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Social Problems in Baltimore: Poverty and Racial Inequity
Hood Feminism by Mikki KendallA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "One of the most important books of the current moment."--Time "A rousing call to action... It should be required reading for everyone."--Gabrielle Union, author of We're Going to Need More Wine "A brutally candid and unobstructed portrait of mainstream white feminism." --Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist A potent and electrifying critique of today's feminist movement announcing a fresh new voice in black feminism Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. That feminists refuse to prioritize these issues has only exacerbated the age-old problem of both internecine discord and women who rebuff at carrying the title. Moreover, prominent white feminists broadly suffer from their own myopia with regard to how things like race, class, sexual orientation, and ability intersect with gender. How can we stand in solidarity as a movement, Kendall asks, when there is the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others? In her searing collection of essays, Mikki Kendall takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement, arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women. Drawing on her own experiences with hunger, violence, and hypersexualization, along with incisive commentary on politics, pop culture, the stigma of mental health, and more, Hood Feminism delivers an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux. An unforgettable debut, Kendall has written a ferocious clarion call to all would-be feminists to live out the true mandate of the movement in thought and in deed.
Call Number: E185.86 .K46 2020
The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality by Tracy E. OreNow published by Oxford University Press--at a new, lower price--The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality, Seventh Edition, surveys how and why the categories of race, class, gender, and sexuality are constructed, maintained, experienced, and transformed. This popular anthology moves beyond simply discussing various forms of stratification and the impact on members of marginalized groups by providing a thorough discussion of how such systems of stratification are formed, perpetuated, and interconnected. Each reading ends with critical-thinking questions to help students relate content to their own lives and understand how their attitudes, actions, and perspectives may serve to perpetuate a stratified system.
Call Number: HN59.2 .S585 2019
The Broken Ladder by Keith Payne"A persuasive and highly readable account." --President Barack Obama "Brilliant. . . . an important, fascinating read arguing that inequality creates a public health crisis in America." --Nicholas Kristof, New York Times "The Broken Ladder is an important, timely, and beautifully written account of how inequality affects us all." --Adam Alter, New York Times bestselling author of Irresistible and Drunk Tank Pink A timely examination by a leading scientist of the physical, psychological, and moral effects of inequality. The levels of inequality in the world today are on a scale that have not been seen in our lifetimes, yet the disparity between rich and poor has ramifications that extend far beyond mere financial means. In The Broken Ladder psychologist Keith Payne examines how inequality divides us not just economically; it also has profound consequences for how we think, how we respond to stress, how our immune systems function, and even how we view moral concepts such as justice and fairness. Research in psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics has not only revealed important new insights into how inequality changes people in predictable ways but also provided a corrective to the flawed view of poverty as being the result of individual character failings. Among modern developed societies, inequality is not primarily a matter of the actual amount of money people have. It is, rather, people's sense of where they stand in relation to others. Feeling poor matters--not just being poor. Regardless of their average incomes, countries or states with greater levels of income inequality have much higher rates of all the social maladies we associate with poverty, including lower than average life expectancies, serious health problems, mental illness, and crime. The Broken Ladder explores such issues as why women in poor societies often have more children, and why they have them at a younger a≥ why there is little trust among the working class in the prudence of investing for the future; why people's perception of their social status affects their political beliefs and leads to greater political divisions; how poverty raises stress levels as effectively as actual physical threats; how inequality in the workplace affects performance; and why unequal societies tend to become more religious. Understanding how inequality shapes our world can help us better understand what drives ideological divides, why high inequality makes the middle class feel left behind, and how to disconnect from the endless treadmill of social comparison.
Call Number: HM821 .P39 2018
The Wealth Divide by Greenhaven Press Staff (Editor); Noël Merino (Editor)Many economists argue that the Great Recession and the Occupy movement are just two symptoms of a deep issue in the United States: wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Are these economists right? Should wealth be distributed equally? Should it be distributed at all? Why do patterns of wealth seem to fall along racial and ethnic lines? Is taxation of the rich to help the poor ethical? Experts analyze these issues and more from diverse perspectives, offering nuanced interpretations of the problems and novel solutions. Writers include Jonathan Rauch, Robert A. Levy, and Thomas Sowell.
Call Number: HC79.I5 W43 2015
More Than Just Race by William Julius WilsonIn this timely and provocative contribution to the American discourse on race, William Julius Wilson applies an exciting new analytic framework to three politically fraught social problems: the persistence of the inner-city ghetto, the plight of low-skilled black males, and the fragmentation of the African American family. Though the discussion of racial inequality is typically ideologically polarized. Wilson dares to consider both institutional and cultural factors as causes of the persistence of racial inequality. He reaches the controversial conclusion that while structural and cultural forces are inextricably linked, public policy can only change the racial status quo by reforming the institutions that reinforce it.
Call Number: HN90.S6 W55 2010
Streaming Videos
Bill Moyers' Journal: Race and Politics in America's CitiesOn the 40th anniversary of the landmark Kerner Commission Report on civil unrest, this edition of the Journal spotlights former Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris, one of the last living members of the original commission, who discusses the root causes of the 1960s riots that rocked Newark, Detroit, and other U.S. cities. Harris also reflects on his ongoing commitment to the cause of reducing racism and deep poverty in inner cities. Bill Moyers then interviews Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Cory Booker, a dynamic voice for urban reform who shares the lessons he has learned and his vision for a brighter future for his city.
Articles on sociology topics including criminal justice, gender studies, racial studies, social services, and social work.
On the Shelf at CCBC Libraries
The Condemnation of Blackness by Khalil Gibran MuhammadWinner of the John Hope Franklin Prize A Moyers & Company Best Book of the Year ?A brilliant work that tells us how directly the past has formed us.? ?Darryl Pinckney, New York Review of Books How did we come to think of race as synonymous with crime? A brilliant and deeply disturbing biography of the idea of black criminality in the making of modern urban America, The Condemnation of Blackness reveals the influence this pernicious myth, rooted in crime statistics, has had on our society and our sense of self. Black crime statistics have shaped debates about everything from public education to policing to presidential elections, fueling racism and justifying inequality. How was this statistical link between blackness and criminality initially forged? Why was the same link not made for whites? In the age of Black Lives Matter and Donald Trump, under the shadow of Ferguson and Baltimore, no questions could be more urgent. ?The role of social-science research in creating the myth of black criminality is the focus of this seminal work?[It] shows how progressive reformers, academics, and policy-makers subscribed to a ???statistical discourse' about black crime?one that shifted blame onto black people for their disproportionate incarceration and continues to sustain gross racial disparities in American law enforcement and criminal justice.? ?Elizabeth Hinton, The Nation ?Muhammad identifies two different responses to crime among African-Americans in the post?Civil War years, both of which are still with us: in the South, there was vigilantism; in the North, there was an increased police presence. This was not the case when it came to white European-immigrant groups that were also being demonized for supposedly containing large criminal elements.? ?New Yorker
Publication Date: 2019-07-22
The Condemnation of Blackness by Khalil Gibran MuhammadWinner of the John Hope Franklin Prize A Moyers & Company Best Book of the Year ?A brilliant work that tells us how directly the past has formed us.? ?Darryl Pinckney, New York Review of Books How did we come to think of race as synonymous with crime? A brilliant and deeply disturbing biography of the idea of black criminality in the making of modern urban America, The Condemnation of Blackness reveals the influence this pernicious myth, rooted in crime statistics, has had on our society and our sense of self. Black crime statistics have shaped debates about everything from public education to policing to presidential elections, fueling racism and justifying inequality. How was this statistical link between blackness and criminality initially forged? Why was the same link not made for whites? In the age of Black Lives Matter and Donald Trump, under the shadow of Ferguson and Baltimore, no questions could be more urgent. ?The role of social-science research in creating the myth of black criminality is the focus of this seminal work?[It] shows how progressive reformers, academics, and policy-makers subscribed to a ???statistical discourse' about black crime?one that shifted blame onto black people for their disproportionate incarceration and continues to sustain gross racial disparities in American law enforcement and criminal justice.? ?Elizabeth Hinton, The Nation ?Muhammad identifies two different responses to crime among African-Americans in the post?Civil War years, both of which are still with us: in the South, there was vigilantism; in the North, there was an increased police presence. This was not the case when it came to white European-immigrant groups that were also being demonized for supposedly containing large criminal elements.? ?New Yorker
Publication Date: 2019-07-22
The Lines Between Us by Lawrence LanahanDeeply reported and deftly told, The Lines Between Us, a riveting story from DuPont Award - winning journalist Lawrence Lanahan, compels reflection on America's entrenched inequality - and on where the rubber meets the road not in the abstract, but in our own backyards. The criss-crossing stories of Mark, a white devout Christian who sells his suburban home to move to Baltimore's inner city, and Nicole, a black mother determined to leave West Baltimore for the suburbs, chronicle how the region became so deeply segregated and why these fault lines persist today.