In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State


Charles Murray - 2006
    Every year, the American government redistributes more than a trillion dollars of that wealth to provide for retirement, health care, and the alleviation of poverty. We still have millions of people without comfortable retirements, without adequate health care, and living in poverty. Only a government can spend so much money so ineffectually. The solution is to give the money to the people. This is the Plan, a radical new approach to social policy that defies any partisan label. Murray suggests eliminating all welfare transfer programs at the federal, state, and local levels and substituting an annual $10,000 cash grant to everyone age twenty-one or older. In Our Hands describes the financial feasibility of the Plan and its effects on retirement, health care, poverty, marriage and family, work, neighborhoods and civil society.

101 Free Money Making Apps: Earn Money While on the Go From Your Smartphone


Jason Wuerch - 2017
    These money making apps pay you for completing the following: watching videos, taking surveys, completing short tasks, investing, working out, shopping online, mystery shopping and unlocking your phone. This is a great way to earn some extra cash on the side without having to use a large amount of effort. The best part is that some of these apps are completely passive, meaning you can earn a passive income without needing to do anything else other than installing the app and cashing out. As a bonus, we've also included 5 money making websites in addition to the 101 money making apps.

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot


Mikki Kendall - 2020
    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?

Gentrifier


John Joe Schlichtman - 2017
    In this lively yet rigorous book, John Joe Schlichtman, Jason Patch, and Marc Lamont Hill take a close look at the socioeconomic factors and individual decisions behind gentrification and their implications for the displacement of low-income residents. Drawing on a variety of perspectives, the authors present interviews, case studies, and analysis in the context of recent scholarship in such areas as urban sociology, geography, planning, and public policy. As well, they share accounts of their first-hand experience as academics, parents, and spouses living in New York City, San Diego, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Providence. With unique insight and rare candour, GENTRIFIER challenges readers' current understandings of gentrification and their own roles within their neighborhoods. A foreword by Peter Marcuse opens the volume.  REVIEWS"Gentrifier is the sort of book that vintage, pre-Kardashian Kanye West might have written had he had a PhD in urban policy, supplying it with an irresistible hook: "We're all gentrifiers, I'm just the first to admit it." Schlichtman, Patch, and Hill help us shelve what we thought we knew about gentrification, and give us instead a brutally honest reckoning with the ills, conveniences and virtues – but especially the consequences on the vulnerable – of gentrification. They ably wrestle with a characteristic facet of modern existence, rescuing the term from automatic demonization while never once letting it off the hook for the damage it can do."–Michael Eric Dyson, Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University and author of 'Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America'“In their book Gentrifier, instead of trying to solve the gentrification Rubik’s cube, they decide to pull it apart, block-by-block, naming each part and its role in neighborhood change. The book provides not only a glossary of terms, but also tools and rules of engagement for deploying this thing that—if we can all agree on nothing else—has now become a fully loaded and weaponized word. The function of this breakdown is that by using a more scrupulous lexicon for describing the changes happening to one’s neighborhood or environment, legislators and regulators can be more responsive and accurate in their policy proposals.”–from CityLab’s Books That Influenced Us in 2017, Brentin Mock"The co-authors of Gentrifier take a daring tack: Professors all, they break the third wall of social science..." –from the New York Times Book Review, Daniel Brook"By making themselves and their choices part of the analysis, they have produced a unique and important contribution to the progressive literature on gentrification, one that truly does work in the much-sought middle ground between supply and demand side explanations of this form of urban change." –from Antipode Journal, Amy Starecheski"This book will provoke outrage among many gentrification scholars. But it provides a welcome corrective to the slap-dash way ‘gentrification’ is used an explanatory force in popular narratives and some scholarship. The…price puts it just within reach of the interested general reader, who I would encourage to read it. It would also be a valuable addition to reading lists on urban studies, urban geography and urban planning."–from LSE Review of Books, Peter Matthews"Schlichtman, Patch, and Hill present a rich discussion of gentrification as a socio-economic force—touching on much more than soft complaints about tall condos, disappearing neighbourhood bookshops, and $8 lattes …The book encourages us to look inward, arming us with tools and experience to dissect our ideologies to better understand gentrification and gentrifiers."–from Spacing Magazine"Gentrifier, a co-written effort by John Joe Schlichtman, Jason Patch, and Marc Lamont Hill, takes a slightly different approach, and one that was most enjoyable to read. It’s a more nuanced take on what it means to join an existing community..."–from Curbed, Alissa Walker"Gentrifier does a masterful job of explaining, unpacking, and grounding the key analytical concepts that underpin debates on gentrification. In clear, readable, and entertaining prose, John Joe Schlichtman, Jason Patch and Marc Lamont Hill make gentrification more tangible and relevant as an important social topic worthy of rigorous and careful understanding."–John L. Jackson, Jr., Richard Perry University Professor and Dean of the School of Social Policy & Practice, University of Pennsylvania"John Joe Schlichtman, Jason Patch and Marc Lamont Hill clearly engage in the theoretical and policy debates surrounding gentrification while offering very smart analyses of their own narratives. There is a lot out there on gentrification but Gentrifier is most definitely fresh!"–Mary Pattillo, Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, Northwestern University

Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor


Layla F. Saad - 2020
    She encouraged people to own up and share their racist behaviors, big and small. She was looking for truth, and she got it. Thousands of people participated in the challenge, and over 90,000 people downloaded the Me and White Supremacy Workbook.The updated and expanded Me and White Supremacy takes the work deeper by adding more historical and cultural contexts, sharing moving stories and anecdotes, and including expanded definitions, examples, and further resources.Awareness leads to action, and action leads to change. The numbers show that readers are ready to do this work - let's give it to them.

Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States


Eduardo Bonilla-Silva - 2003
    Bonilla-Silva documented how beneath the rhetorical maze of contemporary racial discourse lies a full-blown arsenal of arguments, phrases, and stories that whites use to account for and ultimately justify racial inequities.In the new edition Bonilla-Silva has added a chapter dealing with the future of racial stratification in America that goes beyond the white / black dichotomy. He argues that the U.S. is developing a more complex and apparently "plural" racial order that will mimic Latin American patterns of racial stratification. Another new chapter addresses a variety of questions from readers of the first edition. And he has updated the book throughout with new information, data, and references where appropriate. The book ends with a new Postscript, "What is to be Done (For Real?)". As in the highly acclaimed first edition, Bonilla-Silva continues to challenge color-blind thinking.

Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century


Barbara Ransby - 2018
    . . how to make social change.”—Publishers Weekly The breadth and impact of Black Lives Matter in the United States has been extraordinary. Between 2012 and 2016, thousands of people marched, rallied, held vigils, and engaged in direct actions to protest and draw attention to state and vigilante violence against Black people. What began as outrage over the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin and the exoneration of his killer, and accelerated during the Ferguson uprising of 2014, has evolved into a resurgent Black Freedom Movement, which includes a network of more than fifty organizations working together under the rubric of the Movement for Black Lives coalition. Employing a range of creative tactics and embracing group-centered leadership models, these visionary young organizers, many of them women, and many of them queer, are not only calling for an end to police violence, but demanding racial justice, gender justice, and systemic change. In Making All Black Lives Matter, award-winning historian and longtime activist Barbara Ransby outlines the scope and genealogy of this movement, documenting its roots in Black feminist politics and situating it squarely in a Black radical tradition, one that is anticapitalist, internationalist, and focused on some of the most marginalized members of the Black community. From the perspective of a participant-observer, Ransby maps the movement, profiles many of its lesser-known leaders, measures its impact, outlines its challenges, and looks toward its future.

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League


Jeff Hobbs - 2014
    His charismatic father was later convicted of a double murder. Peace's intellectual brilliance and hard-won determination earned him a full scholarship to Yale University. At college, while majoring in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, he straddled the world of academia and the world of the street, never revealing his full self in either place. Upon graduation from Yale, he went home to teach at the Catholic high school he'd attended, slid into the drug trade, and was brutally murdered at age thirty.That's the short version of Robert Peace's life. The long version, the complete version, is this remarkable tour de force by Jeff Hobbs, a talented young novelist who was Peace's college roommate. Hobbs attended Peace's funeral, reached out to his friends from both Yale and Newark, and ultimately decided to write this harrowing and beautiful account of his life.What does the haunting, untimely death of one man mean? Robert Peace's life doesn't reduce to easy sociological constructions. Through Hobbs's relentless research and remarkable writing, we learn the cost of living between the world Peace was born into and the one his potential allowed him to enter. We see him work, love, fail, succeed, give to others, care for his mother, travel, and dream. We witness the decisions he made for himself and the ones that life forced upon him. But most importantly, we come to understand the sheer complexity of his existence and are irrevocably changed by the fascinating, devastating, and unforgettable life of Robert Peace.

Another Planet: A Year in the Life of a Suburban High School


Elinor Burkett - 2001
    She attended classes, hung out with students, listened to parents, and joined teachers on the front lines.She soon discovered that, post-Columbine, fears about loners and misfits, "Smoker's New Year" (a pot holiday), "Zero Tolerance" policies, and school lockdowns have become as much a part of a teen's high school experience as dating and Clearasil. But Burkett goes even deeper and makes some startling conclusions in this poignant exposé of the real problems facing educators, parents, and the children they try to teach.

Common Sense: The Investor's Guide to Equality, Opportunity, and Growth


Joel Greenblatt - 2020
    It shouldn't take a worldwide pandemic and nationwide protests to bring economic and racial inequality to the forefront of problems we desperately need to solve. But now that the opportunity is here, what should we do? How can we create more equality, opportunity, and growth for everyone? Not someday, but what can government and the private sector do right now to disrupt a status quo that almost everyone wants to change?In Common Sense, the New York Times best-selling author Joel Greenblatt offers an investor's perspective on building an economy that truly works for everyone. With dry wit and engaging storytelling, he makes a lively and provocative case for disruptive new approaches--some drawn from personal experience, some from the outside looking in. How can leading corporations immediately disrupt our education establishment while creating high-paying job opportunities for those currently left behind? If we want a living wage for everyone, how can we afford it while using an existing program to get it done now? If we subsidize banks, what simple changes can we make to the way we capitalize and regulate them to help grow the economy, increase access, and create more jobs (while keeping the risks and benefits where they belong)? Greenblatt also explains how dramatically increasing immigration would be like giving every American a giant bonus and the reason Australia might be the best place to learn about saving for retirement.Not everyone will agree with what Greenblatt has to say--but all of us can benefit from the conversations he aims to start.

Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration


Devah Pager - 2007
    Devah Pager matched up pairs of young men, randomly assigned them criminal records, then sent them on hundreds of real job searches throughout the city of Milwaukee. Her applicants were attractive, articulate, and capable—yet ex-offenders received less than half the callbacks of the equally qualified applicants without criminal backgrounds. Young black men, meanwhile, paid a particularly high price: those with clean records fared no better in their job searches than white men just out of prison. Such shocking barriers to legitimate work, Pager contends, are an important reason that many ex-prisoners soon find themselves back in the realm of poverty, underground employment, and crime that led them to prison in the first place.“Using scholarly research, field research in Milwaukee, and graphics, [Pager] shows that ex-offenders, white or black, stand a very poor chance of getting a legitimate job. . . . Both informative and convincing.”—Library Journal“Marked is that rare book: a penetrating text that rings with moral concern couched in vivid prose—and one of the most useful sociological studies in years.”—Michael Eric Dyson

The Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While Black in America


D. Watkins - 2015
    And then seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot by a wannabe cop in Florida; and then eighteen-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; and then Baltimore blew up; and then gunfire shattered a prayer meeting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Suddenly the entire country awakened to a stark fact: African Americans—particularly young black men—are an endangered species.Now the country’s urban war zone is brought powerfully to life by a rising young literary talent, D. Watkins. The author fought his way up on the east side (the “beast side”) of Baltimore, Maryland—or “Bodymore, Murderland,” as his friends call it—surviving murderous business rivals in the drug trade and equally predatory lawmen. Throughout it all, he pursued his education, earning a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, while staying rooted in his community.When black residents of Baltimore finally decided they had had enough—after the brutal killing of twenty-five-year-old Freddie Gray while in police custody—Watkins was on the streets when the city erupted. He writes about his bleeding hometown with the razor-sharp insights of someone who bleeds along with it. Here are true dispatches from the other side of America.

The Higher Education Bubble


Glenn Harlan Reynolds - 2012
    Like the housing bubble, it is the product of cheap credit coupled with popular expectations of ever-increasing returns on investment, and as with housing prices, the cheap credit has caused college tuitions to vastly outpace inflation and family incomes. Now this bubble is bursting.In this Broadside, Glenn Harlan Reynolds explains the causes and effects of this bubble and the steps colleges and universities must take to ensure their survival. Many graduates are unable to secure employment sufficient to pay off their loans, which are usually not dischargeable in bankruptcy. As students become less willing to incur debt for education, colleges and universities will have to adapt to a new world of cost pressures and declining public support.

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong


James W. Loewen - 1995
    Lies My Teacher Told Me won the American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship.James W. Loewen, a sociology professor and distinguished critic of history education, puts 12 popular textbooks under the microscope-and what he discovers will surprise you. In his opinion, every one of these texts fails to make its subject interesting or memorable. Worse still is the proliferation of blind patriotism, mindless optimism and misinformation filling the pages.From the truth about Christopher Columbus to the harsh reality of the Vietnam War, Loewen picks apart the lies we've been told. This audiobook, narrated by Brian Keeler (The Hurricane, "All My Children") will forever change your view of the past.

The Other America: Poverty in the United States


Michael Harrington - 1962
    This anniversary edition includes Michael Harrington’s essays on poverty in the 1970s and ’80s as well as a new introduction by Harrington’s biographer, Maurice Isserman. This illuminating, profoundly moving classic is still all too relevant for today’s America.When Michael Harrington’s masterpiece, The Other America, was first published in 1962, it was hailed as an explosive work and became a galvanizing force for the war on poverty. Harrington shed light on the lives of the poor—from farm to city—and the social forces that relegated them to their difficult situations. He was determined to make poverty in the United States visible and his observations and analyses have had a profound effect on our country, radically changing how we view the poor and the policies we employ to help them.