Gang Leader for a Day

Ender's Game series

Pre-order Mindy Kaling's book

If you are interested in the Skeleton Coast, you should read Skeletons on the Zahara.

You are not the first. It's an interesting book, if you haven't read it.

Which facts are you questioning? Everything that I wrote is pretty well documented. You can read about all of it in Obama's autobiography if you have any doubts.

If you're really curious about gang life in Chicago, a UofC professor basically embedded himself with Chicago gangs for seven years to observe them and wrote a book about his observations.

>The difference between skin cells and a fertilized egg in the womb, as I believe to be correct, is that skin cells (not only being dead), also do not have the same differentiating and human-producing capabilities that a egg does. I don't want to call it a "potential person," I'm calling it a person and saying that it's future development will include the generation of a consciousness and sentience.

And a HeLa Stem Cell Culture?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa

They came from a human woman, Henrietta Lacks

https://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181

There are more HeLa cells out there than were ever in Henrietta as a talking, walking, human. But you can't talk to the cells in a petri-dish. and they are alive.

>I didn't now there was a procedure for that.

Black Like Me

Black Like Me absolutely change how I see the world and understand human experience.

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is, even with its flaws, I think a deeply compelling and important read about medicine, medical ethics, and America. (I def did some light weeping near the end.)

For risk-your-life adventure, try Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King. Eurpoean sailors get shipwrecked off the coast of Africa in 1815.

Your analysis reminds me of a book I taught earlier this year. It's entitled, Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. He was a white man from Texas who underwent cosmetic procedures to darken the pigment of his skin. He then lived as a black man in the South during the 1950's for several months in order to give a "true" account of what it's like to live with racism.

The inherent problem with the project, while it did result in a fascinating book, lies in the original premise; it isn't a book about being black in the South, it's a book about a white man pretending to be black in the South during 1950's.

Sure. A new book is being written about her. Here's one article and the book link.

I would suggest you read the March series by John Lewis for a graphic novel tutorial on the history of the American civil rights movement.

It's simply entitled The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Here's the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

It was excellent and not at all what you expect. The compelling aftermath of Jim Crow racism that places Mrs. Lacks unwitting sacrifice to science in perspective. And Ms. Skloot breaks every rule of a biographer, and lets the story rope her in.

The little known story of the discovery of the Hela cell line and the woman who unknowingly changed science could not have been without the thoughtful voice of Ms. Skloot.

For sure comrade.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Malcolm-Told-Alex-Haley/dp/0345350685&ved=0ahUKEwj2wdKTyKnUAhUE2GMKHTzUCIQQFggjMAA&usg=AFQjCNF5cv3eW6_aAY0sCteeR6ciBhqWbw&sig2=GbqaU11PF46ixAzNO9aLRg

Sorry for the long link.

Malcolm X autobiography. By Alex Haley

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot

>The Immortal Life of Hennrietta

Based on the book by the same name by Rebecca Skloot

https://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

These don't count?

Halberstam's pretty keen on Jordan, but even he lists off some repugnant behavior.

There are no Children Here

Gang Leader for a Day

Hoop Dreams - Also a very good documentary film.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1400082773

I havent read it so I dont know if it is good, but I do know it is about a psychopath.

If you want to read a whole book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" is pretty much all about this, with a few ethical/political viewpoints thrown in. I've read it. It is a bit dull for me but does give the relevant background.

​

I'm sure you've read "The Soul of Baseball" but if you haven't, you should.

I read books about baseball during the offseason. Just picked up [The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America] (http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Baseball-Through-ONeils-America/dp/0060854049/ref=la_B001ILHF9Y_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415033761&sr=1-1) by Joe Posnanski and Up, Up, and Away: The Kid, the Hawk, Rock, Vladi, Pedro, le Grand Orange, Youppi!, the Crazy Business of Baseball, and the Ill-fated but Unforgettable Montreal Expos by Jonah Keri from my library.

You wouldn't use the same literary techniques to interpret the poetry of Walt Whitman as you would to interpret the Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Genesis 1 is a poem.

The rest of Genesis is not.

Why would you uniformly treat Whitman and Malcom X exactly the same with no difference as to the literary format?

If you want to think deeply, try The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Bioethics, sciences and socio-economics all play into a family's betrayal by science.

March is a badass trilogy of graphic novels about John Lewis struggle for human rights. https://www.amazon.com/March-Book-One-John-Lewis/dp/1603093001/ref=nodl_#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1537048099015

That's actually a real book by Onion writer and occasional TWiT guest Baratunde Thurston. Amazon link.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Black-Baratunde-Thurston/dp/0062003216

First line under the book description: If You Don't Buy This Book, You're a Racist.

On Amazon

How to Be Black

Or read the book they were talking about: Gang Leader for a Day.

>Tak, men det er ikke helt rigtigt. Der er lande der håndterer det fint. USA, Canada osv. Jeg kan ikke tage hele kreditten alene.

1 ud af 3 sorte amerikanere vil ryge i fængsel i løbet af deres liv. Sorte og latino bander der får LTF til at ligne spejderdrenge. L.A. urolighederne med 53 døde. Ghettoer i alle storbyer. White flight. Gated communities. Osv. Ja, det går sgu rigtig godt i USA.

Det går lidt bedre i Canada, men de har også store problemer med ghettoer hvor de etniske minoriteter bor.

>Der kan sagtens blive bygget boliger til 100.00 mennesker på et år

Ja, lad os bygge en masse store bygninger hvor vi kan placere alle disse udlændinge. Vi kan kalde det Gellerup v2.0. Det har vi jo gode erfaringer med.

>Det er ligesom med alle andre varer, mangler er altid et resultat af regulering.

Fordi finanseringen er noget der kommer fra gud?

>http://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X[1]

>Bandekriminalitet er bare business, og hele levegrundlaget afhænger af salg af stoffer.

Ja, fordi 1 sociolog har gået rundt og snakket med et par bandemedlemmer og derefter skrevet et par bøger om det, MÅ det jo bare være sådan. Er hans bog og påstande blevet peer-reviewed? At tro man kan udrydde bandekriminalitet ved at liberalisere narkolovgivningen er dybt naivt. Tror du virkelig at Jønke og Lille A vil opgive deres kriminelle levevej, droppe de store biler, dropper magten, droppe pengene ved kriminalitet og i stedet for få sig et arbejde. Kriminalitet vil altid eksistere, og det samme vil bander.

Og hvis man er fræk, kunne man jo spørge, om det var stoffer der fik denne sociolog til at fuske med bilagene som han nu engang gjorde.

If I recall correctly, Sudhir claims that 54% of users he observed in the South Side of Chicago back in the 1980's were actually functioning. https://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Sudhir+Venkatesh+gang+leader+for+a+day&qid=1571162955&sr=8-1

Have you studied at all on Malcolm X?

I suggest you read:

https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Malcolm-Told-Alex-Haley/dp/0345350685/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=S4HXAPSC2DB33V62TY8T

The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345350685/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_cLo3xbX00XN4T