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COMMON GROUND

Name: COMMON GROUND
Author: Bob Beckel
ISBN: 978-0-06-123634-1

HOW TO STOP THE PARTISAN WAR THAT IS DESTROYING AMERICA

by Bob Beckel & Cal Thomas ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 9, 2007

A welcome invitation to civility and reason.

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Two partisans offer a timely and useful analysis of America’s polarized politics.

Liberal journalist Beckel (Political Strategy/George Washington Univ.) and conservative columnist Thomas (The Wit and Wisdom of Cal Thomas, 2001, etc.) together write the USA Today column “Common Ground,” which gave rise to this book. Agreeing to disagree on many issues, they explore the roots of today’s red/blue divide and its effects on government, explaining why a return to bipartisanship and consensus (which they hope to hasten) is already occurring. Along the way, they offer an overlong explanation of familiar issues from the turbulent 1960s through the Reagan ’80s that provided fodder for political campaigns characterizing opponents not simply as wrong but as corrupt and wicked. Such demonizing, the authors argue, is the essence of polarized politics and stems from the strong partisanship of activists who are the only Americans engaged in a culture war. Activists constitute an influential one-third of eligible voters, they note, but the vast majority favor consensus. The authors are at their best when describing the “ideologues, power brokers, and bottom feeders” who benefit from a heated political climate: talk-radio and cable-TV hosts, who win higher ratings; political blogs and websites, which get more hits; and campaign fundraisers, who find it easier to raise money. They also note that many now engaged in politics simply aren’t old enough to remember a time when political opponents could regularly talk in a civil fashion to folks across the aisle, reach a compromise and get things done. Offering advice on ways to achieve consensus, they predict Americans are tired of black-or-white political battling and will want to elect the “most competent and least ideological” presidential candidate in 2008. Polarization will always be with us, they acknowledge—but at the fringe of the political spectrum, not the center.

A welcome invitation to civility and reason.

Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-06-123634-1

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2007

Categories:

CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | POLITICS | GENERAL CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES

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THE STONEWALL READER

by The New York Public Library edited by Jason Baumann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 30, 2019

A bold rallying cry that should help in the continuing fight for LGBTQ rights. Read alongside Baumann’s Love and Resistance...

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A showcase of the work of activists and participants in the Stonewall uprising, published to coincide with the 50th anniversary.

With his discerning selections, editor Baumann (editor: Love and Resistance: Out of the Closet into the Stonewall Era, 2019, etc.)—assistant director for collection development for the New York Public Library and coordinator of the library’s LGBT Initiative—provides a street-level view of the Stonewall uprising, which helped launch the LGBTQ rights movement in the United States. Through his skillful curation, he offers a corrective for what is too often a sanitized, homogenous, and whitewashed portrayal of academics and professionals about the event sometimes termed “the hairpin drop heard around the world.” By gathering vibrant and varied experiences of diverse contributors, the collection reflects the economic, gender, racial, and ethnic complexity of the LGBTQ community at a time when behaviors such as same-sex dancing were criminalized. Featuring essays, interviews, personal accounts, and news articles, Baumann’s archival project accurately and meticulously captures an era of social unrest; the conversation about institutional discrimination and inequality presented here remains as revolutionary today as it did 50 years ago. The anthology invites us to look closely at the unresolved social dynamics of a population defined by its diversity, confronting sexism, racism, classism, and internalized homophobia alongside a broad view of institutional discrimination, heteronormativity, and sexual repression. Voices of significant leaders sit beside stories from participants behind protest lines, police raids, and street harassment, and the mounting frustration with an oppressive status quo becomes palpable on every page. The first-person narratives collected here effectively spotlight the social inequalities surrounding the LGBTQ community, many of which persist today.

A bold rallying cry that should help in the continuing fight for LGBTQ rights. Read alongside Baumann’s Love and Resistance and Marc Stein’s The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History for a full education on the events before, during, and after Stonewall.

Pub Date: April 30, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-14-313351-3

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Penguin

Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | LGBTQ

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SO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT RACE

by Ijeoma Oluo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2018

A clear and candid contribution to an essential conversation.

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Straight talk to blacks and whites about the realities of racism.

In her feisty debut book, Oluo, essayist, blogger, and editor at large at the Establishment magazine, writes from the perspective of a black, queer, middle-class, college-educated woman living in a “white supremacist country.” The daughter of a white single mother, brought up in largely white Seattle, she sees race as “one of the most defining forces” in her life. Throughout the book, Oluo responds to questions that she has often been asked, and others that she wishes were asked, about racism “in our workplace, our government, our homes, and ourselves.” “Is it really about race?” she is asked by whites who insist that class is a greater source of oppression. “Is police brutality really about race?” “What is cultural appropriation?” and “What is the model minority myth?” Her sharp, no-nonsense answers include talking points for both blacks and whites. She explains, for example, “when somebody asks you to ‘check your privilege’ they are asking you to pause and consider how the advantages you’ve had in life are contributing to your opinions and actions, and how the lack of disadvantages in certain areas is keeping you from fully understanding the struggles others are facing.” She unpacks the complicated term “intersectionality”: the idea that social justice must consider “a myriad of identities—our gender, class, race, sexuality, and so much more—that inform our experiences in life.” She asks whites to realize that when people of color talk about systemic racism, “they are opening up all of that pain and fear and anger to you” and are asking that they be heard. After devoting most of the book to talking, Oluo finishes with a chapter on action and its urgency. Action includes pressing for reform in schools, unions, and local governments; boycotting businesses that exploit people of color; contributing money to social justice organizations; and, most of all, voting for candidates who make “diversity, inclusion and racial justice a priority.”

A clear and candid contribution to an essential conversation.