The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and Rise and Decline of Black Politics (Transgressing Boundaries: Studies in Black Politics and Black Communities)

The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and Rise and Decline of Black Politics (Transgressing Boundaries: Studies in Black Politics and Black Communities)
Fredrick Harris (Author)
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Human Rights

The historical significance of Barack Obama's triumph in the presidential election of 2008 scarcely requires comment. Yet it contains an irony: he won a victory as an African American only by denying that he should discuss issues that target the concerns of African Americans. Obama's very success, writes Fredrick Harris, exacted a heavy cost on black politics.

In The Price of the Ticket, Harris puts Obama's career in the context of decades of black activism, showing how his election undermined the very movement that made it possible. The path to his presidency began just before passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, when black leaders began to discuss strategies to make the most of their new access to the ballot. Some argued that black voters should organize into a cohesive, independent bloc to promote both targeted and universal polices; others urged a more race-neutral approach, working together with other racial minorities as well as like-minded whites. This has been the fundamental divide within black politics ever since. At first, the gap did not seem serious. But the post-civil-rights era has accelerated a shift towards race-neutral politics. Obama made a point of distancing himself from older race-conscious black leaders, such as Jesse Jackson- and leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus-even though, as Harris shows, he owes much to Jackson's earlier campaigns for the White House. Unquestionably Obama's approach won support among whites, but Harris finds the results troublesome. The social problems targeted by an earlier generation of black politicians--racial disparities in income and education, stratospheric incarceration and unemployment rates--all persist, yet Obama's election, ironically, marginalized those issues, keeping them off the political agenda. Meanwhile, the civil-rights movement's militancy to attack the vestiges of racial inequality is fading.

Written by one of America's leading scholars of race and politics, The Price of the Ticket will reshape our understanding of the rise of Barack Obama and the decline of a politics dedicated to challenging racial inequality head on.

• Rank: #207526 in Books
• Published on: 2014-01-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, .0 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Sweet Land of Liberty: Government of the People, by the People; for the People

Sweet Land of Liberty: Government of the People, by the People; for the People
Shirley D. Hunter (Author)

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Human Rights

Description

I had a fantasy that I could get someone else to write their version of this book. Someone with stature or standing. I never got past first base with that dream.

It began with the massacre at Sandy Hook. I changed overnight from someone with little interest in politics (shame on me), to a person obsessed with knowing what was happening and why. The more ugliness I unearthed, the more horrified I became at the change from the representative democracy I emigrated to, to the current state of plutocracy.

What I was discovering reminded me of a book by A. Powell Davies, minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C. around Joseph McCarthy's time. I re-read the book with an ever growing sense of alarm and urgency the comparison of then and now awoke in me. The democratic republic was being destroyed.

This book is about my personal journey of political enlightenment, and the realization of what my part must be from now on as a citizen of the amazing and brave experiment which is America. Let me take you along.

Benjamin Franklin, one of the Convention delegates, recognized the fragility of the system the framers created in the Constitution. When asked what had been devised, he replied, "A republic, if you can keep it." So America became a republic, a form of government which has a president who is elected, and representatives elected by, and responsible to the people. The sovereign power is held by the people. We must be guardians and manifestations of that power.

Clearly today politicians are not working for "We the people." They are working for the super-rich. Billionaires whose money grants them power. The particular billionaires whose greedy addiction to money is rationalized into a sense of entitlement. Money rules all. Guns; ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council); Oil and Gas and Pollution; Monsanto and GMOs; Climate Change and the Environment; the repression of "Breakthrough Energy"; the 911 Cover-up; the Government shutdown. Money owns politics. Elections and campaigns are shaped by money. Not by "We the People" but by money.

A huge gap has been slowly developing between billionaires and the middle class and poor. Citizens united is an incomprehensible decision by the Supreme Court that corporations deserve the same rights as people. Collective bargaining is being strangled. Hunger is becoming a big problem in the US and safety nets are disappearing. The military, defense and security system has been increasing in size, wealth and complexity, and no one seems to have a handle on how much money is being poured into it. Human rights are being lost. Wall Street banks have been declared too big to fail, and have been bailed out from their gambling losses with taxpayers' money. The latest horror is the free trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership which would surrender America's right to determine our own consumer, health, safety, labor, privacy and environmental regulations.

I was politically asleep for 40 years!

The book describes my discoveries in detail. It has a chapter devoted to activism: organizations which are activist, publications which are political; organizations which check rumors and debunk myths. Personal involvement ranges from signing petitions, to making phone calls, to marching with other activists, to demonstrating, to donating money, to writing. Whatever we each can contribute. There are links to 220 references, many of which lead to other links.

My obsession with discovery became an obsession to write about what I found and the solutions I had found, even although I'm not a political scientist. My qualifications are of being an immigrant who had an awakening, among other immigrants or descendants of immigrants. The only way for America to return to representative democracy is through the actions of "We the people" who have the collective power. Wake up America!

Shirley D. Hunter

• Rank: #192191 in eBooks
• Published on: 2013-12-18
• Released on: 2013-12-18
• Format: Kindle eBook

Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference

Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference
Warren St. John (Author)
(122)

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Human Rights

The extraordinary tale of a refugee youth soccer team and the transformation of a small American town

Clarkston, Georgia, was a typical Southern town until it was designated a refugee settlement center in the 1990s, becoming the first American home for scores of families in flight from the world’s war zones—from Liberia and Sudan to Iraq and Afghanistan. Suddenly Clarkston’s streets were filled with women wearing the hijab, the smells of cumin and curry, and kids of all colors playing soccer in any open space they could find. The town also became home to Luma Mufleh, an American-educated Jordanian woman who founded a youth soccer team to unify Clarkston’s refugee children and keep them off the streets. These kids named themselves the Fugees.

Set against the backdrop of an American town that without its consent had become a vast social experiment, Outcasts United follows a pivotal season in the life of the Fugees and their charismatic coach. Warren St. John documents the lives of a diverse group of young people as they miraculously coalesce into a band of brothers, while also drawing a fascinating portrait of a fading American town struggling to accommodate its new arrivals. At the center of the story is fiery Coach Luma, who relentlessly drives her players to success on the soccer field while holding together their lives—and the lives of their families—in the face of a series of daunting challenges.

This fast-paced chronicle of a single season is a complex and inspiring tale of a small town becoming a global community—and an account of the ingenious and complicated ways we create a home in a changing world.


From the Hardcover edition.

• Rank: #19553 in Books
• Published on: 2009-12-01
• Released on: 2009-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 7.99" h x 5.00" w x .79" l, .55 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

DDR Posters: The Art of East German Propaganda

DDR Posters: The Art of East German Propaganda
David Heather (Author)

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Human Rights

Made available to the public for the first time, these posters from the archives of the German Historical Museum reveal a regime determined to influence and control the citizens of East Germany. In the age of the internet, poster art is fading into history, but its importance as historical document remains valuable and enlightening. An inexpensive and efficient means of mass communication, the poster was used extensively by Communist regimes in order to maintain state control. This collection of 150 of the most outstanding works from a selection of more than 10,000 posters archived by the German Historical Museum features works that are both poignant and valid in light of current global politics. Although propaganda posters were used in a variety of communist countries, those that emanated from East Germany are unique in their subtlety and nuanced messages. Many posters appropriate American or Western European symbols and others used humor to get their point across. Grouped chronologically according to such themes as post-war years, the prospect of peace, denouncement of the West, and praise for Communist allies, these beautifully reproduced works provide a historical and cultural snapshot of East Germany during its entire history.

• Rank: #218354 in Books
• Published on: 2014-05-25
• Released on: 2014-05-25
• Original language: German
• Binding: Hardcover
• 160 pages

The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action

The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action
Michael Nagler (Author), Ann Wright (Foreword)

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Human Rights

Despite the fact that two of the 20th century’s most monumental revolutions achieved their aims through nonviolent action, the world continues to view nonviolence as a passive, ineffectual tactic. In this short and powerful book, renowned peace activist Michael Nagler challenges this assertion, demonstrating that nonviolence succeeds through aggressively strategic and sustained action. It demands greater courage and discipline than violence.

Distilling the core theories of nonviolence and drawing deeply from the lives of leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., this action-oriented handbook offers both guidance for nonviolent resistance and advice for building constructive movements capable of restructuring the very bedrock of society. Nagler also includes stories of successful nonviolent resistance that have been ignored by the mass media. The book features a list of resources that offer pathways to immediate action and engagement with the peace movement worldwide.

• Rank: #111233 in Books
• Published on: 2014-04-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
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• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

International Human Rights, Decolonisation and Globalisation: Becoming Human (Routledge Studies in International Law)

International Human Rights, Decolonisation and Globalisation: Becoming Human (Routledge Studies in International Law)
Shelley Wright (Author)

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Human Rights

Covering a diverse range of topics, case studies and theories, the author undertakes a critique of the principal assumptions on which the existing international human rights regime has been constructed. She argues that the decolonization of human rights, and the creation of a global community that is conducive to the well-being of all humans, will require a radical restructuring of our ways of thinking, researching and writing. In contributing to this restructuring she brings together feminist and indigenous approaches as well as postmodern and post-colonial scholarship, engaging directly with some of the prevailing orthodoxies, such as 'universality', 'the individual', 'self-determination', 'cultural relativism', 'globalization' and 'civil society'.

• Rank: #212056 in Books
• Published on: 2013-12-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
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• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

The Law of Refugee Status

The Law of Refugee Status
James C. Hathaway (Author), Michelle Foster (Author)

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Human Rights

The first edition of The Law of Refugee Status (published in 1991) is generally regarded as the seminal text on interpreting the refugee definition set by the UN's 1951 Refugee Convention. Its groundbreaking analysis served as the bedrock for not only much judicial reasoning, but also for a burgeoning academic literature in law and related fields. This second edition builds on the strong critical focus and human rights orientation of the first edition, but undertakes an entirely original analysis of the jurisprudence of leading common law and select civil law states. The authors provide robust responses to the most difficult questions of refugee status in a clear and direct way. The result is a comprehensive and truly global analysis of the central question in asylum law: who is a refugee?

• Rank: #218145 in Books
• Published on: 2014-06-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 896 pages