Best african-american & black biographies according to redditors

There aren't as many very large, highly organized gangs as there were in the 80's and 90's. Those functioned more like a black market business. The goal was to make money, gain territory, and move up in the hierarchy.

Now that a lot of the head guys were taken down, the gangs splintered and are much smaller, and less organized. In Chicago where I live, gang territories are very small and gangs run a corner, but the whole south side or north side isn't split between the People and Folks, across the line. There is tons of infighting between cliques that are technically affiliated with the same larger group.

Gang leaders are not as often powerful black market CEOs, but more than likely an 18 or 19 year old kid running a group of 20 kids.

Dismantling the gangs in the 90's actually really increased violent crime in the city, because the focus is no longer on making money. There aren't level headed guys at the top telling people to quit it with petty violence, because body counts are bad for business.

Most homicides in Chicago are not related to the drug trade, but to some little slight or disrespect, a $20 loan, someone flirting with someone else's girl.

If you'd like to really learn what gangs today are like I'd suggest Gang Leader for A Day

To understand some more of the structures of violence and gangs I really highly recommend The Interrupters

If you want to understand what gangs were like at the height of their influence, in the 80's and 90's, there's nothing better than The Wire. But that shows a reality that no longer really exists.

The exception is the Latino gangs that are trafficking drugs into the US. They are HIGHLY organized and very disciplined in their use of violence. If you'd like a snapshot of this, I'd recommend Sin Nombre


And if I may briefly stand on my soapbox, please be aware that if you buy your (illegal) drugs from anywhere but a legal pot dispensary, it's very likely that you ARE supporting the highly organized Latino gangs that are ruthless and violent. It's difficult to harmlessly buy black market drugs, unless you personally know your grower.

The story of Henrietta Lacks is super interesting, but also really sad. Her cells were harvested at a blacks only hospital without her consent or notification. Later, the doc who harvested them went on to make buckets of money selling the cell line to researchers all over the place. People still make buckets of money off that line, and her family never saw, and will never see, a dime of it.

It wasn't all bad, though, as her cell line also helped to produce standards for cell culturing/storage/growth/an entire industry that all began with her cell line. It literally started a new era of research.

If you ever get a chance to read Skloot's book give it a read. Very eye-opening for me in terms of patient rights and medical ethics at the time.

EDIT: As /u/Halsfield pointed out, there actually has been a legal development in the situation. Two of her surviving family members now sit on a committee that controls scientific access to the DNA, as well as recognition in published papers using this line. There's no reported financial compensation, but apparently the family wasn't all that interested in cashing in. In fact, it sounds like it's opened up a ton of lucrative speaking engagements for her remaining family. I'm glad to see a happy ending, hats off to Rebecca Skloot. Without her, Henrietta would be nothing more than a footnote in history.

EDIT2: I am not as good with details as I'd hoped. Hopkins, where she was admitted, had a black wing and a white wing, and the Dr. who collected the sample did not make buckets of cash. It did spring a healthy business producing/shipping the cells to other researchers, but buckets of money might not be the best description. For clarity's sake I'm leaving my original comment as is.

It wasn't just to change his opinion, but to really understand how society treats LGBT.

Reminds me a lot of Black Like Me, where in the '50s a white guy changes his skin (with medical help and makeup) to become a black man so that he can understand what it means to be black in America.

If you guys are interested, there's already a book on the Bulls last season. It's called Playing for Keeps

It's written by the great David Halberstrom. He got full access to following the team that year. It's not just the last season but also mini biography on most of the players and coaches, but mostly centered around Jordan.

The book is really good and would have been even better if Jordan didn't renege on his promise to sit down after the season 1-1 with Halberstrom.

BTW, the book is really great at showing how much the players HATED Krause and how hard it was for Jackson to try to balance the stars and keeping management out of the way, all while coaching that year on his own expiring contract. It has other great details, like how at the end Reinsdorff would negotiate with Jordan 1-1, no one else, no agents. They'd sit in a room and work it out on their own.

Reading books like Hillbilly Elegy and Between the World and Me back-to-back suggests that kind of defensive thinking is pretty universal.

"Getting too big for your britches" among poor white folks is pretty similar to the pressure to "keep it real" among poor black folks. Crabs in a bucket, basically.

Presidents make $400,000 a year and pay no living expenses while serving. So, after tax times 8 years, that's about 2.36 million dollars. He's also got multiple... New York Times... best selling books. So, he's likely earned a few million dollars. No different than any other president in the past 50 years.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, very interesting story about human cell research, the woman whose cells made it possible, and her daughter. It is a compelling true story and describing it makes me want to read it again! And I second (or third) the Mary Roach books; they are sometimes LOL funny.

if anyone in the thread wants to read about more horrific instances of racism in the justice system and inmates thrown on death row without even being convicted, check out Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Black-Baratunde-Thurston/dp/0062003216

First line under the book description: If You Don't Buy This Book, You're a Racist.

http://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052173

I've helped contribute to that weight. Also, more than 2 tons of cells have been produced and her family hasn't seen a dime.

Believing in equality, and marching against Trump in a show of solidarity for those values, is the point - "achieving equality" happens through legislation and societal evolution. Kind of like how women had to march for suffrage, but the march didn't "achieve" suffrage. If you honestly don't understand the purpose of protest, I suggest you read "March: Book One", or "Freedom is a Constant Struggle".

For your second question: women are still paid less for the same job a man has (the discrepancy of which is even worse for women of color), women are still vastly outnumbered in positions of power (CEOs, World Leaders, etc.), and when they do find themselves in those positions, like Hillary Clinton, they are derided for everything from the pitch of their voice, to the clothes they wear, to their ability to overcome their "emotions".

And I swear to God, if you try to reply with some "but things are so much better!" line: things were also better for women after they won the vote, but it still took until 1993 for Marital Rape to be considered a crime in the U.S. "Progress" is not a road that just ends, where we all pat each-other on the back and look out at our utopia - because humans will always be imperfect, and there will always be something to improve.

>The Immortal Life of Hennrietta

Based on the book by the same name by Rebecca Skloot

https://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181

Hopefully, this brings attention to the role that John Lewis played in the civil rights era.

I know of him, but I don't know as much as I should, so I ordered the graphic novel he made called March. Apparently it's very good.

Have you read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks? I quite enjoyed it.

Thanks for elaborating, I was trying to give a very brief outline.

For anyone interested in the history of Rwanda and the Rwandan genocide, I'd recommend Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families. It's absolutely nuts to me that over a 3 month period people picked up their machetes and slaughtered 20% of the population.

https://smile.amazon.com/March-Trilogy-Slipcase-John-Lewis/dp/1603093958

Hey now. If we're going to be good people...

I recommend reading the book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families.

I mean Sierra Leon's govt/rebels used 10-12 year olds as their front line fighters for years.

One of them watched his buddy get hit by a RPG and kept fighting. His memoirs can be found in a A Long Way Gone

He was freed by the Equal Justice Initiative, a non-profit that provides free legal services to those who can't afford anything better than a public defender. The founder of EJI, Bryan Stevenson, has a book called Just Mercy, about his fight against the death penalty and against racism in the justice system. Read it, it's fascinating and horrifying, and I can't imagine anyone could walk away from that book and support the death penalty.

Can't believe this isn't a top comment. If ever there was a category that this book fit in, it would be this one.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

Started reading it and had to stop. Very poignant.

Roméo Dallaire's autobiography, Shake Hands With the Devil, is a good, if long-winded read. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families is briefer, but very good nonetheless, and contains first-hand accounts of the events from both Hutus and Tutsis.

Both books were very painful to read, indeed I couldn't bring myself to finish either, but they are very, very good. I think I will have to give them another try, definitely don't regret buying them.

This is an absolutely fascinating story. In college I took this History of Science course and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was one of the course books. It was a great read, very fair to all sides with good research but really great storytelling too. Totally recommend it if you like nonfiction that has to do with science but is actually written for fun reading.

You wouldn't use the same literary techniques to interpret the poetry of Walt Whitman as you would to interpret the Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Genesis 1 is a poem.

The rest of Genesis is not.

Why would you uniformly treat Whitman and Malcom X exactly the same with no difference as to the literary format?

To add, you can find a lot of his smaller work on The Atlantic, here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/author/ta-nehisi-coates/

His biggest, prize-winning, piece is this one from 2014: The Case for Reparations

His recent, massively successful and also award-winning book is: Between the World and Me

And if you're into that sort of thing, as Obama mentioned in his recent address to Howard U, Coates is also the writer for the latest Black Panther superhero comics run.

As you might gather, Coates is relatively narrow in his range of topics though. His topic is race in America, about which he talks both from a deeply personal perspective and from a deeply historical perspective. He is respected as a writer/journalist who not only talks about the problems of racism in current times, but who can connect current problems with the whole history of the United States drawing on both academic historical scholarship and in particular the African-American intellectual tradition.

Kagame is most likely not behind the murder of Habyarimana. Looking at the chain of events, the Hutu majority was being stirred up against the Tutsi minority for months prior to the assassination. There were also rumors of something big happening before the assassination. Less than an hour after Habyarimana's plane crashed, the military had roadblocks up and was searching opposition leader houses. Within hours, the massacre of Tutsis by Hutus had began, the culmination of months of propaganda against the "Tutsi cockroaches".

We don't know who fired the SAMs that hit Habyarimana's plane, but they were most likely fired from areas that the Rwandan army already controlled. It's widely believed that Hutu extremists who wanted to eliminate the Tutsis were responsible for taking out Habyarimana, a major obstacle to their goal. Further, his agreement to the Arusha Accords would end the Rwandan Civil War and create a power-sharing agreement with the Tutsis, something that many Hutus disagreed with. To be fair, Habyarimana didn't like the accords, particularly since they stripped many of his powers, but they were a means to end the civil war.

So why would Kagame, a Tutsi, assassinate Habyarimana? The Arusha Accords would give Tutsis power. The genocide decimated Kagame's tribe and anyone paying attention to the situation in Rwanda knew that it was a powder keg. The Tutsis were in a position to reclaim some lost political power and there was even a possibility that the Rwandan "Tutsi diaspora" across neighboring countries could eventually return home. For Kagame to throw away this huge win for the Tutsis on an outright gamble doesn't make sense.

Note regarding the use of the words "civil war": Some would argue that because the Tutsis who invaded Rwanda in 1990 were based in Uganda, largely members of the Ugandan army, and supported by the Ugandan president, that it was an invasion by Uganda and not a civil war. However, there was also a law passed that prevented non-Ugandans from owning land in Uganda. Because many of the Tutsis in the army were involuntarily exiled from Rwanda, but could not have a stable place in their adopted country, they felt tremendous pressure to return "home". I'm hard-pressed to say whether the term "civil war" is without merit, but it's a succinct way of describing the situation without getting into the complexities.

Sources: The Rwanda Crisis: History of Genocide and We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families (a brilliant and heart-breaking book).

Any of them will do, I think

Here's a link to the mass market paperback version

There's a book that won the National Book Critics Circle Award about the genocide, written by Philip Gourevitch who covered the story for The New Yorker. It is called We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.

If you want to read his pieces from The New Yorker, here's the author's page on their website with links to his stories.

By virtue of the fact that I'm on Reddit, you're obviously correct.

I recommend Losing Ground, Affirmative Action Around the World, and The Myth of the Robber Barons for an empirical, historical examination of what has caused poverty to decline in America, and what has caused it to increase.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is one of the more recent NYT bestsellers that is also a pretty good biology read. The Hot Zone is a classic, and although it is dated, it will probably regain some of its formal popularity due to the [current ebola outbreak] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_West_Africa_Ebola_outbreak). I would recommend Creighton if you want a "fun" read, but his works are fictional, predictable, and often infuriatingly inaccurate.

I think you'd find The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a very interesting read.

I would suggest you read the March series by John Lewis for a graphic novel tutorial on the history of the American civil rights movement.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. A poor black tobacco farmer to whom we owe a debt of gratitude, because without her we wouldn't have half the cures to diseases we have today - including the polio vaccine.

There are no Children Here

Gang Leader for a Day

Hoop Dreams - Also a very good documentary film.

Are you aware that "BHO" had money before he ran for office? The Audacity of Hope made BHO and family lots of money. In addition to that, the constitution guarantees that BHO receives a salary for being the president of the US. It is a job, just like any other, and therefore that money is his to do with what he pleases.

You are correct, the ACA was not what BHO campaigned on, but which side of the aisle helped kill the key provisions, such as single-payer? It's not like he presented and passed the first draft of this bill by himself.

Finally....BHO? What a strange abbreviation. Do you abbreviate all public officials like that?

The Joke, you missed it.

For the Black Panthers:

There's Malcolm X's biography recorded and written by Alex Haley, writer of Roots.

Another book called Black Against Empire: History of the Black Panther Party, supposedly very good.

For the Irish Republican Army:

Here's an extensive list from Goodreads.

Hope that helps you get started, OP. Knowledge is power. :)

EDIT: and you can always posit specific questions to /r/AskHistorians. They'll take a while to formulate and you may not get a response, but when you do it's usually a good one.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families: about the Rwanda genocide, written in 1998. You will lose whatever faith you ever held in western politicians and international organizations after reading this book.

The descriptions of the Clinton administration arguing over the technical meaning of the word 'genocide' are just painful to read.

Your analysis reminds me of a book I taught earlier this year. It's entitled, Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. He was a white man from Texas who underwent cosmetic procedures to darken the pigment of his skin. He then lived as a black man in the South during the 1950's for several months in order to give a "true" account of what it's like to live with racism.

The inherent problem with the project, while it did result in a fascinating book, lies in the original premise; it isn't a book about being black in the South, it's a book about a white man pretending to be black in the South during 1950's.

These don't count?

Halberstam's pretty keen on Jordan, but even he lists off some repugnant behavior.

More or less exactly what the book about her is about. http://www.amazon.com/The-Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181

https://www.amazon.com/J-Innocent-Can-Prove/dp/1616086203

This book. Mind you, this book could have been just like 6 pages or so. There is specific info that is fact about Jason in there that is just amazing to read.

Like the fact that Chris Darden was going to look into Jason, and OJ got Carl Johnson to be Jason's lawyer, but they never went after him, they just put it all on OJ. The fact that at the civic trial, Jason was finally questioned in a deposition and it went so badly that it was essentially stopped and the line of questioning about his alibi was glossed over.


Ok I found all the info someone typed it from the book:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.radio.talk/YFhuo1_ZeiE

Click the first post

1. HE WAS CONSIDERED A "PROBLEM CHILD" AT AN EARLY AGE.
   
2. HE OVERDOSED ON DRUGS AND ALCOHOL AT AGE 14, AND HAD TO BE RUSHED TO A
   HOSPITAL.
   
   
3. HIS MOTHER MARGUERITE COULD NOT CONTROL HIM, AND HE HAD TO MOVE IN WITH O.J.
   AND NICOLE AT AN EARLY AGE.
   
   
4. AS A TEENAGER HE FLEW INTO A FIT OF RAGE AND ATTACKED A STATUE OF HIS FATHER
   WITH A BASEBALL BAT.
   
   
5. HE STOLE HIS FATHER'S CAR AND WAS TURNED IN BY NICOLE.
   
   
6. RONALD SHIPP DESCRIBED JASON SIMPSON AS HAVING PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS, ALONG
   WITH ABUSING DRUGS AND ALCOHOL.
   
   
7. JASON WAS TREATED AT THE UCLA NEURO-PSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTE FOR A MENTAL
   CONDITION, LATER BEING DIAGNOSED AS "INTERMITTENT RAGE DISORDER" ACCOMPANIED BY
   SEIZURES. HE WAS PRESCRIBED DEPAKOTE, A DRUG FREQUENTLY PRESCRIBED TO
   INDIVIDUALS SUFFERRING FROM RAGE.
   
   
8. ACCORDING TO SHIPP, JASON AND NICOLE WOULD GO OUT DANCING AND PARTYING
   TOGETHER.
   
   
9. JASON WAS ARRESTED FOR DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE AND HAVING DRUGS AND
   ALCOHOL IN THE CAR WITH HIM AT THE TIME OF THE ARREST.
   
   
10. JASON ATTEMPTED SUICIDE BY STABBING HIMSELF WITH A PAIR OF SCISSORS.
    
    
11. JASON, IN A FIT OF RAGE, ASSAULTED HIS GIRLFRIEND JACKIE WHEREIN HE NEARLY
    BREAKS HER BACK BY THROWING HER INTO AN EMPTY BATHTUB.
    
    
12. JASON ATTACKED HIS GIRLFRIEND JACKIE WITH A CHEF'S KNIFE AND CUTS OFF HER
    HAIR.
    
    
13. JASON ATTEMPTED SUICIDE BY CUTTING HIS WRISTS WITH A SHARD OF BROKEN GLASS.
    
    
14. JASON ATTEMPTED SUICIDE A SECOND TIME. THIS TIME BY OVERDOSING ON DEPAKOTE.
    HE WAS COMMITTED TO THE PSYCHIATRIC WARD AT SAINT JOHN'S HOSPITAL.
    
    
15. JASON HAD REPEATEDLY BEEN WARNED NOT TO USE DRUGS AND ALCOHOL WHILE TAKING
    THE MEDICATION, BECAUSE IT COULD FURTHER COMPLICATE HIS EXISTING NEUROLOGICAL
    CONDITION, BUT CONTINUED TO DO SO.
    
    
16. JASON WAS ARRESTED AT THE TIME OF A ROUTINE TRAFFIC VIOLATION AND WAS PUT
    UNDER THE CARE OF A PSYCHIATRIST.
    
    
17. JASON WAS ARRESTED FOR ASSAULTING HIS FORMER EMPLOYER, PAUL GOLDBERG, WITH
    A KITCHEN KNIFE. AT THE TIME OF THE MURDERS, JASON WAS STILL ON PROBATION FOR
    THIS EARLIER OFFENSE ON PAUL GOLDBERG.
    
    
18. JUST PRIOR TO THE MURDERS, JASON FELT HE WAS "GOING TO RAGE", AND CHECKED
    INTO CEDARS SINAI HOSPITAL. PREVIOUSLY, WHEN HE WAS ABOUT TO RAGE, HE CLAIMED
    TO HALLUCINATE BY HEARING VOICES OF PEOPLE WHO WEREN'T THERE.
    
    
19. TWO MONTHS PRIOR TO THE MURDERS JASON, IN A BLIND RAGE, ASSAULTED HIS
    GIRLFRIEND, JENNIFER GREEN, AT HIS BIRTHDAY PARTY. LATER THAT NIGHT, ACCORDING
    TO AN ARTICLE, TRIED TO STRANGLE HER.
    
    
20. TWO MONTHS PRIOR TO THE MURDERS JASON WAS KNOWN TO HAVE STOPPED TAKING HIS
    DEPAKOTE BECAUSE, AS HE WAS REPORTED TO HAVE SAID, "IT'S FUCKING WITH MY HEAD".
    
    
21. ON THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MURDERS, NICOLE HAD ARRANGED TO EAT AT JACKSON'S
    RESTAURANT [ON THE NIGHT OF THE MURDERS], WHERE JASON WAS THE CHEF, BUT SHE
    FAILED TO SHOW UP [ON THE NIGHT OF THE MURDERS].
    
    
22. ACCORDING TO JENNIFER GREEN AND A WAITER FROM JACKSON'S, JASON LEFT THE
    RESTAURANT WHERE HE WORKED AROUND 9:45 P.M., APPROXIMATELY 45 MINUTES TO AN
    HOUR PRIOR TO THE MURDERS.
    
    
23. JENNIFER GREEN CLAIMED THAT JASON WAS WITH HER UNTIL AFTER 11:00 P.M. ON
    THE NIGHT OF THE MURDERS, BUT JASON'S CIVIL DEPOSITION INDICATED HE DID NOT
    SPEND THE EVENING WITH JENNIFER GREEN AS SHE INDICATED, BUT WENT DIRECTLY HOME
    AFTER HE DROPPED JENNIFER OFF AT HER APARTMENT.
    
    
24. JASON HAD NO ALIBI AFTER 10:00 P.M., ONCE HE LEFT JACKSON'S RESTAURANT AND
    DROPPED OFF HIS GIRLFRIEND JENNIFER GREEN, OTHER THAN HIS CLAIM THAT HE WAS
    ALONE AT HIS APARTMENT WATCHING TELEVISION UNTIL AFTER 3:00 A.M.
    
    
25. SUPPOSEDLY JASON HAD AN AIR-TIGHT ALIBI, ACCORDING TO THE POLICE, THAT HE
    WAS COOKING IN FRONT OF 200 PEOPLE AT JACKSON'S RESTAURANT. ON THAT PARTICULAR
    NIGHT THERE WERE LESS THAN 40 PATRONS AT THE RESTAURANT THE ENTIRE NIGHT. JASON
    LEFT BEFORE IT CLOSED.
    
    
26. EXPERT'S ESTABLISHED THAT THE PROBABLE MURDER WEAPON WAS A CHEF'S KNIFE.
    
    
27. JASON HAD HIS OWN CHEF'S KNIVES AND KEPT THEM WITH HIM.
    
    
28. JASON HAD IN HIS POSSESSION A SET OF CHEF'S KNIVES WHEN HE LEFT JACKSON'S
    RESTAURANT AT APPROXIMATELY 9:45 P.M. ON THE NIGHT OF THE MURDERS.
    
    
29. JASON WAS ALLEGEDLY UPSET THAT NICOLE AND HER PARTY DID NOT COME TO
    JACKSON'S AS ARRANGED ON THE NIGHT OF JUNE 12, 1994.
    
    
30. JASON'S BLOOD CHEMISTRY IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE SIMILAR GENETIC CHARACTERISTICS
    AS O.J.'S.
    
    
31. O.J. AND JASON HAVE APPROXIMATELY THE SAME SIZE FEET. JASON ALSO HAD ACCESS
    TO O.J.'S CLOTHES CLOSET AND IS KNOWN TO HAVE TAKEN ITEMS OF CLOTHING FROM HIS
    DAD AT WILL.
    
    
32. JAMES G. CRON, CRIME SCENE EXPERT, HAS STUDIED THE INVESTIGATIVE MATERIAL
    AND DETERMINED THAT JASON SIMPSON SHOULD HAVE BEEN CONSIDERED A MAJOR SUSPECT
    IN THE MURDERS OF NICOLE SIMPSON AND RON GOLDMAN.
    
    
33. ENGLAND CRIME SCENE EXPERTS TERRY MERSTON AND HIS PARTNER, PETER HARPUR,
    STATED O.J. IS NOT THE KILLER OF NICOLE SIMPSON AND RON GOLDMAN BUT IN ALL
    PROBABILITY WAS AT THE CRIME SCENE AFTER THE MURDERS. THEY BOTH FELT THAT JASON
    SIMPSON SHOULD HAVE BEEN CONSIDERED A MAJOR SUSPECT.
    
    
34. DR. HARVEY DAVISSON, DR. WILLIAM FLYNN, DR. WILLIAM TEDFORD, AND DR.
    CHARLES KELLER REVIEWED JASON'S RECORDS AND FELT, BASED ON MY [DET. WILLIAM
    DEAR] INVESTIGATIVE MATERIAL, THAT JASON SIMPSON IS PSYCHOLOGICALLY DISTURBED
    AND IN NEED OF HELP.
    
    
35. A PROMINENT PHYSICIAN IN MASSACHUSETTS DESCRIBED JASON LAMAR SIMPSON AS "A
    WALKING TIME BOMB".
    
    
36. ROBERT SHAPIRO, O.J.'S ATTORNEY, HAS INDICATED THAT JASON WAS HIS FIRST
    SUSPECT EXCEPT FOR HIS AIR-TIGHT ALIBI ON THE NIGHT OF JUNE 12, 1994.
    
    
37. JASON WAS NEVER INTERVIEWED BY ANY OF THE LOS ANGELES POLICE LAW
    ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES NOR THE PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE. NOR WAS HE ASKED TO FURNISH
    AN ALIBI FOR THE EVENING OF SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 1994 IN CONNECTION WITH THE
    MURDERS OF NICOLE SIMPSON AND RON GOLDMAN. NOR, ACCORDING TO SOURCES, WERE
    JASON'S FINGERPRINTS EXAMINED IN COMPARISON TO THE UNIDENTIFIED FINGERPRINTS
    FOUND AT THE CRIME SCENE.
    
    
38. JASON'S PSYCHIATRIST STATED THAT IF JASON WAS GUILTY HE COULD NEVER BE
    CONVICTED BECAUSE OF HIS MENTAL CONDITION.
    
    
39. JASON'S PSYCHIATRIST SHREDDED ALL OF JASON'S MEDICAL RECORDS AFTER THE
    MURDERS.
    
    
40. ON THE VERY DAY AFTER THE MURDERS, JUNE 13, 1994, O.J. HIRED A WELL-KNOWN
    CRIMINAL ATTORNEY TO REPRESENT JASON. THIS WAS PRIOR TO O.J.'S ARREST FOR THE
    MURDERS.
    
    
41. JASON BREAKS THROUGH THE POLICE LINE TO REACH HIS FATHER AT THE CONCLUSION
    OF THE SLOW-SPEED CAR CHASE.
    
    
42. JASON WOULDN'T GIVE JACKIE, HIS GIRLFRIEND, ANY STRAIGHT ANSWERS ABOUT THE
    MURDERS.
    
    
43. MARCIA CLARK AND THE LOS ANGELES DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE CONSIDERED THIS
    TO BE A "RAGE KILLING BY AN AMATEUR".
    
    
44. JASON BOLTED FROM THE FUNERAL HOME, VISIBLY UPSET, AT THE TIME OF NICOLE
    SIMPSON'S FUNERAL, NOT WANTING TO VIEW NICOLE'S BODY.
    
    
45. JASON WAS ARRESTED FOR HIT AND RUN DURING O.J.'S TRIAL.
    
    
46. JASON WAS SAID TO HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM WHEN WOMEN LIED TO HIM.
    
    
47. PER FORMER GIRLFRIENDS HE WAS PROVEN TO BE A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR--THE KIND
    THAT TRULY BELIEVES HIS OWN LIES.
    
    
48. FORMER GIRLFRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES OF JASON DESCRIBE HIM AS HAVING A "DR.
    JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE" PERSONALITY WITH UNCONTROLLABLE RAGE.
    
    
49. FOUND IN JASON'S TRASH IN FEBRUARY OF 2000, A PIECE OF NOTEBOOK PAPER WITH
    LAYERS OF HANDWRITTEN NOTES WRITTEN ON TOP OF EACH OTHER, APPEARING TO BE
    SCRIBBLING AT FIRST SIGHT, STATING "DEAR JASON" AND DESCRIBED THE WRITER AS
    "THREE PEOPLE...WALKING ON BROKEN GLASS...FUCKED...I KNOW WHAT TO DO BUT I
    HAVEN'T GOT ENOUGH GUTS TO DO IT."
    
    
50. THE NOTE THAT WAS FOUND IN JASON'S TRASH, THAT [ATTRIBUTED] THE WRITER AS
    BEING THREE PERSONS, WAS LATER IDENTIFIED BY HANDWRITING EXPERTS AS BEING
    WRITTEN BY JASON LAMAR SIMPSON. A SHOCKING BUT REVEALING PIECE OF EVIDENCE OF
    HIS OWN PERCEPTION OF HIS TRUE PERSONALITY.
    
    FROM: O.J. IS GUILTY, BUT NOT OF MURDER, BY WILLIAM C. DEAR, PRIVATE
    INVESTIGATOR.

Islam: A Short History - Karen Armstrong

Islam: The Straight Path - John Esposito

The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Alex Haley

More advanced (should have some understanding of Islam before reading):

The Great Theft - Khaled Abou El Fadl

The Story of the Qur'an - Ingrid Mattson

Read this.

King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild is really good. Its about the Belgian King's rule over the Congo.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevich is an account of the Rwandan Genocide of '94.

That's more recent history, but the fact is little is written about pre-colonial Africa (not dealing with Egypt). I haven't read much, but I'm sure theres some decent readings about the Mali Empire (maybe start with Mansa Musa?).

The term "racist" can be very loaded and charged, because some people (especially white people) view the label with such fear and dread that they will vigorously defend themselves against any hint of an accusation of being racist. The defensiveness masks for them the systemic racism within the culture into which they were born.

It's not always as simple as saying "X person is a racist" or "Y person is not a racist". There aren't just two options. Outside of people like white nationalists, who are overt and admitted racists (and who Trump regards as "fine people"), for everyone else, the label of "racist" is given out by others, and when it is, people usually run from it as fast as they can.

The reason I like to use it only sparingly when directed at an individual is not because it isn't true that the person being accused isn't a racist, but because the label halts any possibility of either person shifting from their position. A person labelled a racist becomes blind to even their own actual views on race, and blind to the larger existing cultural problems involving race.

Trump supporters will often respond to accusations of Trump being labelled a racist much in the same way as if they themselves were being accused, so we encounter the same problem.

If you really want to know the ways in which Trump is racist, you can just Google it, read about it on Wikipedia, or read one or two of the numerous, well-documented, thoroughly researched articles on the topic.

What I recommend instead is that, if you genuinely want to understand race in America, these three books are a pretty great place to start:

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

My go-to book for a reference on discrimination against Asians and the construction of Asian masculinity within a white supremacist society is "Asian American Sexual Politics: The Construction of Race, Gender, and Sexuality" by Chou http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14366163-asian-american-sexual-politics

There are tons of other brilliant books but I have yet to find one as eloquent as this piece.

In the book, Chou stresses that the construction of Asian masculinity is intrinsically tied to construction of masculinity for other people-of-color, like black people. Therefore, there are many overlaps between the social troubles that Asian folks face in Western countries with other people-of-color, even though not all of them are the same.

I am very interested in the African-American experience, because I feel that they experience racism much more deeply and appreciates the perniciousness of white supremacy more viscerally.

Many excellent books have came out this past year, such as:

Tears we Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson
https://www.amazon.com/Tears-We-Cannot-Stop-America/dp/1250135990

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
https://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/0812993543/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

And some classics:

White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son - Tim Wise

What does it Mean to be White - Robin DiAngelo

The Heart of Whiteness - Robert Jensen

I am not your Negro - James Baldwin

Any speech by Martin Luther King and Malcom X is just as good as any of these books. For a brief review on the history of racism and white supremacy in the United States with actual footages, I have found "Eyes on the Prize" series on YouTube offer a more than excellent recount https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts10IVzUDVw

There are many African Americans who see parallels between their own struggle with those of Asian folks Why Black America should care about the Death of Danny Chen, therefore we must return the favor and stand with them and not against them in their struggle for human rights. And on the global scale, China and other countries in Asia must stand with African nations, we might fight the battle against white supremacy. We either rise together or we both get destroyed by this white supremacist world, there is literally no other way

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Unbroken

And for a 'fiction' work that is all too true...

A Fine Balance

Chicago gang life is essentially a shadow government keeping its own brand of order in the ghetto, its pretty scary in some ways, but also actually really interesting to read that there really are "rules" and people enforcing the rules....

here's an interesting book about a university of chicago sociologist who hung out with them for a while.

good read

https://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X

Ich kann We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda empfehlen, mit der Warnung, dass das Buch extreme Gewaltdarstellungen enthält. (Und Bildmaterial, wenn ich mich richtig erinnere. Ist etwas länger her.)

You're wrong. So wrong. You need to educate yourself and read The Autobiography of Malcom X. Don't let leftist indoctrination cause you to focus only on his pre-Mecca pilgrimage teachings. I get why you think what you do about him and it's straight up leftist revisionist history, the way they teach all history. Eric Foner, Howard Zinn, they ALWAYS leave out the inconvienent shit that blows up their narritave. He changed after Mecca when he realized Muslims weren't all black/brown people (see how this blows up their "Muslim is a race" narrative) and that's why the black supremacists in the Nation of Islam killed him.

If you're interested and haven't read it already, I heartily recommend Playing for Keeps. It tells you everything about Jordan from his upbringing right up to his second retirement in 1998. It does a great job of describing how he was forced to insulate himself from the rest of the world because of his becoming the "most recognizable American in the world."

Edit: I accidentally a word

Hey there, white dude here as well. I highly recommend reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. That book utterly changed my life and I can't recommend it enough. It highlighted a lot of my own internal biases and caused me to do a lot of rethinking about myself and the world around me. Totally changed my perspective.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181

This is a very good book, highly recommend. And it touches on the chicken heart.

Indeed. This one is mostly outright lies, but still...

http://www.amazon.com/The-Audacity-Hope-Thoughts-Reclaiming/dp/0307455874

I posted a bunch here. There's some in the comments too. It appears the link expired so I'll re-up it now.

OK, here's:

• Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X
  
• Huey P. Newton on gay, women's liberation
  
• Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements
  
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X
  
• The End of White World Supremacy: Four Speeches By Malcolm X
  
• Media Bias, Perspective, and State Repression: The Black Panther Party
  
• On the Ground: The Black Panther Party in Communities across America
  
• Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton
  
• The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther
  
• The Black Panther Party: Service to the People Programs
  
• The Huey P. Newton Reader
  
• Vanguard: A Photographic Essay on the Black Panthers

You are not the first. It's an interesting book, if you haven't read it.

Another good book that discusses this is Marjorie Shostak's book Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman. In it Nisa describes a sexual openness. Since everyone in the family sleeps together they are exposed to sex at a young age and obviously want to learn more about it and to do this start exploring their own bodies and the bodies of their peers at a young age. It seemed as though although the adults tried to stop this, the attempts at stopping them were half-hearted as it was seen as something that all children do and must do in order to learn.

http://www.amazon.com/Infidel-Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali/dp/0743289684

Not necessarily CLS-specific but I think The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks should be required reading for any healthcare or biology student. It's a fascinating book (and I don't usually read non-fiction for fun) about race, class, and ethics in the clinical and research laboratory. It doesn't take a heavy handed or academic approach at all, it's very readable.

So you're saying the state can't refuse service, but everyone else can.

Please please please read some history. Start with March, which is a comic book, and an easy read.

Have you heard of Henrietta Lacks ?

Here’s a book about what happened to her cells.

If you haven't, please go read John Lewis's book series March. it's an incredible read, and has some information you wouldn't normally find in a conventional American history book.

If you want to read a whole book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" is pretty much all about this, with a few ethical/political viewpoints thrown in. I've read it. It is a bit dull for me but does give the relevant background.

​

Or read the book they were talking about: Gang Leader for a Day.

English classes at the university level are usually literature-centered, not so much about grammar and composition. Thus, plenty of opportunity for political questions to come up. My first university English class was entirely focused on experiences of political violence; we read stuff like We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families and selections from Rising Up, Rising Down.

Music theory is a bit more of a reach, but suppression of particular composers and styles of music is absolutely something that happened in China as well as the Soviet Union. So it's plausible that it could at least come up in a certain context.

I suppose calculus is pretty safe, unless one has a strong opinion on Newton vs. Leibniz.

Malcolm X

In no particular order:

• The Moral Animal. Robert Wright.
  
• The Open Society and Its Enemies. Karl Popper.
  
• Albion’s Seed. D. H. Fischer.
  
• *Zero to One.* P. Thiel.
  
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
  
• Critique of Pure Reason. I. Kant.
  
• A Treatise on Human Nature. Hume.
  
• The Death of the Liberal Class. C. Hedges.
  
• A Theory of Justice. Rawls.
  
• The Origin of the Work of Art. M. Heidegger.
  
• The Denial of Death. E. Becker.
  
• American Colonies. A. Taylor.
  
• The Selfish Gene. R. Dawkins.
  
• Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud.
  
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces. J. Campbell.
  
• The Birth of the Artist. Otto Rank.
  
• Modern Man in Search of a Soul. Jung.
  
• The Feminine Mystique. Betty Friedan.
  
• Sexual Personae. Camille Paglia.
  
• How to Win Friends and Influence People. D. Carnegie.
  
  Sorry I got tired of making links. I’m on my phone.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley

There's a really good book about almost this very subject: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.

The TL;DR version: Sierra Leone's civil war destroys a young boy's village, and, after a period of wandering as a refugee, he is forced into the army. At 15, he's rescued by UNICEF—and is sent to a rehabilitation center where he undergoes the difficult process of "repatriation" back into civilian life. When war reaches him a second time, he escapes to the U.S.

So, essentially, there are international organizations who dedicate resources to save and de-program child soldiers. The U.S. military would hand the child over to the UN, and then he would be subsequently placed into a relevant program.

I don't rely on "paleo" evidence to determine appropriate human diets, but I do like reading it. I think the best application for it is learning about the environment that our basic systems evolved within. But the maximum you can conclude from the best paleo evidence is that whatever diet was consumed was sufficient for reproductive success under the conditions that existed at the time. The milieu of human evolution involved: a specific environment and climate (African savannah); a spectrum of foods eaten; a certain amount of exercise (lots, constantly); frequent parasitic infection and physical wounds that had to be survived; whatever microbiome we had then; food scarcity; complex cultural factors; and selection pressure to have many children and see them into adulthood, but not to live a long time.

Whatever we can conclude about diet applies only to that environment. If some of the variables change, uncertainty is introduced. A trait or strategy that was beneficial could become the opposite, or could be completely irrelevant. Thus, I prefer to look to human populations from the last 100 years. Not only do they live in an environment much more similar to mine, but we can actually gather accurate data on their dietary patterns and their health outcomes.

That said, I like this book for thoughts on dietary animal products and macronutrient ratios: The Paleoanthropology and Archaeology of Big-Game Hunting

A short paper as a reminder that all "just so stories" should be questioned, because even the most basic "paleo" hypothesis, the thrifty genotype, is contested: Evolutionary Perspectives on the Obesity Epidemic

This one is fascinating for social factors: Egalitarian Behavior and Reverse Dominance Hierarchy

And this one is just a great ethnology, especially for considering gender roles and what makes us happy: Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0674004329

I read this book about a tribe in Botswana. It's one of the more inhospitable places on the planet, yet the researchers found that they worked short hours. Their study inspired this paper http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society which is a cornerstone of modern thought on foraging tribes.

The story of Henriette Lacks is pretty cool.

I also enjoyed the story of The Girl in the Picture

I have a fondness for british history, in particular the tudor era, the napoleonic era, and the victorian era and those times also have some fascinating women. Elizabeth I comes to mind, I've been meaning to read this novel about her life, having enjoyed the author's take on Hevry VIII. I also watched The Duchess which told the colourful but tragic story of the Duchess of Devonshire.

If you listen to podcasts, you could check out Stuff You Missed In History Class. They've recently done episodes on women like Jane Austen and Yaa Asantewaa. There was a really good one about foot-binding, which wasn't about women in particular but did look very much at how the tradition affected women (and how women propagated this tradition.)

https://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X this is about a sociology student who had the opportunity to follow gangs around in the ghetto and lead them for a day

>Tak, men det er ikke helt rigtigt. Der er lande der håndterer det fint. USA, Canada osv. Jeg kan ikke tage hele kreditten alene.

1 ud af 3 sorte amerikanere vil ryge i fængsel i løbet af deres liv. Sorte og latino bander der får LTF til at ligne spejderdrenge. L.A. urolighederne med 53 døde. Ghettoer i alle storbyer. White flight. Gated communities. Osv. Ja, det går sgu rigtig godt i USA.

Det går lidt bedre i Canada, men de har også store problemer med ghettoer hvor de etniske minoriteter bor.

>Der kan sagtens blive bygget boliger til 100.00 mennesker på et år

Ja, lad os bygge en masse store bygninger hvor vi kan placere alle disse udlændinge. Vi kan kalde det Gellerup v2.0. Det har vi jo gode erfaringer med.

>Det er ligesom med alle andre varer, mangler er altid et resultat af regulering.

Fordi finanseringen er noget der kommer fra gud?

>http://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X[1]

>Bandekriminalitet er bare business, og hele levegrundlaget afhænger af salg af stoffer.

Ja, fordi 1 sociolog har gået rundt og snakket med et par bandemedlemmer og derefter skrevet et par bøger om det, MÅ det jo bare være sådan. Er hans bog og påstande blevet peer-reviewed? At tro man kan udrydde bandekriminalitet ved at liberalisere narkolovgivningen er dybt naivt. Tror du virkelig at Jønke og Lille A vil opgive deres kriminelle levevej, droppe de store biler, dropper magten, droppe pengene ved kriminalitet og i stedet for få sig et arbejde. Kriminalitet vil altid eksistere, og det samme vil bander.

Og hvis man er fræk, kunne man jo spørge, om det var stoffer der fik denne sociolog til at fuske med bilagene som han nu engang gjorde.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345350685/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_cLo3xbX00XN4T

You might be interested in the book Black Like Me, in which the white author darkened his skin to experience life in the Jim Crow South as a black man. I haven't read it since 8th grade English, but I remember it being fascinating and heartbreaking.

I know Playing for Keeps is widely considered the best-written basketball book, but it's a bit outdated and more of a hagiography. However, David Halberstam is known as the best sports-biographer for a reason.

On the other end, Michael Leahry's When Nothing Else Matters details his failed efforts in Washington in terrific detail, but it's not particularly fun to read, and has been accused of twisting information to suit its narrative that Jordan is a psychopath. Bill Simmons says the book should be avoided.

Here's a recommended book: Just Mercy

Pick up Between the World and Me and then get back to me.

Have you seen their Highlights for High School feature?

Also, there are sites like Academic Earth that might be useful.

Here are a few blogs with potential. You'll have to decide for yourself if they have inappropriate content.

Here are a few book recommendations covering various fields, in no particular order (though they should all read #1):

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything
   
2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
   
3. Einstein: His Life and Universe
   
4. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
   
5. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
   
6. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
   
7. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
   
8. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
   
9. This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
   
10. Cosmos
    
11. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
    
12. The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy
    
13. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
    
14. The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human
    
15. The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
    
16. Thinking, Fast and Slow
    
17. Chaos: Making a New Science
    
18. Isaac Newton
    
19. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
    
20. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
    
    And here's a video interview with Richard Feynman they might enjoy.

William Dear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dear_(detective)

wrote a book about it

http://www.amazon.ca/O-J-Innocent-Can-Prove-It/dp/1616086203

Some of the stuff in the book talks about

-Prior to the killings, O.J.'s son Jason was diagnosed with "intermittent rage disorder" (AKA Jekyll and Hyde syndrome) and was given the drug Depakote to control his rage and seizures.

-Jason abused alcohol, ecstasy, and cocaine as early as age 14. Police reports indicate that he was arrested at least four times (including DUI, driving with a suspended license, and assault with a deadly weapon) while medical records reveal at least three suicide attempts.

-A note titled "Dear Jason" that described the writer as being three persons was identified by handwriting experts as being written by Jason Simpson; he also wrote about killing anyone who hurt his loved ones and how he felt like "Jekyll and Hyde" (in diaries obtained by Dear).

http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4f870ec2ecad046b6b000011-1200/a-note-titled-dear-jason-that-described-the-writer-as-being-three-persons-was-identified-by-handwriting-experts-as-being-written-by-jason-simpson-he-also-wrote-about-killing-anyone-who-hurt-his-loved-ones-and-how-he-felt-like-jekyll-and-hyde-in-diaries-obtained-by-dear.jpg

-In January 1994, six months before the killings, Jason went to the emergency room because he heard voices of people who weren't there and said he felt as if he was "going to rage" because he ran out of Depakote. He stopped taking Depakote two months before the murders.

-In his past, Jason had nearly killed a girlfriend (with a knife) and almost seriously injured another in fits of rage (whereas O.J. has been accused of domestic abuse, but he has never been arrested for assault and was not prone to use weapons to settle a dispute).

-The night of the murders, Jason expected Nicole Brown Simpson's family to dine at the restaurant where he was working, but Brown Simpson chose another restaurant (probably without telling Jason).

-The murders took place between 9:45 and 10:05 p.m. Jason was by himself after approximately 9:50 p.m. and "has no alibi that can be supported by anyone else as to where he was while the killings occurred."

-Jason's time card for the night of the murders was handwritten, even though the electronic time clock was working.

-The black "navy watch cap" found at the crime scene contained animal hair and hair fibers that did not match O.J.


-Photographs obtained from Jason's storage locker show that Jason wore watch caps often. One (dated 3/24/93) shows him sitting with his dog while wearing a cap identical to the one found at the crime scene.

http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4f870ba469bedde90500004e-1200/photographs-obtained-from-jasons-storage-locker-show-that-jason-wore-watch-caps-often-one-dated-32493-shows-him-sitting-with-his-dog-while-wearing-a-cap-identical-to-the-one-found-at-the-crime-scene.jpg

-The day after the murders (and four days prior to his arrest), O.J. hired top criminal attorney Carl Jones to represent Jason even though he wasn't a suspect.

-One of Jason's ex-classmates informed Dear that Jason was trained in hand-to-hand combat as well as field knife training while attending the Army and Navy Academy, whereas O.J. hates the sight of blood.

-Based on pictures of Ron Goldman's badly bruised and swollen hands, he must have struck hard blows to the assailant, and he was a 3rd degree black belt. The next day O.J. voluntarily stripped at the LAPD, and there were no marks or bruises that indicated he had been in a scuffle

-Dear bought contents of a storage locker owned by Jason Simpson around the time of the murders and found a knife that matched the description of the murder weapon. "After examination of [Jason's] knife by a world-renowned forensic scientist, the butt of the knife appears to match the blow/injury Nicole Simpson suffered on the top of her head." (Whereas O.J.'s Swiss Army knife and stilleto were conclusively ruled out as the murder weapon.)

-The LAPD found 15 separate unidentified fingerprints at the crime scene. None belonged to O.J., and police never compared Jason's fingerprints)

-At the time of the murders, 24-year-old Jason was on probation for assault with a deadly weapon for attacking his boss with a kitchen knife.

-"Investigators found blood and skin under Nicole's fingernails ... along with blood drops on her back that didn't match those of O.J." (Jason was never interviewed and never gave a DNA sample.)

-Three crime scene experts studied the investigative material and determined that "Jason Simpson should have been considered a major suspect in the murders."

-Four doctors reviewed the investigative material along with Jason's records and determined that "Jason Simpson is psychologically disturbed and in need of help."

-Jason's psychiatrist said that "if Jason was guilty he could never be convicted because of his mental condition."

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4f870e99eab8eab51800000c-1200/jasons-psychiatrist-said-that-if-jason-was-guilty-he-could-never-be-convicted-because-of-his-mental-condition.jpg

http://www.businessinsider.com/oj-simpson-murders-and-jason-simpson-2014-6?op=1


Of course there are some people that try to say this is false, like Tony Ortega (Awesome reporter against $cientology)

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/bill-dear-is-full-of-it-and-i-can-prove-it-6684433


There are people on Reddit that have written longer and better posts than this, but looking at the evidence shown, I think OJ Simpson was innocent, and his son did it. It ruined him, and took him on the path to where he is now, in jail.


Also a few more links to sites talking about it.

http://www.nationalenquirer.com/celebrity/inside-deranged-mind-oj-simpsons-violent-son/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123547/OJ-innocent-Private-investigator-claims-Simpsons-SON-hacked-stars-wife-friend-death--went-trial-cover-up.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10892053/OJ-Simpson-was-he-innocent-all-along.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/02/oj-simpson-book-jason-simpson-william-dear_n_1397583.html

Ooh! I used to love reading new things that teachers left out for us when we finished tests early or whatever. I don't know what kind of reading you typically arrange, but can I suggest bringing some comics? Even when the subjects aren't distinctly for teens, the medium can be a good way to introduce new topics and characters that they typically wouldn't pick up (kind of like your "ooh, Teen Vogue -- just kidding, it's also political news" plan).

Off the top of my head, I can recommend March, which is about John Lewis and the civil rights movement; Ms. Marvel, who is a young Muslim American superhero; American Born Chinese, which is a really well done coming-of-age story. Just something to consider if you ever want new things to bring in for teens.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. So while it doesn’t scream “happy birthday,” and I guess it isn’t what you’d call inspiring, I found it both interesting and compelling. Very readable. It got kind of trendy, and apparently Oprah did a thing for HBO, which usually kind of scares me away, but it’s a good book all the same.

Here’s the Amazon link.

You should read this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181

It's the story of the woman whose cancer was the source of HeLa cells, and her family - because her family shares her genes.

While not war related, March has a lot of historical context. It details the civil rights movement told through the perspective of Civil Rights leader John Lewis. Great comic, highly recommend.

I think that's John Lewis, not Elijah Cummings - https://www.amazon.com/March-Trilogy-Slipcase-John-Lewis/dp/1603093958/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=Elijah+Cummings&qid=1571322512&sr=8-2

Sure. A new book is being written about her. Here's one article and the book link.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is, even with its flaws, I think a deeply compelling and important read about medicine, medical ethics, and America. (I def did some light weeping near the end.)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The New Kings of Nonfiction is a collection of longform journalism edited by This American Life's Ira Glass.

I'm currently reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It's really interesting, here's part of the synopsis:

>Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

>Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

The Disappearing Spoon is about fascinating stories from the history of the periodic table of elements.

Rebecca Skloot's book about Henrietta Lacks is a really great read. Whole heartedly recommend reading it.

They did try to treat her cancer, using radiation therapy. She had ovarian cancer at first, so they jammed rods of radioactive material up her yoo-hoo. Her cancer was particularly nasty, and even with today's medicine and knowledge it's doubtful there's much they could have done for her by the time she went in.

Her family received next to nothing in compensation for using Henrietta's cells, although they were most definitely aware that Johns Hopkins had taken them and was using them in a business venture. They knew they were being exploited, but were essentially powerless to do anything about it.

Read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for a better understanding.

I'm sorry. I know what you're going through is really hard.

Cancer is part of the reason I started reading Stoic philosophy tbh. To calm that animal fear of death we all carry.

I'm coming to that moment in my own life as well. Someone I love very much is very ill and I suspect it will come to this sooner rather than later in our family.

I was thinking, I'll probably be the last of my little family to die. Everyone I love will die before me.

My mother will die- she's very ill.

My husband is much older than me.

My sister is older w approaching health issues of her own.

And my younger brother is struggling w mental illness.

I'll probably have to bury them all one by one someday. I dunno that anyone will be left to bury me.

On my worst days I'm sad about it. I feel sorry for myself. Why me? I never asked for it.

But then on other days, I'm grateful for the opportunity. It's one final duty to discharge, one last chance to honor someone very special in my life.

Who else would I want to shoulder my burden?

If I'm not the one to bury them all, then it'll fall to my brother. I love him but his life is a mess even in the best of times. Leave my sister to do it? Her big heart might crack under the strain.

We shared a little bit of time together and it's been lovely. I can do my part.



The funny thing is I'll be dead soon, too. Whether it's a week from now or 100 years it doesn't much matter I guess. I must've read it somewhere but can't recall where (Marcus Aurelius probably):

'We're all dead already, we just haven't been buried yet.'

I try to live my little chunk of time in a way that will leave people around me with a good memory and a warm feeling in their hearts.

Take my blessings with you. I wish you well! Say hi if you see me somewhere on the other side.

Edit: I'm a big reader. These are the books that helped me through the worst of it. Maybe they can help you, too.

• Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, free online ebook
  
  
• The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It's a super interesting read, all about how cancer has dogged the human race for millenia. How treatment has stumbled and how it's advanced. It really put things in perspective for myself and my mother. Cancer is just one of those human things we all might become subject to
  
  wiki, author discusses book, Amazon
  
  
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It brings up interesting questions about what it means to live and what it means to die. Like what are you? What's the smallest part of you that is still you? Are you dead if parts of you live on? What if all your DNA lives on and gets replicated over and over for decades, resulting in more biomass than you ever were. What if your DNA goes all over the world, into space even, long after you've succumbed? Are you really dead? How should your family think of you if the last 60+ years of medical research hinge upon the fact that "you" never really died at all?
  
  wiki, Amazon

I like to tailor my recommendations to what I know about people, so a request like this leaves me a little at a disadvantage. Basically, I believe that there may be no such thing as a universally applicable book, and to that end, whether or not a book is really a "must-read" for any given person depends on the circumstances of that person's life. So what I'm going to give you instead is this: a list of the ten books that I've read that I think (at the moment) have the best chance of having an impact on any random English-speakers life. Make of it what you will.

Ahem. In no particular order:

1. The Bridge at San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder
   
   
2. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
   
   
3. The Spirit Catches You and You Fell Down, by Anne Fadiman
   
   
4. The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius
   
   
5. We With to Inform You that Tomorrow We Well Be Killed With Our Families, by Philip Gourevitch.
   
   
6. The Theban Plays of Sophocles.
   
   
7. The Bell, by Iris Murdoch.
   
   
8. The Book of J, by Harold Bloom and David Rosenberg.
   
   
9. Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative, by Herbert Mason.
   
   
10. The Street of Crocodiles, by Bruno Schulz.

You bring up a really important factor in current African politics - that modern nations were drawn without any concern for ethnic nations within their geographic borders, but I think Rwanda is not really a good example of what you're talking about.

No one is really sure where the Hutu and Tutsi come from (!). It is often said that the Tutsi were herders who came to Rwanda from Ethiopia while the Hutu were native farmers, but there is little actual evidence to support this claim. Instead, it gained ground when European race-scientists put it forth. Ethiopians were seen as Caucasian (and therefore ,superior), so there was an attempt to attribute any good aspects of African culture or societies to them instead of to 'lesser' Africans.

Anyway, regardless of where the two groups came from, there was, over generations, lots of mixing between the two groups. By the time the Belgians got to Rwanda, Hutus and Tutsis spoke the same language, had the same religion, lived in the same communities, married eachother, had kids together. There was a general idea that Tutsis raised cattle while Hutus farmed, bu in reality both groups did both. Basically, there wasn't that big a difference between Hutus and Tutsis. The genocide couln't have been avoided if the Hutus & Tutsis were separated because, really, they weren't even different groups.

When then Belgians came, they came with their own mindset and world view. Belgian society was one with rival ethnic groups - the Flemish and the Walloons - and that rivalry came across in the make up of the Belgian government. When they set up a government in Rwanda, they set it up with that model. They saw the Tutsis as descendents of Caucasian Ethiopians and as superior to the Hutus. They made everyone have an ID card saying if hey were Hutu, Tutsi, or pygmy. They gave the Tutsis more power and more access to education and better jobs. They basically created tribal conflict where there hadn't been any.

Fast forward to Rwandan independence, and the Hutus, who had been disenfranchised under the Belgian system, were (understandably) pissed. Over the years, they began to disenfranchise Tutsis. And in 90s, it erupted into full-fledged genocide.

Clearly, this is an oversimplification. And I'm too lazy right now to go upstairs and pull citations out of the shelf full of books I have on the subject. But, for an awesome read about the genocide, its origins, and its ramifications, check out We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch. You might also check out Rene Lemarchand's writings, especially Political Awakening in the Belgian Congo, Burundi: Ethnocide as Discourse and Practice, and & The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa*. I don't know that those can be accessed online, but this article of his also discusses the complexities of the Rwandan genocide.

And, since this is ELI5, here's the TL;DR:

When Europeans drew borders in Africa, they didn't care about the people there. Lots of times, this lead to later civil wars because two groups that were enemies had been lumped in together or because one group was split up between two different countries so they'd try to leave and make their own new country. But what happened in Rwanda in the 1990s was a little bit different, and a lot more complicated.

This is especially true when times are challenging. It's also self reinforcing.

So say you have two groups that live near each other and get along well. Then there is a famine and people are starving.

Group A starts looking out for their own because they empathize with them more, or they are more closely related, or whatever. They then start to fight over the resources to make sure their group is taken care of. Maybe they steal from the other group or maybe they think (real or not) the other group is stealing from them. You get people just wanting to "protect ourselves" and this idea of us vs. them really sets in. Toss in a few murders or maybe Group A riots and burns down an area dominated by Group B.

Now even after the hard times have passed things can't easily go back to the way things were before. Group B has legitimate reasons to be mad at Group A. They burned down their houses and killed a bunch of their people. Group A knows Group B hates them and is out to get them so they had better act first.

Group A maybe feels guilty about burning so many people alive but some rationalization will help with that. Did you know Group B actually set the fire in the first place and they are just trying to blame Group A? Did you know Group B are all thieves so they only got what's coming to them.

It's very easy for this to spiral out of control and very hard to pull back from it.

If you want to read a book that highlights how badly things can go I'd recommend, [We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda] (http://www.amazon.com/Wish-Inform-Tomorrow-Killed-Families/dp/0312243359)

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda and Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda.

Also Survival in the Killing Fields

Check out The Autobiography of Malcolm X! It's great because Malcolm X's imagery is incredibly vivid and engaging. He provides an interesting point of view from which to see the Civil Rights Movement. It'll help students get into the reasons for his beliefs and how his own views have changed throughout his life, from before he joined the Nation of Islam and until he left it (and got assassinated).

The autobiography was essentially compiled by Alex Haley from a series of interviews he had with Malcolm X. It's written in Malcolm X's voice, so authorial intrusion isn't an issue with this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Malcolm-Told-Alex-Haley/dp/0345350685

> Вот только левацкой мрази из ООН на это наплевать и ничто на этот счет сделано не будет.

> More than 100,000 children have been released and reintegrated into their communities since 1998 in over 15 countries affected by armed conflict. In 2010 alone, UNICEF supported the reintegration of some 11,400 children formerly associated with armed forces and armed groups along with 28,000 other vulnerable children affected by conflict.

> Since the mid-1980s, UNICEF and its partners have advocated for, and secured the release of, children from armed forces in conflict-affected countries including Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mozambique, Nepal, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.

https://www.unicef.org/protection/57929_58007.html

Про Сьерра Леону есть достаточно интересные воспоминания бывшего мальчика-солдата, который прошел через реабилитационный лагерь ООН.

I'm really glad you are interested in the topic of race in America. Especially its intersection with politics. It's a serious issue that needs more attention. Here are several books I recommend to get you started:

https://www.amazon.com/Race-Human-Diversity-Biocultural-Approach/dp/0131838768/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1473351402&sr=8-3&keywords=human+diversity

https://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/0812993543/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473351442&sr=8-1&keywords=coates

https://www.amazon.com/Race-Matters-Cornel-West/dp/0679749861/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473351540&sr=8-1&keywords=race+matters

If you don't have the money to purchase one right now I'd be glad to try to find a pirated version for you. If I can't find one (or your not comfortable with pirating) I'm sure some redditors would be happy to crowd fund your curiosity on this subject and buy a few books for you to get started.

If you like non-fiction:

Periodic Tales - Hugh Aldersey-Williams


Dark Money - Jane Mayer


Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Yep, I'm supes liberal. Sorry.

That's actually a real book by Onion writer and occasional TWiT guest Baratunde Thurston. Amazon link.

This book might help: http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Black-Baratunde-Thurston/dp/0062003216/

Baratunde (the author) went to school at Harvard and talks a bit about the flavor of racism in the area. Also, it's a great book and he's really funny.

>Gangs are for adults who never grew up

If you have any interest in actually understanding the composition and function of gangs I recommend reading Gang Leader for a Day. Here is a brief article about the book.

For me, it was a hipster friend of mine. We would debate politics and I had an answer for everything but really I was just repeating things I had heard my whole life. He finally said "You know what, you are a horrible person!" I was like wtf and he just walked away. Rather than feeling like I had won the argument, my feelings were hurt and I went home and thought for a long time about why he would think I was a horrible person. I started to notice things that I did and the way I treated people. I really was an asshole. I started to question my view of the world. I had traveled half way around the world and had seen a bunch of things that I now realized didn't really jive with what I had been taught.

Before that I had never questioned what I had been taught but the more people I met (especially educated people) the more I realized that my ideas of people and cultures and race were totally fucking wrong. It took a lot of effort to "reprogram" myself. You have to pay attention to your thoughts and question them and analyze them. It was a bitch at first but you get used to it. That was about 11 years ago and I still have to check myself sometimes.

Edit: A friend of mine in grad school recommended a book. It was the first chip in the wall for changing my view of black people. I realized that people, regardless of their race, are just going through their life and trying to make the best of their situation, just like me.

Gang Leader for a day

I'm going to respond to this in pieces.

> What I mean by that is when someone has an addiction or commits a crime, they want to blame society instead of themselves. It's always someone else's fault.

I'm not sure which way to interpret this. Are you saying that the criminal is blaming society, or that the liberals are blaming society for that criminal's behavior?

If it is the criminal, then yes, that's an issue, but that's an issue regardless of party.

If you are saying that the liberals want to blame society, then I don't think that is quite correct. If someone commits a crime, then they should be caught, evidence gathered, and if found guilty they should be punished and then rehabilitated. There's argument over the ratio of punishment versus rehabilitation, as to an extent those are separate things.

If there is an upward trend in crime, particularly among a particular group or area however, then we need to ask the question of why. All to often society is a factor here - poverty increases crime in two ways:

• Desperate people are more likely to commit crimes, as the immediate need for food/safety/whatever outweighs the abstract fear of punishment in their minds.
  
• Poverty decreases intelligence: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/your-brain-on-poverty-why-poor-people-seem-to-make-bad-decisions/281780/ - the stress on the mind of simply being poor impairs decision making. Not only do you get more crime, but you also get more poorly-planned crime.
  
  Neither of those points releases the individual who committed the crime from responsibility, but it's also important to acknowledge that so long as the factors exist that promote crime within that group/community/area, then it will continue to be a problem.
  
  I strongly suggest reading this book: https://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X - it gives a very in depth view of how poor urban economies work, how it promotes crime, and really highlights the balance behind that issue.
  
  > If someone tried breaking into your house and you shoot them, they seem to want to blame you for something.
  
  I've seen a few cases of this, but really not many. Most of the time it seems to be more of a people thing than a particular party thing - for the flip side, any time there is a police shooting of a black male, the conservatives try to paint him as a thug, a criminal, or a gangster.
  
  > If there's a shooting, people want to blame the gun and not the person wielding it.
  
  For this one, the only response I can make is OH HELL NO. This is pure NRA/FOX News pandered bullshit, and not the view of anybody but the outside fringe of the left.
  
  Guns, like all weapons, are a force multiplier. Nothing more, nothing less.
  
  For a mass shooting to happen, three things need to exist:
  
  
• Intent - if no one wants a mass shooting, then there won't be one.
  
• Opportunity - if someone intending a mass shooting can't find a target, then there won't be one.
  
• Effect - once they have intent and opportunity, how much damage can they do?
  
  If one of those things does not exist, then there can't be a mass shooting. Both of these break down further into different factors:
  
  
• Intent:
  
• Mental Health can be a major driver. We can't completely eliminate this factor, but adequate funding of mental health institutions, de-stigmatising mental health issues, and encouraging people to seek treatment can all mitigate this. Conservatives block all three of those efforts: mental health institutions face funding cuts under the umbrella of "Social welfare" cuts, De-stigmatizing got caught up in the asinine anti-pc backlash, and and encouraging people to seek treatment gets lost amidst the difficulty to find adequate treatment amidst and under-funded and poorly organized mental health system.
  
• Terrorism. This isn't as big of an issue as the media makes it out to be, but it is definitely a threat. This comes down to a balance - strong enough central government and security state to catch terrorists, but not so strong central government or security state in order to impinge on the rights of innocents. There is no good solution to that balance, and everybody is going to have a different opinion of where to draw that line. At either extreme, you can't eliminate it entirely... however, one way you
  can mitigate it without infringing on the rights of citizens is to keep relationships between the government and various communities positive - most would be terrorists who are caught are caught because of tips from their friends or family.
  
• Opportunity:
  
• If they can't come up with a target, then intent doesn't matter. Good luck preventing a bad actor from finding a target in today's world.
  
• Effect:
  
• Once they have a target, then force multipliers come into play. This is where guns are involved: A bad actor with a knife is unlikely to do as much damage as a bad actor with a gun. A bad actor with a gun is unlikely to do as much damage as a bad actor with access to large enough explosives. And so on up the chain.
  
  The force multiplier thing is another "Where do you draw the line" issue. We can pretty much all agree that random people on the street shouldn't have easy access to ICBMs with nuclear warheads - that would be both absurd and insane. Likewise, we can all pretty-much agree that we don't want to live in a world where kitchen knives have regulated maximum sharpness and require licenses to own. That would also be absurd. The question is, between those two absurd extremes, where do we draw the line?
  
  Another factor to consider is, where it makes sense to draw that line? Varies regionally. Particularly, urban versus country.
  
  Mental health issues are similar between the two, but terrorists are going to be more drawn to urban environments (Bigger targets, more impact), and likewise there is more opportunity in urban environments. So intent and opportunity are both bigger factors in urban environments (which run liberal), and there's little we can do about that (We're trying). Therefore, the Effect is what is getting attention. This is why the point that makes sense differs between urban, suburban, and rural - and where I feel the biggest national divide on gun issues lays.
  
  Policies that make sense in urban environments make little sense in rural environments, and vice versa.
  
  We know that there will always be bad actors, there will often be intent, and there will almost always be opportunities - so we want to mitigate how effective these mass shooters can be. You have to get pretty close to the left fringe before that line is "ban all guns".
  
  ...
  
  
  Ah, sorry to talk your ear off here - but I think you are operating under a misapprehension about what the liberal stance actually is in that regard. I know we get portrayed that way, but it's no more accurate than the "All conservatives hate women's rights" stereotype.

Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets is a great book. It focuses on a Chicago gang.

Check out Gang Leader for a Day

While it might not get in to specifics for your project, you may find more resources. If you do have the time, it's a great read.

good book on this general topic

he asked people and families that, their answer was that the projects are what they know, where their friends and family are, where they fit in. some tried moving to the suburbs and didn't like it.

I think you'd really enjoy this book then; it's about a grad student who spent some time observing the gangs at the Robert Taylor homes for his research.

http://www.amazon.com/Audacity-Hope-Thoughts-Reclaiming-American/dp/0307455874/ref=la_B001H6OA8E_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451867248&sr=1-3

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda is a powerful read about the Rwandan genocide.

Shake hands with the devil A very detailed account of the Rwandan genocide and the problems the head of the UN mission faced to get the world to try and care about what went on.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

Stories from the survivors of the genocide in Rwanda. Gives another side of the story to compare and contrast against Gen Dallaire's account.

Auschwitz : The Nazis & The 'Final Solution'

The title says it all...

Good book covering this grim event We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families

About the Rwanda genocide. One of the best I've ever read.

we wish to inform you...

Biographies of the Prophet (peace be upon him)

Martin Ling's "Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources"
| Amazon
| PDF
| Audiobook

Sheikh Safi-ur-Rahman al-Mubarkpuri "The Sealed Nectar"
| Amazon
| PDF (Older edition)


Autobiographies

Muhammad Asad "The Road to Mecca"
| Amazon
| PDF

Jeffrey Lang "Even Angels Ask: A Journey to Islam in America"
| Amazon

| PDF

Alex Haley and Malcolm X "The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley"
Amazon
| PDF

Other recommendations

Firas Alkhateeb "Lost Islamic History"

Hamza Tzortzis "The Divine Reality: God, Islam & The Mirage Of Atheism"

Given your background, some speakers you may find beneficial:

Sheikh Hussain Yee - From Buddhism to Islam

Abdur-Raheem Green - How I Came to Islam

Joshua Evans - How the Bible Led Me to Islam: The Story of a Former Christian Youth Minister

It's simply entitled The Autobiography of Malcolm X

I am a few years older than you and I have been going hard with books lately. It's not amazing, but I am on track to finishing about ~400 books by the time I am 30. I am also going for quality more than quantity. As in, if I feel like I didn't digest a particular book, I will keep at it and put other books on hold.

In any case, here are my top 3 recommendations:

1.) The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

2.) The 48 Laws of Power

3.) The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Also, Influence by Robert Cialdini is excellent. One of my favorites.

A little cautionary warning about asking people for recommendations though: Be careful about following other people's lists because those book won't vibe with you the same way. Each of us had our own unique life experiences, so you should be ideally choosing your own books. Lists are good for clues/inspiration though. Frequently, books choose me, not the other way around.

Also, try to keep track of the books (and knowledge) you read. I keep a single page HTML page with all the books I read along with a short note in reverse chronological order. I also have the option of putting this list online in the future if I need to.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Because it is lazy activism. Anyone that really cared about topics like Kony knew about it without having to be taught by a video whored around social networks. I remember when this came out the author made the talk show rounds, even appearing on the Daily Show a few years ago talking about the horrible plight of child soldiers. Some people got upset for a few months then it died down, most likely not making any difference.
If television or Facebook is what it takes to get you socially active you probably aren't that committed. You need to be more in touch with the world and the issues you are interested (and hopefully able to make a difference) in.

There's a ton of cookie cutter quotes that I could throw out your way here...but none of them would cover exactly what I'm trying to say...so here goes...

Our capacity for pain and loss...our ability to recover from trauma and damage, is limitless. Just as is our capacity for love and joy.
If it was not, there are many "great" people who would never have attained that lofty title...Otto Frank, The Dhali Lama, Ishmael Beah, not to mention all the day to day heroes, whose will to go on, and to keep pushing, and keep striving, show a resilience not only of mind, but spirit and heart as well.

That may feel like a comparison....saying your pain, or your loss is not as great as many other people, and look what they have accomplished....and to be honest, to an extent, it is. It is not, however, intended to belittle your loss, as each loss is different, as is each person carrying that loss. It is intended to say this.....the option to live and love greatly still exists, and it exists for you. You are the only person in the entire world, that can prevent yourself from grabbing life, and savoring it to the fullest....from finding love, and happiness, and pure joy again. It simply requires you to commit EVERYTHING you are, back to the cause. If you hold back, if you hide away that part of you that's hurt so badly, you only do a disservice to yourself.

I believe you will find this life one day..that you will rediscover true joy, and love. Yes, you may suffer another loss someday, and yes it will hurt, but once you've found your way back to the path once, it becomes easier again, and again. This is the secret that those "great" people hold......"There is no loss, that cannot, with time, be healed; There is no spirit, that is better for remaining isolated; and there is no heart, that is made whole again, without love"

I think you've got the title of the last one wrong.

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is the autobiographical story of a (male) child soldier in Sierra Lione.

It looks like your teachers are going for a world lit kind of vibe - three of these books are about black Africans, one about Chinese-American women, one about Hatian women, and one about Jews during the Holocaust. While there are a number of female protagonists, it seems more likely that this was a side effect of trying to give you a (limited) view of world literature.

To be honest, there's a lot of stuff that isn't explicitly social justice stuff that will give you the same basic information. Most of these issues have been around (and known) way prior to the recent rise in activism. Some of the books that were most useful to me were:

1. Whatever it takes by Paul Tough https://www.amazon.com/Whatever-Takes-Geoffrey-Canadas-America/dp/0547247966/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485119870&sr=8-1&keywords=whatever+it+takes
   
   
2. Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Like-John-Howard-Griffin/dp/0451234219/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485119901&sr=8-1&keywords=black+like+me
   
   
3. Pretty much all of the major slave narratives (Frederick Douglass, Olaudah Equiano - there are a couple others that I can't recall right now).
   
   
4. Anything by Toni Morrison (I've only read The Bluest Eye).
   
   
5. Virtually anything by oppressed people anywhere at any time. Vaclav Havel and Ghandi are both extremely relevant and timeless.

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

The officer suddenly discovered his minority status as an adult, without the years of dealing with prejudice, discrimination, racial jokes, denial of the benefit of the doubt, and the coping mechanisms that come from going through that on a daily basis.

It's like an IRL version of the movie "Black Like Me". Wikipedia. Summary. Amazon.

Nisa: Life and Words of an !Kung Woman.

These two ethnographies are easy/pleasant reads, frequently used in undergraduate courses:

• Marjorie Shostak, Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman
  
• Jean L. Briggs, Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family
  
  Ethnographies written almost solely for the purpose of introducing hunter-gatherer societies to college freshmen/sophomores include ...
  
  
• Richard B. Lee, The Dobe Ju/'Hoansi
  
• Colin Turnbull, The Mbuti Pygmies: Change and Adaptation
  
• James F. Downs, The Two Worlds of the Washo: An Indian Tribe of California and Nevada
  
• E. Adamson Hoebel, The Cheyennes: Indians of the Great Plains
  
• N. A. Chance, The Iñupiat and Arctic Alaska: An Ethnography of Development
  
• Hart, Pilling, & Goodale, The Tiwi of North Australia
  
• Robert Tonkinson, The Mardu Aborigines: Living the Dream in Australia's Desert
  
  These teaching ethnographies have been around for decades, so while they don't reflect current scholarship, it should be possible to pick them all up for a couple of bucks each, and I think you'd get a lot out of browsing them that's lost in comparative work.

Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made –
by David Halberstam

> I don't think he ( /u/bg1256 ) was referring to the actual crime a person ends up pleading guilty to or is convicted of. I read it as a reference to a person who is willing to deliberately kill someone with premeditation and malice aforethought ... what should always be first degree murder as the initial charge. Granted that charge may be reduced later.

I agree with you, but in practice we cannot ever sentence someone to life in prison without working their case through the limitations and inherent biases of the criminal justice system.

> As it happens, Adnan was convicted of first degree murder in spite of seemingly having a good support structure and a decent attorney

We'll never agree on this case, barring some game-changing revelation, so I'm not going to comment here.

Edit: I will just comment that, my opinions concerning murderers have changed to some extent on reading this book. There is some wrongful conviction stuff there, but I found the stuff on the actually guilty to be more impactful.

I just heard back about the exciting job I interviewed for a few months ago. I didn't get it, but found out it was a close race and a splinter skill was the difference between multiple people getting it.

I've been reading more recently: Just Mercy, which I highly reccomend; Twelve-by-Twelve; Tribe; A Renegade History of the US; and At Risk Youth.

I know I still need to compile and post about the Social Skills course I took last month, and I will, I've just been busy with school, work, and life.

Between the World and Me - Ta-Nahesi Coates

Written as a memior, but ending more as a personal essay on race and growing up. If you liked Amos Oz you'll like this.

If you're keen to learn more, there is an excellent book about the woman whose cells were used to create the HeLa line - 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.' When I did research we worked with HeLa cells and it was pretty interesting to hear about the person who 'donated' them.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181

That's pretty tough... I think if I had to pin down one book that really affected me it'd have to be The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Extremely well researched and fantastically written. A great example of well done literary nonfiction!

How creepy you into? One of my favorite books of the last year was People in the Trees, but it's a little hmmm... dark.

Also recently finished this Henrietta Lacks non-fiction which was good.

Currently reading a shitty crime novel that's pretty addicting, before I get into some 800 page shit I have on deck.

>And where are you getting this cocaine stuff?

Dreams From My Father, By Barack Obama.

"I had learned not to care. I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it."

Apparently this was talked about so much that you didn't even know he admitted to cocaine use in his memoir...but let's keep talking about how big of a deal Romney's prank should be.

It's got John Lewis in is sit-in comeback tour!

Seriously though, read March. It's harrowing and inspiring and the art is pretty solid.

In the UK, John Lewis is a major department store chain.

In the US, John Lewis is a Civil Rights icon who marched with MLK and was arrested over 40 times for peaceful protests. He also authored a NYT bestselling graphic novel and as a Congressman led the recent House sit-ins.

Both are cool. But I like our John Lewis better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrp-v2tHaDo

ETA: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1400082773/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479704078&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=obama+dreams+from+my+father

'HeLa' is a reference to a strain of human cells that labs use for testing. I can strongly recommend this book about their source. It's absolutely fascinating and heartbreaking:

https://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181

> The reason money is so important is because they do need people's votes.

And that is why both parties ultimately work for the same people. The rich. Because they need their money.

> He got in because tons of idiots wanted to have a beer with him.

It's actually quite a bit more sophisticated and sinister than that. Politicians get people to vote for them by creating in the minds of their target audience something like a personal connection - an identification. Bush excelled at doing this with the Republican base. Obama excels at doing it with the Democratic base. That is the purpose that things like books, websites named "myBarackObama.org", and the marketing campaigns fulfill.

So in the same way that Conservatives looked at Bush, and thought he was a good guy, down to earth, homey, unpretentious in that aw-shucks way middle America likes so much (basically all those things that presses that demographics' subconscious buttons) Liberals looked at Obama, at his life-story narrative, his cool, calm, rational demeanor, abundantly apparent intelligence and eloquence, and that just pressed all their buttons the right way. And this is why despite all the evidence to the contrary, they persist in thinking he somehow means well, is trying to do good, is trying to help the little people, etc. etc. Even though in reality he's just like Bush. Just a guy who wanted to get his ass into office, and to get there he cut deals w/ the establishment and basically sold out, and now that he's in office he's basically doing what the powerful, the rich, the interest groups that really call the shots in the country, want done.

> You mean cutting taxes on the rich while initiating a massive ground war

Both of which Obama continued. The Iraq withdrawal btw was plans drawn up during BushCo.

> undermining dictators through NATO actions with no boots on the ground

Aka starting yet another War for Oil. The US simply doesn't care about dictators, as long as they're "our bastards." Only if they have something we want, or are completely uncooperative in our scheme to militarily dominate and control their part of the world, do we demonize them and seek to regime change them.

So in fact, the proper way to assess Obama is that he continued all of Bush's wars, tried to complete the task of finishing the conquest and pacifying them, and even started new ones of his own.

> raising taxes on the upper class

He's just posturing for re-election purposes. He's not serious about it.

http://www.ianwelsh.net/tax-increases-on-the-rich/

Well i've also read a ton of books by people that think O.J. is innocent(and i've read all the ones that think he's guilty) like these(all of which i'd highly recommend):
https://www.amazon.com/J-Guilty-But-Not-Murder/dp/0970205805

https://www.amazon.com/J-Innocent-Can-Prove/dp/1616086203

https://www.amazon.com/Double-Crossed-Blood-Constitutional-Suppression-Perversion/dp/1881524884

https://www.amazon.com/Justice-Defeated-Victims-Simpson-American/dp/1434372227/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=OJ+justice+defeated&qid=1565219697&s=books&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-Exhibit-Simpson-murder-trial/dp/1456313169

https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Time-Investigation-Unsolved-Murders/dp/0028613406

https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Evidence-Prosecution-J-Simpson/dp/0688144136/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=ZAGNY4RKECR5QVKZDM0B



https://www.amazon.com/Madam-Foreman-Armanda-Cooley-ebook/dp/B007EHCEZG/ref=sr_1_15?keywords=O.J.+simpson+trial+jury&qid=1565219443&s=books&sr=1-15

https://www.amazon.com/Solving-Simpson-Mystery-Christopher-Springer/dp/0964964961

https://www.amazon.com/Frame-Century-J-Neil-Schulman/dp/1584450606



Honestly the O.J. trial is where white rage towards minorities really became obvious as even liberals failed badly with how they covered the trial.


There's a few other good books about the case but they are VERY pricey:
https://www.amazon.com/If-Oj-Didnt-Shocking-Answers/dp/0964964910/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?keywords=If+O.J.+Didn%27t...%3A+The+Shocking+Answers+the+Trial+Did+Not+Give+You&qid=1565220016&s=books&sr=1-1-fkmr0

https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Oath-Conspiracy-Murder-Simpson/dp/1568250584/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=blood+oath+oj&qid=1565220057&s=books&sr=1-1

William Dear was a reporter who covered the OJ trial from the start. The book looks back on the case, the media, the evidence, etc and he is convinced that OJ more than likely covered-up the murder, but didn't necessarily commit the murders.

Good read: http://www.amazon.com/O-J-Innocent-Can-Prove-It/dp/1616086203

There is a lot of evidence that points to Jason Simpson, OJ's son.

EDIT: Copy/Paste my old comment on this:

There is strong evidence to suggest OJ actually didn't kill Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. It may very well have been OJ's son, Jason Simpson. Pretty fascinating, recommend googling it.

• Jason Simpson, OJ's oldest son, from a criminal profilers point of view has a more likely criminal and medical profile to be capable of murder than does OJ. This is based on past incidents of violent domestic abuse and a sordid history of mental illness. He was arrested for a hit-and run accident, once for driving while intoxicated, and once for driving on a suspended drivers license. Not to mention the many times the police were called to his apartment for attacking his girlfriends.
  
• Jason Simpson did NOT have an airtight alibi on the night of the murders. In fact, there is evidence that people covered for him (sometimes contradicting each other in the process.) He had a hand-written time card from his job at a restaurant (they used electronic cards).
  
• OJ hired a prestigious criminal attorney for his son the day after the murders, before he had even hired criminal lawyers for himself.
  
• OJ was at the crime scene after the murders, but did not commit them. Instead, he took steps to cover for his son.
  At the very time of the Nicole-Ron murders, he was on probation for having attacked his boss with a butcher's knife and in a "rage-triggering snit" because Nicole had changed the venue of a celebration dinner
  
• A knife was found in Jason's belongings that may or may not be the murder weapon.

How about March?

If you want to think deeply, try The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Bioethics, sciences and socio-economics all play into a family's betrayal by science.

I love science books. These are all on my bookshelf/around my apt. They aren't all chemistry, but they appeal to my science senses:

I got a coffee table book once as a gift. It's Theodore Gray's The Elements. It's beautiful, but like I said, more of a coffee table book. It's got a ton of very cool info about each atom though.

I tried The Immortal Life of Henrieta Lacks, which is all about the people and family behind HeLa cells. That was a big hit, but I didn't care for it.

I liked The Emperor of all Maladies which took a long time to read, but was super cool. It's essentially a biography of cancer. (Actually I think that's it's subtitle)

The Wizard of Quarks and Alice in Quantumland are both super cute allegories relating to partical physics and quantum physics respectively. I liked them both, though they felt low-level, tying them to high-level physics resulted in a fun read.

Unscientific America I bought on a whim and didn't really enjoy since it wasn't science enough.

The Ghost Map was a suuuper fun read about Cholera. I love reading about mass-epidemics and plague.

The Bell that Rings Light, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, Schrödinger's Kittens, The Fabric of the Cosmos and Beyond the God Particle are all pleasure reading books that are really primers on Quantum.

I also tend to like anything by Mary Roach, which isn't necessarily chemistry or science, but is amusing and feels informative. I started with Stiff but she has a few others that I also enjoyed.

Have fun!

March is a badass trilogy of graphic novels about John Lewis struggle for human rights. https://www.amazon.com/March-Book-One-John-Lewis/dp/1603093001/ref=nodl_#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1537048099015

• March is a series of three graphic novels about the civil Rights movement, it's very exciting while staying extremely historically accurate. I highly recommend this. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1603093958/
  
• Maus by Art Spiegelman about the Holocaust using anthropomorphic animals. It's based on his parents experience of the concentration camps. https://www.amazon.com/Complete-MAUS-Art-Spiegelman/dp/0141014083/
  
• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is set in Tehran, Iran during the 1960's. Telling a very personal tale about life there before, during, and after the Islamic Revolution. https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Persepolis-Marjane-Satrapi/dp/0375714839/

Not 100% relevant, but it keeps coming up in this thread. Apparently there's a new book by a PI, who is famous for solving other murders, which claims that OJ was innocent.

And here is a link to his autobiography, that he personally wrote, in which he personally lays out the fact that he's not black.

https://www.amazon.com/Dreams-My-Father-Story-Inheritance/dp/1400082773/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1503411518&sr=8-7&keywords=Obama

I pretty much only read non-fiction, so I'm all about books that are educational but also interesting :) I'm not sure what your educational background is, so depending on how interested you are in particular subjects, I have many recommendations.

Naked Statistics and Nate Silver's Book are both good!

Feeling Good is THE book on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.

The Omnivore's Dilemma is good, as is Eating Animals (granted, Eating Animals is aimed at a particular type of eating)

Guns, Germs and Steel is very good.

I also very much enjoyed The Immortal Live of Henrietta Lacks, as well as Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman :)

edit to add: Chris Hadfield's Book which I haven't received yet but it's going to be amazing.

I loved Dreams from My Father and [The Color of Water] (http://www.amazon.com/Color-Water-Tribute-Mother-Anniverary/dp/159448192X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417378244&sr=1-1&keywords=the+color+of+water), and they're relatively recent.

There are reasons some books become classics though - you should check out [Voices in the Mirror] (http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Mirror-Autobiography-Gordon-Parks/dp/0385266987/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417378538&sr=1-1&keywords=gordon+parks+autobiography), [Black Boy] (http://www.amazon.com/Black-Boy-Record-Childhood-Youth/dp/0061130249/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417378427&sr=1-1&keywords=black+boy), [Invisible Man] (http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Man-Ralph-Ellison/dp/0679732764/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417378361&sr=1-1&keywords=invisible+man), and [Black Like Me] (http://www.amazon.com/Black-Like-John-Howard-Griffin/dp/0451234219/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417378875&sr=1-1&keywords=black+like+me) for instance

the book

Almost anything by Oliver Sacks is fantastic. On The Move was great. I listened to it as an audiobook in lab. Very motivating!

Not a new release, and I know there is some controversy, but I loved The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Middlesex. Fiction, not a new release, but a great story with some science mixed in (I may be biased because I happened to be reading this while taking developmental biology and learning about sex determination).

Very much liked
The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat - a book about the discovery of penicillin that aims to correct decades of misinformation

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mold-Dr-Floreys-Coat/dp/0805077782/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341580039&sr=8-1&keywords=mold+in+dr+floreys+coat

Also, for a bioethics book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is great
http://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341580111&sr=1-1&keywords=henrietta+lacks

>Isn't every living thing?

No. I'm actually reading a book about that right now. Good book, pretty entertaining and informative, I recommend.

Came here to say Oliver Sacks (neuroscience).
I picked up a used copy of the DSM-IV casebook; it's very cheap since the DSM-V has come out. Diagnoses may be outdated but the stories are still there!

There are casebooks in other fields, too-- Surgery, multiple specialities, medical ethics, [pediatrics] (http://www.amazon.com/Files-Pediatrics-Fourth-Edition-LANGE/dp/0071766987/ref=pd_rhf_se_s_cp_9_EQ6W?ie=UTF8&refRID=1WJ16SB6971PCJ94TK2S). Your college library ought to have new-ish ones you can read for free.

I'm also encouraged by reading scientific journal articles in medical fields (research is exciting).

Other stuff: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks isn't about a doctor, but it's about a patient and the HeLa cell line that's been so important to medicine. My decision to go into medicine was affected by The Plague, a novel by Albert Camus about a plague-stricken city. (Main character is a doctor, though not exactly a modern MD.)

Yeah, I think I read that one. About 180 degrees from our situation here, at least my building/neighborhood. At least as far as I know - I just might be a blind idiot, but I don't think I could be quite that myopic.

>So he failed to consider that those crack dealers or drug dealers or gangsters are trying, in some twisted bumfuck way to try and get themselves out of the situation by slinging crack at the corner. Nobody was born with a desire for a hard life. When your whole family is in tatters and there is no generational wealth to inherit except bloodshed and poverty and undereducation, when the only option to get out of the hood is via a body bag or peddling dope, when the only heroes one has growing up is either in jail or absent and the whole neighbourhood is a fucking ghetto spliced with the thunderdome, how does one expect to have upward mobility?

I seriously think people fail to understand that for many people who grow up in these situations, selling drugs and a life of crime has more opportunity in it then going to school and getting a job. The book [Gang Leader for a Day] (http://www.amazon.ca/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X) by [Sudhir Venkatesh] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudhir_Venkatesh) has an in depth description of a man who grows up in the ghetto, goes to college, gets a white collar full time job and then comes back to his home because he see's no opportunities for him to make real wealth at his full time job. More importantly, his book shows you how fucked up and intricate gangs are to both supporting and bringing down these communities. I really suggest anybody read it who wants to have a better understanding of why a life of crime looks like a better option for so many young people.

Ultimately this video, and anything that says "if black people just stopped _ then __ wouldn't happen" is simplifying something that is so much more complex. Life is not black and white (no pun in intended).

chicago has been shit like this for decades

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sandifer

its like fucking mad max with a quasi criminal warlord state in the ghetto there. if you want to read an interesting book about the batshit insanity of it, check this out

https://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X

If this interests you, then you should read Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets, the book written by Sudhir Venkatesh (the sociologist from the article) about the Black Disciples (the gang from the article.) I just finished it a month or so ago and it was fantastic.

With your question framed specifically in the context of a totalitarian state, not sure how different you'd want it to be from North Korea. For what its worth, you might want to check out the works of Sudhir Venkatesh for a more academic treatment of illegal economic systems. Here is a short TED talk from his academic co-author, Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame, talking about what its like to be a drug dealer in an inner city gang.

"Horns"is a terrible movie, but not as bad as "Tusk". "In the Name of the King is the worst movie I've ever seen, derivative drivel of plot craters and just terrible storyline, script, acting, and directing. I was so disappointed. It's kind of funny how both Ray Liotta and Jason Statham started their careers in awesome movies and then just couldn't maintain consistent quality.

Sorry for the rant.

"Gang Leader For A Day" gives a glimpse of life in a gang controlled project tenement in Chicago. A sociology student at University of Chicago befriended the gang leader and got unrestricted access to the inner workings and daily life.

It's not just about the gang, although the author led the gang leader into thinking he was doing a biography on him. The book is also about the day to day lives of people living in poverty in the inner city.

This book may interest you: http://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X

No affiliation with it, other than I read it a few years ago and it was really interesting.

I'm going to recommend Gang Leader for a Day. It's a memoir of a sociology PhD student studying the Chicago projects. His highly personal interactions with its residents -- who ranged from drug dealers and prostitutes to store owners and mechanics -- allowed him to gain unprecedented access to a world that those outside of it barely understood.

His anecdotes brought his cast of characters life: JT, the regional head of the Black Kings gang who justified his crack-cocaine deals were good for his community because he was taking money from society's dregs and redistributing it to the project; or Autry Harrison, a former pimp who severed his formal gang ties to become a Boys & Girls club director; or Officer Jerry, the crooked cop who stole from the project's residents and even threatened Sudhir on numerous occasions if he ever published his research; or Taneesha, who attempted a career as a model while attending college at night before her jealous "manager" beat her badly for signing a contract with a legitimate agency. Although I felt like I was reading the script to a movie at times, this highlighted to me my ignorance of what life in the Robert Taylor Homes project was like.

My primary issue with the work was a lack of discussion about his research itself. He would write, a few times, something like (I'm paraphrasing here) "everything about sociological theory says X, but what I've witnessed is Y" without delving into the details. These moments peppered throughout his narrative would have allowed for a somewhat more formal discourse by introducing some interesting ideas about what sociologists think and how his research differs. His published research must discuss these issues at depth, but an informal, less pedantic approach could have been incorporated into this book.

If you want to read an incredibly powerful and gut-wrenching book on the Rwandan genocide, I highly recommend Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.

Find and read this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Wish-Inform-Tomorrow-Killed-Families/dp/0312243359

There's also the book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevich.

Man, that whole list is completely wrong. The list should be edited to anonymous, pseudonymous, and pseduepigrahs.

But on topic, if we are to accept that there are many biblical authors, We know that god has interacted with them all. I believe some, if not all directly. The only silent covenant I'm aware of where God beamed something into someones head, is Josiah, but he didn't write any books.

So god is directly involved with the authors if we are to accept the traditional attributed authors. So he's sort of coauthoring a book. Like what celebs/important figures do now when they write a tell all book. Like "The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley"

Start here: https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Malcolm-Told-Alex-Haley/dp/0345350685

Once again, just reiterating what was clearly explained above, and somehow making it a counterargument...

> Your Line: Like what the fuck are you even talking about niggas have BEEN trying to invest in their fucking future
> for decades and have been shut out at every opportunity. Community growth is borderline impossible when
> America has helped to create a permanent underclass.



> My Line: Unfortunately, the black race has not reached this level of communal success. This is due to many
> factors that are tightly interlinked with history (slavery creating a class system based on race), economics (race
> then making upward mobility an impossible task), and psychology (racism causing self-hatred among the black
> community).

Consensus: Same thing explained, but repackaged as a weak defence.

Bro, either your comprehension skills are low, or deductive reasoning is not your strong-suit, but you are missing all the points. Not trying to end careers today, so I'm going to drop this. Tonight go to your local bookstore, pick up the Malcom X Autobiography. Read it. Valuable information on this whole topic. If that's too daunting, go on the internet, read the lyrics. Slowly this time.

Clearly, "The Story of O.J." is too intelligent for some.

You've accused Malcolm X of inciting genocide, acting unjustly, and committing treason. Can you give a reference that supports any of those claims?

> No, he just wanted to kill whole ethnic groups, not enslave them. So much better.

The Wikipedia pate that you've linked does not say that he wanted to kill whole ethnic groups. I think you're misunderstanding his core message, which is that America has failed to promote the general welfare of Black people (as promised in the Constitution), and that failure should be immediately addressed. The group that played the biggest role in this failure is the "White man". Later in his life, Malcolm X extended this view to say that imperialism, in general, has failed the majority of people on earth, and human rights must be restored to all persons to continue playing this game that we call civilization. I recommend that you read more about him and his message. Alex Haley's biography of Malcolm is a good place to start.

> In other words "It's different when I do it." Sorry, but no, it isn't. Everyone thinks their side is on the side of justice. Actually being on the side of justice means remembering that, treating the other side fairly, and not excusing your own side when it acts unjustly.

How did Malcolm X act unjustly?

> Nope. I'm arguing that treason doesn't stop being treasonous when you like the person doing the treason.

I'll grant you that Malcolm's rhetoric was hostile, but in what way was he treasonous? CSA straight up waged war on the Union right after Lincoln was elected.

This one?

I have a quick trigger finger on Amazon... haha. Have you read A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah - pretty amazing story.

Any book by Mary Roach- her books are hilarious, random, and informative. I like Jon Krakauer's, Sarah Vowell's, and Bill Bryson's books as well.

Some of my favorites that I can think of offhand (as another poster mentioned, I loved Devil in the White City)

No Picnic on Mount Kenya

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Collapse

The Closing of the Western Mind

What is the What

A Long Way Gone

Alliance of Enemies

The Lucifer Effect

The World Without Us

What the Dog Saw

The God Delusion (you'd probably enjoy Richard Dawkins' other books as well if you like science)

One Down, One Dead

Lust for Life

Lost in Shangri-La

Endurance

True Story

Havana Nocturne

I don't get upset by any of it because if I did I would be upset by all of it and wouldn't be able to function. I read this book http://www.amazon.com/Long-Way-Gone-Memoirs-Soldier/dp/0374531269/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311457412&sr=1-1 and it made me care too much so I made a decision to not care at all as crass as that sounds.

A Long Way Gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (2007) by Ishmael Beah. Firsthand account of Beah's time as a child soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone (1990s) The last few pages, I just read one per day, an effort to delay the inevitable ending of a good book. *edited link from wiki to amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Long-Way-Gone-Memoirs-Soldier/dp/0374531269

(the author didn't rape anyone but killed a ton of people. it's a fucking wild story)

You know, I was honestly hoping that you'd be wrong. I accept that it's a different style of game. But hell, if it's going to be heavily story based, make it internally consistent.

• The mystic blue force can sometimes block bullets, sometimes can't.
  
• whatever agency sent in a psychic secret ops agent to kill one dude, trying to keep a low profile obviously. But then they had no trouble sending in 2 helicopters and killing a bunch more to pull her out. One helicopter with one bomb would have been much more efficient, lower profile, lower risk etc etc.
  
• Hey, let's all ignore our firearms and engage in hand-to-hand combat one at a time with this person.
  
• Hey, our leader just got killed, and this western soldier is running away from the scene. Let's shoot her once in the leg, then slowly follow her.
  
• the kid had no trouble helping her kill a bunch of people in the town that his dad seemed to be on the same side as, but got pissed when the father himself was found dead. Not to mention that there's a clear language barrier, so she just talks more slowly with more emphasis. Little to no use of gestures or diagrams or anything that would allow communication, she just talks to him like a dog and he seems to understand then babble back in arabic (though arabic is rarely spoken in somalia, whereas somali is the dialect of choice).
  
  I get that it's a story, that dramatic tension is the name of the game. But so much of it was so very poorly done and painfully forced to increase dramatic tension, that the immersion was not broken so much as non-existent. The video posted above of snowy new-york was a little better in this regard, but not by a ton. Overall I don't have particularly high hopes for this game, even though I love story-heavy games in general.
  
  Also, to gain some further insight on child soldiers, as well as the situation in war-torn countries where said soldiers are used A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Child Soldier is pretty informative and a good read. That kid would be coked up, brainwashed and trigger happy, and commanded to kill white people on site as often as not.

Was he inspired by this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/0451234219/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_t4Fnxb2EB1PDP

Black Like Me absolutely change how I see the world and understand human experience.

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Like-John-Howard-Griffin/dp/0451234219

Nisa is very memorable.

Ultimately, it all boils down to the existence of god(s). If they can show that one exists, fine; if not; there's your answer.

As far as developing a deeper understanding of Islam itself, for a start try Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book "Infidel"... http://www.amazon.com/Infidel-Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali/dp/0743289684

There's always the web... http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Good luck...

I am surprised that no one has mentioned the book Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. It may only be one person's account, but it really affected my views on Islam, especially the treatment of women.

http://www.amazon.com/Infidel-Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali/dp/0743289684

David Halberstam is probably the most well-known NBA author in long-form content. "The Breaks of the Game" is an incredible account of the Blazers 79-80 season. "Playing for Keeps" is a narrative about MJ's career and impact. These are older works though.

As far as newer stuff, the Bill Simmons "Book of Basketball" is a monstrosity that has amazing in-depth content, provided you like Simmons.

The "FreeDarko Presents: The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History" is from 2010 and has amazing artwork and a unique perspective. I would highly recommend it.

It's a great book. And I'm totally a "Michael Jordan is Jesus" guy. He dunked for our sins. That type of mentality. Lazenby did a great job of tearing all of that down.

At the same time holy shit Michael Jordan is still the greatest basketball player ever. But he was also a human being.

If you want a slightly more reverential view I recommend Playing for Keeps by David Halberstam: https://www.amazon.com/Playing-Keeps-Michael-Jordan-World/dp/0767904443

> such as as copyright

I was sympathetic up to this point, but now I'm mentally pigeonholing this as upper-middle-class whining. However, I continue to recommend Just Mercy to the attention of anyone else who wanders in to the thread (I hear that The New Jim Crow is also well worth reading, but I have not gotten around to that one yet.)

It's been this way for years. There are entire books written on the subject, as well as TED talks.

https://www.amazon.com/Just-Mercy-Story-Justice-Redemption/dp/081298496X

https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice

It was included as a statistic in Bryan Stevenson's book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption which I had to read last semester. It really gets into black culture and the rise of police in their neighborhood.

Well... Using your definition it seems that the quote I provided proves Trump guilty, no? They're ALL rapists, remember? Clearly they're not, he only said this to give people (like you?) a reason to feel superior to them. America is no longer great because of immigrants. Isn't that the point? Their fault, not ours.

You really haven't provided any actual premises to back up your arguments.

Racism is complicated, I suggest this book (although I know my suggestion will be ignored because you don't seem to give a fuck about any point of view that may begin to remove those blinders you have on): https://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/0812993543

Make attempts to learn about the experiences of lives that are unlike your own. Assuming you are not black/African-American, I suggest reading "Between the World and Me".
http://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/0812993543/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464158241&sr=1-1&keywords=between+the+world+and+me

Oui, ça sert juste à mettre en lumière ds situations sociales difficiles vécues de manière disproportionnée par un groupe social en particulier. Ça n'implique pas que ceux et celles qui n'appartiennent pas à ce groupe particulier sont directement (mais ça peut être le cas) des causes de ces situations difficiles, des vecteurs d'injustice envers d'autres personnes.

Ça attire l'attention sur des trucs moins visibles et, personnellement, ça me donne le goût de savoir comment je peux utiliser mes privilèges pour améliorer les choses pour d'autres qui ne jouissent pas de ces privilèges-là.

C'est un concept abordé par Ta-Nehisi Coates dans Between the Wolrd and Me quand il parle du "Rêve blanc" (il va par contre plus loin en soutenant que celui-ci, aux States, est construit et possible étant donné l'oppression d'autres citoyen.ne.s qui n'ont pas accès à ce Rêve de la même manière).

Nobody but you is claiming race should be the only factor. If you don't understand the historic roll race
(and racism) has played in America, and how it impacts us today, and why it's important we attempt to fix the systemic issues it has caused, that's on you. Maybe go read a book?

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052173

Great book about her life. Emphatic recommendation.

Yeah, it's much bigger than circumcision:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052173

Immortal cells already exist, i.e. HeLa cells.

> One biologist, Leigh Van Valen, has written that Lacks' cancer cells have evolved into a self-replicating, single-cell life-form and has proposed HeLa cells be given the new species name of Helacyton gartleri. The cells are a genetic chimera of human papillomavirus 18 (HPV18) and human cervical cells and now have a distinct, stable, non-human chromosome number. His 1991 suggestion has not been followed, nor, indeed, been widely noted. With near unanimity, evolutionary scientists and biologists hold that a chimeric human cell line is not a distinct species, and that tumorigenesis is not an evolutionary process.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It was fascinating and read like fiction, despite the fact that the whole thing was non-fiction.

The Rebel Sell: Why The Culture Can't Be Jammed by Joseph Potter and Andrew Heath

The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," The Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction by Rachel P. Maines. A really awesome history of the medicalization of women's orgasms and sexual issues.

I love these lists that everyone has compiled here, I've seen some amazing books that I've read and have yet to read. But since no one's mentioned this one, I'd to add a book that I think is really significant to AskWomen and the state of our society today:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It's about how a black woman died of cervical cancer in the 50s, then doctors took her cancer cells to experiment on without telling her family, and they're basically the only human cells to be replicated in the lab without dying so they've been used in all of medicine, including to develop vaccines like polio -- and yet her descendants live without healthcare. It's an amazingly well written, interesting, and exciting book.

Other than that I recommend Mary Roach as an author, she is very fun to read. My favorites are Gulp: Adventures in the Alimentary Canal and Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

Book is actually pretty good.

How to Be Black

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0062003216/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1411926356&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40#productDescription_secondary_view_pageState_1411926368113

“A hilarious blend of razor-sharp satire and memoir...Using his own story and humor, Thurston demonstrates that the best way to ‘be’ anything is to simply be yourself.” ( Publishers Weekly)

If you would seriously like to learn something of the mindset and daily life of a Chicago gang member I would recommend the book, Gang Leader for a Day.

It is basically a sociologist who spends time with a black gang on the south side of Chicago and details the environment and mindset.

Ghost in the Wires - The story of famed hacker Kevin Mitnick

Any Mary Roach Book if you like Science

In the Heart of the Sea - The true story behind Moby Dick

The Omnivore's Dilemma - A great walk through our food landscape

Gang Leader for a Day - Behavioral Economist embeds with a Chicago Gang

Shadow Divers - My first audiobook. It's a thriller about a scuba discovery of a Nazi Submarine on the Eastern US coast.

The Devil In The White City - A story about a serial killer at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893

Nice! I am glad they are not fronting with it. The chicago book was written by a sociologist who spent time with a gang that was deling crack. Very interesting. Glad you don't see it. In his case the whole neighbour hood knew about it and you couldn't really separate their lives from the crack gang.

Edit: This is the book im referring to: Gang Leader for a day

Crime has been down so far this year, but that's due to the weather, not policing. In Chicago shootings are correlated to temperature. It's unfortunate, but immediately after thinking about how nice the weather is, "how many people will get shot tonight?" is in the back of your head.

There are a few programs/organizations that temper the violence. [Cure Violence] (http://cureviolence.org/)(formerly known as CeaseFire) and Blocks Together both try to intervene to prevent escalation. But this problem is too big for any not for profit or politician's pet project.

The violence in Chicago is one of the many layers (or symptoms) to systematic social inequalities. Chicago politicians have been very good at throttling money going into developing these neighborhoods (the CPS school closings for instance), and draining any money that does go into these neighborhoods. Chicago is a microcosm of the relationship between the IMF and "developing" countries.

edit:
Check out these books if interested in learning more -
Great American City by Robert J. Sampson and Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh

Random books off the top of my head...

'The Movie Goer'

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl

Gang Leader for a Day

Ender's Game series

Pre-order Mindy Kaling's book

For some reason, reading this and the comments/questions below made me think of the book Gang Leader For A Day by Sudhir Venkatesh. Some really interesting insight on the sociology of gangs in Chicago and it reads really fucking well for a non fiction book. I felt like I was just reading a story instead of some dry set of facts. I highly recommend this book.

Gang Leader for a Day is now on my must-read list, but it's not the book I was thinking of. This was 2003-4 that I took the class.

The cover is brighter. Like a vibrant contrast-y orange/yellow and bright lighter shade of blue.

Maybe this doesn't fit, but if you're looking to learn more about it Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets provides some really great insights into the gang community and how the day-to-day is run as well as the community efforts the gang bring in an effort to deter being reported to the police

> Hope the elders of those cliques squash this shit soon.

Seriously, even the gang leaders that ran robert taylor homes and cabrini green understood that shootings are no good for anybody.

edit: for chicagoans that haven't read gang leader for a day, I suggest it. Good read of how an understaffed Chicago PD and gang members used to work together to make a "uneasy pact" of sorts.

If I recall correctly, Sudhir claims that 54% of users he observed in the South Side of Chicago back in the 1980's were actually functioning. https://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Sudhir+Venkatesh+gang+leader+for+a+day&qid=1571162955&sr=8-1

These and lots more questions are answered in a very interesting book, Gang Leader For A Day whose author literally went through the account books of a gang. Fun fact: they often pay for the funerals of people they've killed.

As others have said, the primary reason is gang violence. There are areas where you have no choice to NOT be in a gang. By simply living on a particular block, you are associated with a certain crew.

To get a better idea of what it is like in some areas, listen to This American Life, Harper High School

Also, try reading There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America by Alex Kotlowitz and Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to The Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh

It isn’t exactly the same, but “Gang Leader for a Day” is fantastic: https://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp/014311493X

If you're really curious about gang life in Chicago, a UofC professor basically embedded himself with Chicago gangs for seven years to observe them and wrote a book about his observations.

It's more historical than what you may be looking for, but Nixon in China is a really interesting look at what is, probably, Nixon's greatest achievement as president.

Also Obama's The Audacity of Hope is great, but not as well-regarded as his previous work Dreams from my Father.

> Chutzpah is a bad thing to have

In America, 'Audacity' is a positive trait. For good or bad.

Yep. People who put their face on the cover of their book with some awe inspiring title are douchebags... oh, nevermind

Not sure your budget...these might help:
http://amzn.com/B003YMNFHQ
http://amzn.com/B0029LHWFO
http://amzn.com/037583527X
http://amzn.com/0307455874

Relative to Bosnia. Try this, Kagame interviewed about why they couldn't bring them all to justice, not least because a very large number were parked in refugee camps in the DRC. The story of the Rwandans closing those camps is pretty horrific too.

You should read We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families about Rwanda.

We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families is a great read about tribalism and the causes and events of the Rwandan Genocide. Long title but great book.

> The Tutsi and Hutu were ethnic groups/social classes within Rwanda, not the Congo. And Rwanda was under German control until 1916 when it was taken over by the Belgians, which was 7 years after Leopold II died.

I'll admit, I got my facts confused. I was just going off memory from what I learned from the film "Hotel Rwanda" and this book and it has been years since I read it.

I suppose I should have spent 5 minutes brushing up on my history before mentioning it.

But you're acting like you're somehow an expert when you obviously just went to Wikipedia and found the first thing you could find to debunk my claim...

The truth is still closer to my side. When the Belgians took over they implemented the ID card system which codified the ethnicities into a rigid caste system with the 1 percent Tutsis ruling over the 88 percent Hutus. This is what I was thinking of and I wrongly attributed it to Leopold. My bad.

But most historians trace the strife back to this action by the Belgians and I still stand by that position. There were divisions between the Hutus and the Tutsis prior, but people could move fairly freely between the ethnic groups. And there wasn't this intense hatred:

> The Hutu and Rwanda were not living in equality before European colonialism but major conflicts between the two ‘races’ didn’t occur until after European colonialism. The European “divide and conquer” strategy for dealing with native populations combined with the ‘scientific’ racism of the era gave motivation and reasoning for developing the divide between the Hutu and Tutsi. European colonialism directly created the animosity between the Hutu and Tutsi, through the subjugation of the Hutu and elevation of the Tutsi as well as the removal of any social mobility, that upon their subsequent withdrawal from the firestorm they created, they had put the country of Rwanda on the road to genocide.


And the use of ethnic ID cards provided a basis on which to carry out the genocide, i.e. you had lists of people who were designated Tutsi, much like you had people with Yellow Stars or Pink Triangles, designated Jews or Gays.

The below is based on my recollection of this amazing book

Rwanda is a small african country. As a result of specific policy choices made during the colonial era, the country was divided between a Tutsi minority that dominated politics and trade, and a Hutu majority that often felt left out of governance.

In the post colonial period, this ethnic divide deepened, and ultimately the Hutu majority took power in the country. The country faced trouble typical of the region at the time, with strongman government and ethnic strife.

Over time, the government increasingly used the Tutsi minority as a scapegoat for problems in the country. Following the assassination of the president (which some claim was the responsibility of his supposed allies) the government called on the Hutu population to rise up and cleanse the Tutsis. Spurred by radio personalities and the government, soldiers, police, and armed mobs began to slaughter Tutsis.

The international response was divided. France considered the Hutu government a client, and was opposed to direct foreign intervention. The UN forces in the country were similarly paralyzed, and politics prevented them from taking a direct role in trying to stop the worst of the conflict. (the leader of the UN force ultimately killed himself out of guilt for failing to do more, if I recall correctly).

Ultimately, a mostly Tutsi resistance force was able to stop the killing, eject the government and force the worst of the military out of the country (Which destabilized neighboring Congo).

The estimated death toll is between 800,000 and 1.2 million killed, I think, in a matter of weeks.

In the book, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, the author discusses this process a bit. The book is really interesting (but sad). I read it after watching Hotel Rwanda.

http://www.amazon.com/Wish-Inform-Tomorrow-Killed-Families/dp/0312243359/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1334242536&sr=8-3

Auschwitz: A New History by Laurence Rees and We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch were both very difficult to read.

A really good book about the genocide, def recommend to anyone
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch

Have you studied at all on Malcolm X?

I suggest you read:

https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Malcolm-Told-Alex-Haley/dp/0345350685/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=S4HXAPSC2DB33V62TY8T

Good lord, if this is how most Americans think you people are doomed. Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fbvquHSPJU

It's interesting how out of my entire OP you've decided to derail the main matter - sexual assault and abuse. You have poor critical thinking skills and don't realize how ignorant you actually are.

I would encourage you to read the autobiography of Malcolm X.

edit... buy here: https://www.amazon.ca/Autobiography-Malcolm-X-MALCOLM/dp/0345350685/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519205773&sr=8-1&keywords=malcom+x+autobiography There are free PDF versions online as well in case you cannot afford it

Also, your inability to remain calm and use reason says a lot about you. The language you choose to use is very telling about who you are as a person.

I was like you until senior year in high school when I started reading for pleasure. My first two books were Yeager and Malcolm X. For me reading these autobiographies moved me and taught me some stuff that made reading seem both fun and productive. Later that year I went back and read most of the required books that I faked my way through in the previous years of high school. I've since come to appreciate literature and become a reader of most every kind of book and these two books really got me started. I think it was because at that age I wanted to know what living a life was truly all about.

Don't let the fact that you didn't get fully involved in the Foundation as some impediment. The lack of a strong character based plot makes that book kind of a chore. If there are a few historical characters you are really interested in why not find the best biographies associated with them and give them a shot? It worked for me!

For sure comrade.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Malcolm-Told-Alex-Haley/dp/0345350685&ved=0ahUKEwj2wdKTyKnUAhUE2GMKHTzUCIQQFggjMAA&usg=AFQjCNF5cv3eW6_aAY0sCteeR6ciBhqWbw&sig2=GbqaU11PF46ixAzNO9aLRg

Sorry for the long link.

Malcolm X autobiography. By Alex Haley

dude, there aren't any non-violent social revolutions to cite, because they don't do anything. they are facades and this is common knowledge everywhere in the world except for the hyper-privileged americans who grow fat off of raping the third world and for the most part don't see past their corporate-state blinders; i don't blame them but i do become frustrated. you don't even have to read a book to know this, you can do the reading in 5 mins:

http://georgeorwellnovels.com/letters/letter-to-the-reverend-iorwerth-jones-april-1941/

http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/gandhi/english/e_gandhi.html

here is some stuff on black civil rights if you really care:

http://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Malcolm-Told-Alex-Haley/dp/0345350685

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/soledadbro.html

the idea that either issue was solved, or really even affected by non-violence is explicit capitalist propaganda. both had violent components. india is still controlled by imperialist, capitalist, hegemony, and black people are still the oppressed underclass of the US.

as an aside, you don't actually think black people achieved social equality, right? if so, i'd remind you that capital is an ethereal social power, not a physical reality.

~

anyway, do you really not see the inconsistencies in your posts?

if your measure is efficacy, you can't possibly think that non-violent revolution is comparable to violent revolution. should i list off the major violent revolutions that shaped the world until you agree? like, the american one?

if your measure is morality, hey, more orwell:
http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/pacifism/english/e_patw

no one would say we should strive for violence, or that violence taken out of context is moral, just that it is a less bad option, sometimes. the pacifist stance is so silly and naive that it would be sort of amusing if it wasn't destructive. people literally believe the platitude "violence doesn't solve anything" and it sort of blows my mind.

the ussr failing and the fact that it was created in a violent revolution doesn't mean that everything a violent revolution does is doomed to failure. again, how can you say this on an american website, and not see the flaw in it?

it seems like you're conflating your argument against violence with your argument against a communist system (i'd like to point out another capitalist hypocrisy: the ussr failing means communism is dead and could never work, and violent revolutions are useless, but the same perfectionist desire for instant gratification when it comes to socioeconomic systems isn't applied to capitalism - when a capitalist country fails, it must have been individualist moral failings or some other reason, capitalism is never questioned), but they are separate concepts.

Frugal because even when this is not on sale, it's already cheap, and when it's used, it's only a penny before shipping!

It's not like Castle Wolfenstein, we don't have to go through every underling to get to the boss fight.
I recommend this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Long-Way-Gone-Memoirs-Soldier/dp/0374531269/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331348848&sr=1-1-spell

These are the books we read in my Africa in Popular Media and African History classes in college. I highly recommend all of them:

They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky

God Grew Tired of Us

A Long Way Gone

A Continent for the Taking

Black Hawk Down

Country of My Skull

Kaffir Boy

Machete Season: the Killers in Rwanda Speak

The Graves Are Not Yet Full

An Ordinary Man

You probably should read some literature on child soldiers and how they are 'conscripted' and how they are forced to fight in wars. I recommend A Long Way Gone (a memoir of Ishmael Beah an ex-child soldier) and They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children (by Romeo Dellaire).


One method is to use their culture against them, as in they will force you to kill your mother or else they will kill all you or your brother. Then they are taught to believe they are not wanted anymore and they will be killed by their own tribe. This has parallels with gang recruitment. Once this stuff happens in order to reverse this behaviour you need to retrain the individual and attempt to reverse the mindset that they are soldiers or the like and not locking them up in prison.

If anyone wants a perspective of what it was like to be a child growing up during the civil war in Sierra Leone check out the book "A Long Way Gone." Crazy crazy stuff you don't hear much about.

>I didn't now there was a procedure for that.

Black Like Me

Start here

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Like-John-Howard-Griffin/dp/0451234219

If you haven't, you should read Black Like Me. It gives some anecdotal accounts of what it is like to be black in an area that has segregated businesses.

I apologize for taking so long to respond, I have 3 very young children which makes a long and thoughtful response sometimes impossible for many reasons, I'm sure you can understand.

I think we can both agree, this discussion may have reached it's limits through an internet discussion, as the topic has widened and lost focus. As to the failure that is the Great Society's War on Poverty, broadly we can view it in the same failure as the governments War on Terror, Drugs, illiteracy, hunger, or any other Strawmen it can conjure, in that it ends up causing more of the very thing it purports to end. Specifically relating to poverty however is quite complex, where over time we re-define terms and statistics, economic conditions fluctuate, and not to mention outside unintended consequences such as increased babies born out of wed lock, single parent families, etc,.... In short, it would take a book to prove to you my case, and I am not willing to do it. Luckily, others have. But in short I'll paraphrase Tom Woods who puts it plainly "The poverty rate in the United States fell from 95 percent in 1900 to around 12-14 percent in the late 1960s – a period in which government antipoverty measures were fairly trivial. By the late 1960s, when Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty programs began receiving substantial funding, the poverty rate stagnated. By 1994 it was about the same as it had been in the late 1960s, even though the federal government was by that time spending four times as much per capita as it had under LBJ." In 2009 the AP reported poverty as having the single largest year increase in the rate since the govt began keeping records in '59. Now, like I said, economic conditions conflate the issue, but the fact remains, and it doesn't show the efforts of the govt war on poverty to be a resounding success now does it?

I'll politely bow out at this point, if only because at some point these discussions become pointless as we Redditors love to argue and yet rarely budge on our positions. I'll will say that it is my opinion that it's precisely your worldview being the majority that we have such a disparity between the top 2% and the rest of us. The government has been trying to socially engineer this country and regulate and control the market for many many decades now, and all we've gotten is bigger government and bigger corporations. I'm for freedom and trying something different for a change, and it shouldn't be that scary.

Edit: Meant to say that I wish we could discuss this further over a beer or six, cheers!

Two points. One, a moral premise; the other, an empirical observation.

• Firstly, in general, it isn't justifiable to force someone to help another except under certain dire circumstances. But even then, it probably isn't justified when it isn't clear if the action will help or harm. For example, if there was a child drowning in a pond and only you could save him/her, then I might be justified in forcing you to save the child (like by threatening to impose some punishment on you if you chose not to do it, including imprisonment, which happens to be the penalty for not paying taxes for the welfare state.) However, suppose it wasn't clear that you could save the child. Additionally, suppose it was plausible that you might actually end up knocking another child in the pond, resulting in its death, during your forced attempt to save the first. Would I still be justified in forcing you to help? I submit I would not be justified in doing such a thing. TL;DR: As a general moral principle, you aren't justified in forcing someone to perform an action if it is unclear whether that action would help or harm.
  
• Secondly, many people see welfare as a system which helps the poor. However, this is highly debatable. I won't go into all the reasons for and against (though I'll mention that poverty rates have stagnated after implementing our "War on Poverty", and they were drastically declining prior,) because they are all very complicated, and there are thoughtful voices on both sides of the debate. The point I want to make is that it isn't at all clear that the welfare state helps the poor. See Charles Murray's Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 for an academic criticism of the welfare state. TL;DR: It isn't clear that welfare actually helps the poor, and it may in fact harm them.
  
  It follows from these two points that the welfare state is immoral. If you want to deny this conclusion, you have to deny one of the premises (the first being a moral principle, the second being an empirical matter.) But both of the premises seem fairly plausible to me.

> History does not show that free enterprise outstrips the government. History shows that people with power take advantage of those without.

In fact without free enterprise there could be no socialistic government. The government creates nothing at all, it can only take the productive capacity of individuals to fund its projects. Capitalism has provided more wealth and a higher standard of living for more people in the world than any other economic system.

The people in power that you speak of who take advantage of those without are those in government. It is less obvious, but no less true in america, but it is more obvious when you look at dictatorships around the world. The US is continually moving in that direction, it is your government you need to be most wary of.

> The property is not taken by force.

It is absolutely taken by force. You can't assume that I agree to what you call a social contract. Individuals make individual decisions, you can't say we all agree to give up our property simply because you feel most people do or should. The only reason that most people give tax money to the government is exactly because you will land up in prison if you don't.

> We're a society, and pretending like we're not and that we shouldn't pitch in to help other members of our society is backwards.

Thinking that the only or best way to help our friends and neighbours is through giving money to the government is backwards. http://www.amazon.com/Losing-Ground-American-1950-1980-Anniversary/dp/0465042333

I am stunned that you claim the only way that America got to where it is was through social assistance. My good god, that is as backwards as you can get. The only reason there is any capacity to provide welfare is because of productive individuals who earn wealth in your country. Welfare is not a tool for economic growth.

> Without public education, not everyone would be able to get a minimum level of education.

Private coalitions, charity schools, faith based schools and voluntary tutoring and home schooling are all alternatives to a public education. You can't pretend a public school education is free. It is not free, it is more expensive than it is worth and it is a forced version of charity... not freely given and unaccountable in its outcomes. If you think it is a good system that is worth keeping then you're not looking at it with a mind that asks about what could be better.

I don't think it's as simple as that, but reforming welfare laws to what they were pre-LBJ would be a good start. Charles Murrary's Losing Ground is a good introduction into what disincentives became entrenched during the "Great Society."

Nisa (http://www.amazon.com/Nisa-Life-Words-Kung-Woman/dp/0674004329) is a biography of an African woman who grows up in a hunter gatherer society, but whose world becomes intertwined with the modern world as an adult.

In Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman anthropologist Marjorie Shostak describes that it is common for !Kung marred men and women to "take lovers" and have extramarital sex, albiet clandisnedly.

I read the book for a cultural anthropology class and was able to geturn the book afterwards for a full refund, so I no longer have it to cite page numbers, but I recall that there's an entire chapter on the subject.

Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

I have been trying for a week to come up with a way to respond to this with, but I have completely failed, because I'm not sure how some (not I said "some", not "all") women freely choosing to wear full-face veils in Western countries is comprable to genital mutilation and disfiguring violence. I understand that they all come from the same culture, but that doesn't mean that they all necessarily go together. Male genital mutilation (circumcision) and eating Kosher are both part of my cultural heritage and I do neither of those things, yet still feel connected to the culture in other ways.

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. You seem to care very passionately about this issue, and I really admire that. If you really do care about these issues, I hope you don't mind my recommending some books for you to read: Unveiling the Truth: Why 32 Muslim Women Wear the Full-Face Veil in France, and The Politics of the Veil are good ones. I also suggest both Infidel and Murder in Amsterdam, and perhaps those two first since they're opposites. Depending on which one you end up agreeing with, the other two may not be worth reading to you, although I'd still urge you to read opinions that differ with yours, if only to help you strengthen your arguments.

Might I suggest an addition?

I just went and stared at my bookshelves and realized that there was a distinct paucity of minority characters.

However, some general recommendations:

feed for the teenager uninterested in the world at large or the dystopian fiction fan.

My Date with Satan Short stories, usually from a female perspective. High schoolers would probably delight in the bad language and messed up characters.

Trickster's Choice; A young adult girl-power fantasy/spy novel with a lot to say about colonialism. My strongest recommendation on this list. Lots of major minority characters also.

Infidel; A heavy-handed memoir about triumph by a woman who "escaped" Somalia and is now a European politician. Controversial for a multitude of reasons and has nothing nice to say about Islam, but you know your students better than I do.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for the scientifically inclined.

Wicked for modern classic fans who'd appreciate deeper meanings.

There are, in fact, many, many facts to support my position. Just because class (which happens to be closely tied to race) also plays into the equation doesn't mean that racism isn't at the heart of the problem. Educate yourself, my friend:

https://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431

https://www.amazon.com/Ghettoside-True-Story-Murder-America-ebook/dp/B0062OCN4E

https://www.amazon.com/Just-Mercy-Story-Justice-Redemption/dp/081298496X

Also to add, since I'm no expert in this field, I would suggest further reading on this topic including:

• Anything by James Baldwin to get a holistic view of systemic racism in the Western context. His debate with William F. Buckley in 1965 is still one of the best explanations of race in America. Also highly recommend his seminal works, "The Fire Next Time" and "I Am Not Your Negro"
  
• "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Anything by him is a good intro to the subject and he's great at describing contemporary black American experiences in narrative form)
  
• "A Colony in A Nation" by Chris Hayes (concise, easy to read intro on the history of racism and policing from the perspective of someone who grew up in a middle class white suburb)
  
• "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander (history of mass incarceration over the past thirty plus years and how it disproportionately impacts black and brown Americans)
  
• "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson (first hand look at the brutality and inhumanity of much of the American carceral state and how the burden is most acutely borne by poor Americans and Americans of color)
  
• Additionally, with regards to the correlation between white racism and voting for Donald Trump, I would suggest reading the articles, "The Nationalist's Delusion" by Adam Serwer and "The First White President" by Ta-Nehisi Coates that were both published last year in The Atlantic Magazine.

> the rich white kid had to work hard and deal with a lot of shit too?

That may be true, in which case he can tell the college about it and they can take it into account.

> I didn't say it did.

But given that colleges do take into account more than just test scores, using test scores as your only evidence that "more qualified" candidates are being passed up is basically saying that test scores = qualifications.

Look, I used to be like you. I literally wrote an editorial against affirmative action in my local newspaper when I was in high school. I don't think anybody could have convinced me then that affirmative action was OK, and I don't expect to be able to convince you now. Just know that those of us who support affirmative action, even though it may in some sense "disadvantage" the races we belong to, do so because we feel that the deck is deeply, deeply stacked against black people in this country, and that without accounting for that deck-stacking when we make decisions about who to offer the opportunity to go to college to, we perpetuate and amplify the effects of that deck stacking. We live in a world where coloblind policy would perpetuate and reinforce a very much not colorblind history and a society that doesn't actually operate in a colorblind way. As a result, we favor policy that we believe at least progresses toward a world in which colorblind policy would create colorblind outcomes, even if it means accounting for color today.

That's not a thing I can convince you of in a night, and it may not be a thing that you ever believe at any point in your life. All I ask is that you don't dismiss our argument out of hand.

And hell, if you're bored, and interested in getting a deeper perspective on this stuff, maybe even peruse materials on how black people actually are uniquely disadvantaged in the U.S.

Maybe check out similar CMVs.

Or read Coates's fantastic piece about how housing policy continued to prevent the accumulation of wealth in the black community decades after slavery ended, or his beautiful memoir to his son.

Read about how black people have been intentionally targeted for disproportionate incarceration by the society, and imagine the effect that having your race associated with poverty and crime has on popular perceptions of you by society.

That's just a handful of examples, and you don't have to engage with them now of course. Just know that many of us who have have come to the conclusion that the treatment of black people in the United States is and has been uniquely horrific, and we can't rely on colorblind institutions to make amends. Thus - affirmative action.

>So your response comes down to "You just don't understand" and "you're not educated"

Well, when answering these specific questions, yes.

>Maybe it's just not reasonable to expect a white person to truly have a black point of view.

I would never "expect a white person to have a black point of view". That is exactly the point I am trying to make. No white person can understand "a black point of view" on a fundamental level, but a white person can understand an extensive historical record of oppression and recognize how it changes the lives of the historically oppressed, especially when those very same people describe a way in which that historical oppression manifests in the present day.

>Maybe it's not reasonable to expect a person of any race to put somebody else's interests before their own.

Eh, I don't really expect people to do this. I want them to do it. I believe wholeheartedly that putting another's interests before your own is one of the most amazingly unique, human things that we are capable of doing. Action that can be interpreted as selfless is something that separates us from most, if not ALL less intelligent animals. If you don't agree, I'm not necessarily surprised. I don't expect you to hold this view. I only hope.

>Re-examine your beliefts.

Always do, always will ;-)

In fact, should you happen upon me in the correct scenario, you might see me arguing against stereotypically-"SJW" viewpoints, precisely because I have done my best not to accept wholesale the ideas of any other person, ever.

I'll (potentially) end this discussion with the following quote, from YOU:

>If you don't want me to judge black politicos based on what I see and hear from them, then I need access to their real message. Not the PR message tailored for those like me, the raw and uncut message. That is what you should be basing your faith in these people on.

If you want access to the "real message", then I advise you not reject the message given to you on first glance. For fuck's sake, go to one of these "segregated" discussion groups that spawned this thread and actually spend some time meeting people who are different from you and listen. Try your best not to resolve to attack the messages therein and instead question them as a child would, in an attempt to understand from a more fundamental and deeper level. I know I have; it's precisely why I've gone from someone who rejects this type of theory to someone who feels deeply committed to it.

I have spent more time on this website than I care to admit attempting to understand the actual arguments of people who rail against "SJWs" and their ilk. I've done hours upon hours of research, dissected innumerable arguments. I grew up in an environment where I was friendly with and regularly conversed with people who are very ideologically different that I am now. I implore you to really consider how much you've attempted to challenge yourself on this issue and others, as my genuine belief is that anyone who spends enough time on this topic will come to believe something much more similar to what I believe. I would be insane to not believe otherwise.

____

tl;dr: I really hope you read the entirety of the above and consider it, but if you don't (and especially if you do) I request that you immerse yourself for a bit longer than you are used to in some of the following material. Note that I would never assert that none of the below is infallible or devoid of bias, but it is certainly worth your time and (I believe) would be a significant challenge (in the competitive sense) to the way you think about these issues. Let your ideas battle it out after you consume the following media, really wrestle with the minutiae of everything you take in. It's worth it.

1. 13th - A highly critically acclaimed documentary, noted for how meticulously it pursues and highlights the facts of race in America
   
   
   
2. Between the World and Me - A short book taking the form of a letter from black father to black son, written by one of the greatest living American writers (IMO)
   
   
3. The Case for Reparations - An article by the same author detailing the ways in which the legacy of slavery still holds black Americans down. One of the best pieces of journalism I've ever read, and extremely informative. (I'd like to point out that reparations for slavery - that is, monetary recompense for slavery - are not something that all "black politicos" believe should happen, nor something that I necessarily believe should happen either)
   
   There is plenty more, but the first and third listed here are particularly easy to consume and I'd suggest you read/watch them.
   
   
   EDIT: would also love some recommendations of movies/documentaries/books that YOU believe would change MY beliefs. I'm always in search of that.

Thank you, once again, for that propaganda-laden YouTube channel. I'd be more impressed if you could find a more credible source than some guy picking out black crimes.

As for your statistics, numbers will only get you so far. I will accept that there is a higher crime rate among blacks, but much of that is because of the culture that the U.S. instills in them. And before you call me out on being an "SJW", let me make it clear that I am in no way affiliated with them. I find the majority of what they have to say ridiculous. However, the combination of poverty and fear/frustration stemming from racism that many black people experience is more often than not responsible for crime. Historically, black people in the U.S. have been disadvantaged, both socially and economically. Also historically, those who feel disadvantaged or trodden upon tend to lash out, no matter their race or culture. Honestly, you're just being racist at this point. Your statements look no farther than what you consider "objective" facts, and anyone with the even the most basic critical thinking skills realizes that statistics taken out of context are meaningless. Have a little empathy, and before you make blanket statements about black people being inherently more violent than whites, try to look at living in the U.S. from their perspective. Here is a wonderful book about growing up black in the U.S., maybe it will help you learn a little understanding: http://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/0812993543

I do agree that the media has failed us all. The discussion has become so warped and compartmentalized that it has ground to an invective-laced stalemate.

My only suggestion is to expose yourself to stories told by African-Americans. Skip the news, go straight to a primary source. The best one off the top of my head is this book.

It's the letters the author wrote to his son before he went off to college. The author knew his son would be out there in the world without him, and he wouldn't be around to explain the things he'd have to deal with, so he told him the story of his experience as a black man in America.

If you do decide to read it I'm sure you won't agree with everything in it, and I don't think any reasonable person should expect you to. It's just a very sober, very well written look at the other side of the story.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks?
http://www.amazon.ca/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052173

Not sure if this is totally relevant, but I just found it and am looking forward to reading it:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks:

From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. And from that same life, and those cells, Rebecca Skloot has fashioned in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories?

It's really hard for me to pick an all-time favorite but the two best non-fiction books I read in 2010 were The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Big Girls Don't Cry .

This isn't heavily science-y and a bit journalized, but I really enjoyed Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadaver's by Mary Roach. I also like Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne. There's a lot of overlap with what he teaches at his UChicago Eco & Evo course. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre is also wonderful, but will likely make you angry. Yet another interesting read is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

It's not a textbook, and perhaps it goes against your "not be popular science" stipulation, but The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is an amazing book... genetics, cancer biology, medicine, some historical perspective of those fields, tied into one real-life family with its own deep story. I think you will find it awesome and accessible.

https://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181

>The difference between skin cells and a fertilized egg in the womb, as I believe to be correct, is that skin cells (not only being dead), also do not have the same differentiating and human-producing capabilities that a egg does. I don't want to call it a "potential person," I'm calling it a person and saying that it's future development will include the generation of a consciousness and sentience.

And a HeLa Stem Cell Culture?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa

They came from a human woman, Henrietta Lacks

https://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181

There are more HeLa cells out there than were ever in Henrietta as a talking, walking, human. But you can't talk to the cells in a petri-dish. and they are alive.

I thought "On Speed" was a good read. https://www.amazon.com/Speed-Benzedrine-Adderall-Nicolas-Rasmussen/dp/0814776396/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1487033664&sr=8-2&keywords=on+speed

Also, it doesn't get much better than "The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks" https://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487033763&sr=8-1&keywords=the+secret+life+of+henrietta+lacks

Darn, you beat me by 10 minutes. It was a pretty good book. boop

The evidence he's talking about is from a book someone wrote after the fact. His son fits a lot of the evidence better. Smaller hands, worked with nicole, had attacked people with knives, had a dog (they found dog hair), matched the dna (he's a relative), and most damningly oj hired lawyers for him days after the murder.

I really wanted to read it for myself, but I was unable to find a copy of the book when I last decided I wanted to read it but it seems like it's available on amazon now I guess because of the resurgence of interest in the case. link

The idea originated from the book OJ is Innocent and I can Prove It.

Ironically, going by the evidence it appears his son is the actual murderer, so it is no wonder the evidence was iffy.

O.J DIDNT DO IT.

http://www.amazon.com/O-J-Innocent-I-Can-Prove/dp/1616086203/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342044251&sr=1-1&keywords=oj+is+innocent+and+i+can+prove+it

http://www.amazon.com/O-J-Guilty-But-Not-Murder/dp/0970205805/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342044251&sr=1-3&keywords=oj+is+innocent+and+i+can+prove+it

read the latter and it blew my mind... I dont doubt that LA screwed this one up. It was OJ or bust

> But I can't remember reading one where the author flat out names somebody as a murderer before the police do and without evidence that can be used in a trial.

I'm just going to leave this here...

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was pretty kickass. It's the story of a woman whose cancer cells were the first to prove "immortal," endlessly being reproduced for research.

Check it out:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344638032&sr=8-1&keywords=immortal+life+henrietta

Stop second-guessing your choice of major. Keep your eyes on what you actually want, and remember that the steps along the way will all build there eventually. Check in on your plans when you're picking classes each semester, to make sure you're still on course and still want that ultimate goal. The REU and some lab time will all help.

Try reading some science-related books, not actual science but stuff about scientists themselves or stories about specific scientific discoveries. Like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Double Helix, Eighth Day of Creation, The Disappearing Spoon, and Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman. Your school should have copies of most of them, and they aren't textbook-heavy (though not quite as light as fiction novels).

Don't forget to stay at least a little rounded. Someone on just about every recruitment weekend for grad school will ask about your hobbies. I'm pretty sure they're required to do so :) Or you'll discover you and your interviewer both do ceramics and can chat about that, leaving a stronger impression than if you were yet another person talking about science. It's good to be done with the requirements, but make sure you keep up something outside your major, even if it's just ultimate frisbee.

I second the recommendation of Erik Larson.

I have recently read and loved The Hare With Amber Eyes and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks


Synopsis: Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more. Henrietta's cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can't afford health insurance. This phenomenal New York Times bestseller tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew.

Mary Roach is another great nonfiction author.

It's a big topic and I'm no expert, but I'm happy to share some of what I know.

When black people were brought here to the US as slaves, they were considered property rather than people. They had no ownership over their bodies. Many female slaves were raped by their slave owners, and left to raise any resulting children (who would become slaves as well, and would sometimes be sold off to another family). White babies were often wet nursed by slaves, to the detriment of black babies.

Before black people were considered people in the US, they were legally considered 3/5 of a person, and having one drop of black blood meant someone was considered black. (Even now, it's why Americans consider President Obama to be black, even though his mother was white.) African Americans have faced generations of disadvantages - sharecropping,
appallingly unethical STI tests, segregation, forced sterilization, redlining, the mass incarceration of black men, and the pay gap for black women. Black people here are still crawling out from under all that. Meanwhile, white politicians lead people to believe black people are to blame for these disadvantages, by trotting out terms like "welfare queen" and "black-on-black crime".

If you're interested in more reading, I recommend Ta-Nehisi Coates's long-form essay "The Case for Reparations". Rebecca Skloot's book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a good look at how US medical and research institutions have treated black people over the course of several generations. Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing (fiction) is an incredible, heartbreaking look at how systemic racism ripples through generations of African Americans.

https://www.amazon.com/Dreams-My-Father-Story-Inheritance/dp/1400082773/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1479518293&sr=8-4&keywords=obama

There is a trilogy of graphic novels about him (he's actually one of the authors) that I would highly recommend to everyone. Here's the first book if anyone is interested.

I gave my brother (who never EVER reads, and doesn't like "hard books") How to stop time also by Matt Haig, he read it in one sitting and then went out and got the rest of his books and read them all in a couple weeks. Christopher Moore is also great, Sacre Bleu is my favourite.

​

for non-fiction: Letter from Birmingham Jailby Martin Luther King, Jr. anything by Audre Lorde or James Baldwin and Anne Frank and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for showing him how to appreciate life.

There's a graphic novel about Rep John Lewis and his time as a civil rights marcher with Dr. King in the 1960s. I went to Washington with a delegation of teachers this summer and got to meet him. He's amazing.

John Lewis wrote an award winning graphic novel titled "March" that explains a lot about civil rights history in the sixties. https://www.amazon.com/March-Trilogy-Slipcase-John-Lewis/dp/1603093958

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
It's 400pgs but ridiculously amazing.

Happy birthday!
If you're not down for heights, I think a neat bucket list item is to go on a road trip! Take a long weekend off and go somewhere cheesy, check out the largest bowling pin, take in some weird sights. It's fun, even though its not really possible where I'm from.

As a good non-fiction book, The eternal life of Henrietta lacks. Haven't had a chance to read it, but I love pop science works. I'm not super schooled of microbiology and this seems very nice mix of history, microbio, and a bit of rights of the deceased.

I heard the author of this book explain it during a radio interview. He made a pretty convincing argument, but I never bothered to read the book.

I realize the Wikipedia article isn't terribly helpful, which is why I linked the story about the NYPD case. I, and many many others (unsurprisingly!) find that case to be extremely disturbing. And of course, there is the infamous Rampart Scandal in the LAPD, involving over 70 officers accused of some form of misconduct (and many felonies), with several cases still being unsolved today. I also read a book many years ago called Gang Leader For A Day, where a U of Chicago graduate student embeds himself within a gang of drug dealers in the local projects, and witnesses rampant police brutality (including instances of robbery and unwarranted searches and beatings).

Of course, I'm sure you can come up with excuses as to why these examples don't worry you (NYPD/LAPD cases were exception, the book is just anecdotal and probably full of lies to sell more copies or whatever). And that's fine, I can't change your mentality. But I think it is important for LEOs to understand that these narratives are out there, that they are very convincing to the general population, and that they're not going to go away.

Classism definitely exists, but like everything else doesn't exist in a bubble. Class, race, gender, sex, age...these things all intersect and interact in ways that make social realities for people. Academics (which I am not) have different opinions about the extent to which one is more important than another. I would say yes, historically it has been far more difficult for a person of color to move up in American society and yes, that is still the case today. But I'm just a guy on reddit who likes to read. If you're interested in this stuff here's where I started: The Color of Law, New Jim Crow, Ta-Nehisi Coates, the autobiography of Malcolm X, The Warmth of Other Suns

>I think it matters where "she" claims to empathize with the struggles and feelings of people who were actually born as women and then runs around lecturing other men like she has any authority on the matter.

She definitely doesn't have authority on matters during childhood or before her transition age, but if she can pass as a woman on the street, for instance, then she can definitely be an authority on how random women are treated by strangers. If she passes for a woman at work, then she can definitely comment on the treatment of women in the workplace.

Basically, her capacity to speak with authority on the matter is a function of how consistantly she passes in a given context, and if how independent that context is to a woman's life in the period before Wu's transition age.


> It's like a white guy arbitrarily declaring himself African American and claiming he fully understands and empathizes with race-based issues the moment he makes said declaration; it's completely idiotic.

Well, no, it's not quite the same, because it's really fucking hard to pass as an African American when you have white skin and facial features.

There was one man, many decades ago, who did everything short of plastic surgery in order to pass as an AA man, and he wrote a book about how he was treated.

I wonder if anyone during that time were likewise trying to claim he could speak with no authority on the treatment of black people because he wasn't born black.

no concise fix to a centuries-long problem but if you're american (or even not american) you can read this https://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/0812993543/ref=sr_1_1?
ie=UTF8&qid=1523288519&sr=8-1&keywords=between+the+world+and+me

On Amazon

> Having grown up on the wrong side of the tracks and having lived in the projects for a time, I found myself deeply conflicted by the author's portrayal of others and himself. In the end he is only somewhat honest with himself about being the biggest hustler of all in the book. How exactly do you eat people's food and sit on their couches and follow them around for six years and in the end say you weren't even friends?

Is that the book you meant? I'm not sure I see the applicability.

> I think you're extrapolating from individual stories from the margins to an inaccurate view of how sexist other cultures are, how static other cultures remain, & how separate immigrants would remain in subsequent generations.

I hope you are right. Perhaps I am overly pessimistic.

You certainly didn't look very hard for studies demonstrating the perverse incentives of welfare. The themes of incentivizes and disincentives are very common in the social science surrounding this area. For instance, if we want to talk specifically about the AFDC program—which no longer exists, but this question asks about how welfare has affected black communities since the 1960s, so it is most definitely relevant—here are a few studies for your reading pleasure:

1. Mark R. Rosenzweig. "Welfare, Marital Prospects, and Nonmarital Childbearing". Journal of Political Economy. Vol. 107, No. S6 (December 1999), pp. S3-S32
   >The roles of the entitlements of the AFDC program and marital prospects in the fertility and marriage choices of young women are assessed in the context of a model incorporating heritable endowment heterogeneity, assortative mating, concern for child quality, and potential parental and public support alternatives. Estimates based on data describing the fertility and marital experience up to age 23 of the eight birth cohorts of women in the NLSY provide evidence that higher AFDC benefit levels and lower marital prospects induce young women to choose to have a child outside of marriage.
   
   
2. Jeff Grogger and Stephen G. Bronars. "The Effect of Welfare Payments on the Marriage and Fertility Behavior of Unwed Mothers: Results from a Twins Experiment". Journal of Political Economy. Vol. 109, No. 3 (June 2001), pp. 529-545
   >We study the relationship between welfare benefits and the time to first marriage and time to next birth among initially unwed mothers. We use twin births to generate random within-state variation in benefits, effectively controlling for unobservables that may confound the relationship between welfare payments and behavior. Higher base welfare benefits (1) lead unwed white mothers to forestall their eventual marriage and (2) lead unwed black mothers to hasten their next birth. The magnitudes of the effects are fairly modest. Moreover, we find no evidence that the marginal benefit paid at the birth of an additional child—the focus of the family cap debate—affects fertility.
   
3. Philip K. Robins and Paul Fronstin. "Welfare benefits and birth decisions of never-married women". Population Research and Policy Review. February 1996, Volume 15, Issue 1, pp 21-43
   >For some time now, the out-of-wedlock birthrate has been increasing rapidly in the United States. This has prompted several states to propose (and in some cases, enact) legislation to deny access to higher AFDC benefits for families in which the mother gives birth while receiving AFDC. The authors investigate whether AFDC benefit levels are systematically related to the family-size decisions of never-married women. Using a bivariate probit model with state and time fixed effects, applied to Current Population Survey data for the years 1980–1988, it is found that the basic benefit level for a family of two (one adult and one child) and the incremental benefit for a second child positively affects the family size decisions of black and Hispanic women, but not of white women. The effects are concentrated among high school dropouts (no effects are found for high school graduates). The authors conclude that rather than to uniformly deny benefits to all AFDC women that bear children, a better targeted policy might be to alter the AFDC benefit structure in such a way as to encourage single mothers to complete high school. However, being a high school dropout might be a proxy for some other underlying characteristic of the woman, and encouraging women to complete high school who otherwise would not might have no effect whatsoever on nonmarital births.
   
   Look, I'm not saying this issue isn't controversial. You'll find studies pointing both ways, and much of the data is unclear or doesn't produce statistically significant results in either direction. What I'm really trying to say is that you cannot completely deny that welfare produces perverse incentives. The AFDC was criticized for years because many thought it encouraged unwed motherhood. Have you read Charles Murray's Losing Ground? It's a brilliant read, and many more of these studies are studied to prove the thesis that welfare causes dependency.
   
   These are not wild theories, and they cannot be dismissed as racist or overly simplified or overly generalizing. The AFDC received widespread criticism. Check out its wikipedia page.. In fact, it was this kind of criticism and the data supporting the possibility of this dysgenic effect that eventually lead to the welfare reform of the 1990s, as AFDC became TANF.

Please read the The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400052181/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_lFFGwb4HMQB9G not justifying or defending anything. I think the Internet is full of Donald Trumps and very rarely a thought out and balanced close look at both sides of the issue. This book did that.

Here's the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

It was excellent and not at all what you expect. The compelling aftermath of Jim Crow racism that places Mrs. Lacks unwitting sacrifice to science in perspective. And Ms. Skloot breaks every rule of a biographer, and lets the story rope her in.

The little known story of the discovery of the Hela cell line and the woman who unknowingly changed science could not have been without the thoughtful voice of Ms. Skloot.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1400082773

I havent read it so I dont know if it is good, but I do know it is about a psychopath.

>Before reddit shits all over me for saying that, there are numerous peer-reviewed studies that prove welfare reforms have increased the decline in marriage; a simple google search will show you that.


Now show liberals research—by social scientist Charles Murray who first reached that conclusion 13 years earlier in his 1980 book Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980—that the Great Society welfare programs increased illegitimacy (now 70%) in black communities, increasing crime, dependency, and broken homes.

They probably won't like him, since he's a libertarian, works for the American Enterprise Institute and has published other research which makes liberals uncomfortable, notably on the heritability of intelligence.

>However, when we speak of inequality, we are led to believe that inequality is fueled solely by white America. That simply isn’t the case.

Your problem is listening to MSM discourse on racism in the first place. It's mostly just white people dominating the conversation, saying nonsense, left and right.

When you go to people like Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, or Michelle Alexander, or Ta-Nehisi Coates, or Karen Ho, or Deepa Kumar, or anybody with a narrative that isn't white, you quite quickly come to understand how it is indeed that inequality is solely fueled by white America. Racism in America didn't start with black people. Racism in America isn't perpetuated by black people either; the war on drugs isn't a black American idea. But it's not like you can treat minorities they way white people do and expect them to be like, "Yeah! I wanna be cool with those guys!"

Discrimination by minorities is a reaction to, and not cause of, the racism of white America. The feedback loop between discrimination by minorities and racism by white America is pretty much where we're at.

To be explicit: that's not to say that minority communities don't have social problems of their own. But then here comes white America screaming, "Identity politics is destroying America!" People on the left and right proclaim this! It's like they expect minorities to live up to a certain colorless, featureless identity (one that caters to white people because it's not like they're calling for an identity of blackness or Hispanics or Asians) in order to overcome some social obstacle, then white America will turn around and say, "Well, what about the problems in your community?" What do you mean my community? I thought we all had the same identity? I thought you and I were supposed to help each other with our social obstacles...

White America absolutely fuels inequality.

I toyed with trying to soften that accusatory blow...but fuck it. I've read all of those books I linked except one. I got all day to defend what I've said here.

Which facts are you questioning? Everything that I wrote is pretty well documented. You can read about all of it in Obama's autobiography if you have any doubts.

Europe is able to have such a massive welfare state because we pay for their defense budgets. And destructive "fuck you, I'll do what I want" individualism is a result of the state. [Society is emergent, people cooperate to reach common goals without government and through the market] (http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Community-Background-Essential-Conservative/dp/1935191500/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377371743&sr=1-1&keywords=the+quest+for+community). [After the welfare state was expanded in the 60's, people could engage in destructive behavior that most people disproved of (out of wedlock pregnancy, divorce, promiscousnous, addiction) because that behavior was subsidized by the government] (http://www.amazon.com/Losing-Ground-American-1950-1980-Anniversary/dp/0465042333/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377371787&sr=1-1&keywords=losing+ground). Libertarians are the greatest friends of poor minorities. Even after desegregation, [the war on drugs] (http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431), [occupational licensing laws] (http://www.amazon.com/State-Against-Blacks-Walter-Williams/dp/0070703787/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377371682&sr=1-1&keywords=state+against+blacks), and the lack of school choice are institutional barriers that have kept minorities poor. [Public institutions have always been erected to take care of the poor, whether there is government involvement or not] (http://www.amazon.com/Mutual-Aid-Welfare-State-Fraternal/dp/0807848417/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377371988&sr=1-1&keywords=david+beito).