Citizen by
Interview with Claudia Rankine. Jenise Hudson, Janeen Price, & Claudia Rankine. (2016). Interview with Claudia Rankine. CLA Journal, 60(1), 10–14.
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Boston Globe, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, NPR. Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, Slate, Time Out New York, Vulture, Refinery 29, and many more . . .
A provocative meditation on race, Claudia Rankine's long-awaited follow up to her groundbreaking book Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time.
The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship.
In essay, image, and poetry,Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named "post-race" society.
American Women Poets in the 21st Century by 
Don't Let Me Be Lonely by |
The story of a significant environmental disaster and tale of a relentless physician who stood up to power. Shortly after the city of Flint shifted the source of its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint Fiver, citizens began complaining about the water but officials rebuffed them. Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician at the city's public hospital, had no reason to be concerned about the water and encouraged the parents and children in her care to continue drinking it. But a conversation at a cookout with an old friend, leaked documents from a rogue environmental inspector, and the activism of a concerned mother raised red flags about lead--a neurotoxin whose irreversible effects fall most heavily on children.
This book is the story of how Dr. Mona--accompanied by ateam of researchers, parents, friends, and community leaders --proved that Flint's kids were exposed to lead and then fought her own government and a brutal backlash to expose that truth to the world. At the center of the story is Dr. Mona herself--an immigrant, doctor, scientist, and mother whose family's activist roots inspired her pursuit of justice.-- |
On the Topic of Immigration...
In 2004, four Latino teenagers arrived at the Marine Advanced Technology Education Robotics Competition at the University of California, Santa Barbara. They were born in Mexico but raised in Phoenix, Arizona, where they attended an underfunded public high school. No one had ever suggested to Oscar, Cristian, Luis, or Lorenzo that they might amount to much―but two inspiring science teachers had convinced these impoverished, undocumented kids from the desert who had never even seen the ocean that they should try to build an underwater robot.
And build a robot they did. Their robot wasn't pretty, especially compared to those of the competition. They were going up against some of the best collegiate engineers in the country, including a team from MIT backed by a $10,000 grant from ExxonMobil. The Phoenix teenagers had scraped together less than $1,000 and built their robot out of scavenged parts. This was never a level competition―and yet, against all odds . . . they won!
But this is just the beginning for these four, whose story―which became a key inspiration to the DREAMers movement―will go on to include first-generation college graduations, deportation, bean-picking in Mexico, and service in Afghanistan.
Joshua Davis's Spare Parts is a story about overcoming insurmountable odds and four young men who proved they were among the most patriotic and talented Americans in this country―even as the country tried to kick them out.
The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World
"A powerful and poignant memoir."—Cornel West, from the foreword
Seen around the world, John Carlos and Tommie Smith's Black Power salute on the 1968 Olympic podium sparked controversy and career fallout. Yet their show of defiance remains one of the most iconic images of Olympic history and the Black Power movement. Here is the remarkable story of one of the men behind the salute, lifelong activist John Carlos.
John Carlos is a former track and field athlete and professional football player, and a founding member of the Olympic Project for Human Rights. He won the bronze medal in the 200-meter race at the 1968 Olympics, where his Black Power salute on the podium with Tommie Smith caused much political controversy.
Dave Zirin is the author of four books, including Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games We Love, A Peoples' History of Sports in the United States, and What's My Name, Fool?
Resources:
Book review at Amazon
Zinn Education Project
Hot Dogs and Hamburgers: Unlocking Life's Potential by Inspiring Literacy at Any Age is the heartwarming story of Rob Shindler, a father who wanted to help his son with his reading challenges. Shindler discovered the way to that goal was through volunteering at the Literacy Center of Chicago. There, he learned firsthand how ridiculous the common misconceptions are about learning disabilities and adult low literacy. The assortment of students he taught were ambitious people who were eloquent, driven, clever, and so funny they made him laugh out loud. Here, Rob shares his students' pain and humiliations, frustrations and hopes. Hot Dogs & Hamburgers demonstrates that literacy issues reside in all neighborhoods and that its victims are committed to finding dignity and life's possibilities through learning to read.
Rob's teaching experiences are so motivating and rewarding that once you've read his story, you're likely to begin your own journey as a literacy tutor. His hope is that Hot Dogs & Hamburgers will bring an awareness of adult low literacy and slow that judging process down.
—UCC Resources
