Dust, Elizabeth Bear

Dust by Elizabeth Bear is a book that I picked up at the Labor Day Festival.  The first book in the Jacob's Ladder series.

Started: 7/21/2020
Completed: 7/23/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is an odd mixture of medieval and far future science fiction.  A space ship that is no longer mobile, but in orbit around around a binary system houses a community that both exploits the technology with which they are imbued while at the same time degenerating so that they no longer control that technology.  The end felt a little forced, like the author got to a spot and wasn't sure how it was going to resolve.  It was worth the read, however.

The Price For Their Pound of Flesh, Daina Ramey Berry

The Price For Their Pound of Flesh:  The value of the enslaved, from womb to grave, in the building of a nation by Daina Ramey Berry was on a list of anti-racist books (Dr. Clint Smith on Pod Save The People) so I picked it up and decided to give it a listen.

Started: 6/13/2020

Completed: 7/25/2020

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Recommended By:  An anti-racist book list

Review:

So just right off the bat--this book is a hard read.  It is emotional.  It is direct.  This is no dry reading of statistics. It is a story of people's lives decimated by involuntary human slavery (the practice of human chattel--in which there is systemic treatment of human beings as though they were property).

The chilling horror of slavery--the practice of buying and selling people--is reduced to its capitalistic horror.  This book puts your face into slavery and rubs it around.  Beware.

They Were Her Property, Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

They Were Her Property:  White women as slave owners in the American south by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers seemed like an interesting angle to look at slavery.  Read by Allyson Johnson

Started: 7/18/2020

Completed: 7/21/2020

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Recommended By:  My Wife

Review:

Slavery as an institution was awful.  In general, however, I thought that while white women surely benefited from slavery, I did not think of them as owners.  This was due to my incorrect belief that women in the South at that time could not own property.  While there may have been laws like that, in some parts of the South, it turns out that such laws were broadly ignored with regard to slaves.  This book details that not only did white women own slaves, but that they directed their actions, punished, and abused them.  It is really hard to read, but important.  Another thing that I learned through this book was that the Works Project in the 1930s interviewed former slaves and that was very interesting as well.

The Cruel Prince, Holly Black

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black is the first book in the Folk of the Air Series.  I really don't know how I come to pick up these young adult novels.  We shall see how this one does.

Started: 7/17/2020

Completed: 7/18/2020

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: Not sure

Review:

This is a decent book.  I don't know why it is young adult.  The topics are quite serious, there is plenty of violence, and Ms. Black uses complicated language with nuance and grace.  I enjoyed this book and it was a "quick listen."  The plot lines are not demanding and a few are patently obvious (maybe that makes it young adult?).  I enjoyed the book and there was even a bit of a comedy of errors going on.

The Color of Money, Mehrsa Baradaran

The Color of Money:  Black banks and the racial wealth gap by Mehrsa Baradaran is a book that was on an anti-racist list (Dr. Clint Smith on Pod Save The People) provided in response to the George Floyd protests. Read by Lisa Renee Pitts.

Started: 7/11/2020

Completed: 7/17/2020

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Recommended By:  Dr. Clint Smith

Review:

This book emphasizes how impossible it is to "pull yourself up by your boot straps."  A black bank had black patrons who were largely paupers.  Thus, the very people who needed lenient and understanding loans did not have the money to put in the bank which could provide those loans.  This made it very difficult for black banks to have any hope of success.  Couple that with the inability to coordinate with other nearby banks (due to racism) and black banks became exceedingly susceptible to races.  In short, in order to have a bank, one must have capital and capital is the thing the black community (then and now) has strongly lacked.

The analysis of the rise of Credit Default Swaps which led to the collapse of the banking industry was particularly lucid.  The staggering impact on black populations of sub-prime mortgages (51% of home loans in black neighborhoods as opposed to 9% in white neighborhoods) and abusive interest rates crushed the mortgagee and the mortgage loan market as a whole.  Mortgages are provided on a racial basis.

On top of this, white people completely screwed black people in every way imaginable and far beyond many ways I had ever considered.

Somehow Ms. Pitts was able to read this book without screaming.  She did not yell with outrage.  She did not sound exasperating as she recounted horrible exploitation.  What an incredible professional.

Mythos, Stephen Fry

Mythos by Stephen Fry.  I don't remember why I selected this book.

Started: 7/6/2020

Completed: 7/11/2020

Recommendation: Highly recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

The modern language and touches of reference to modern times really make this book an enjoyable overview of the vast ancient Greek mythology.  This book is fun.  Edith Hamilton was more readable than Bullfinch, but Fry is fantastic.  This is an adult book--lots of casual sex, though it is not pornographic in any way.  I really appreciate and enjoy this retelling of a few of the many myths that populated the Greek pantheon.

Breath, James Nestor

Breath: The new science of a lost art by James Nestor was a book I read about in a magazine, but I cannot remember which one.

Started: 7/4/2020

Completed: 7/6/2020

Recommendation: Mildly Recommended

Recommended By:  Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

bindi -- a decorative mark worn in the middle of the forehead by Indian women

Review:

It is odd to be reading this book and The Price for Their Pound of Flesh at the same time.  It is odder still that the two books are connected around the Morton skull collection.  This kind of small coincidence gives odd credence to things like The Celestine Prophecy.

The book is interesting and it brings up a lot of doctors who were ignored or belittled for espousing their claims.  Nestor tries out some of the outrageous things himself and relates his experiences. There is something to breath and breathing and it is pretty fundamental to yoga and meditation in general.  Nestor goes to extremes and does things that he acknowledges are pretty dangerous.  In part, this may be so that we can benefit from his experience, but it is off putting to play with a system that is so fundamental to survival.  I think I will pursue some of the basic breathing exercises and try to remember to sip air through my nose.  I think that there is value in doing that.  The more extreme things (like generating body heat through breathing) I will probably leave untouched.

Stamped From the Beginning, Ibram X. Kendi

Stamped From the Beginning:  The definitive history or racist ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi was on an anti-racist list (Dr. Clint Smith on Pod Save The People) provided in response to the George Floyd protests.

Started: 6/28/2020

Completed: 7/4/2020

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Recommended By: Dr. Clint Smith

Review:

This book uses the mechanism of following several individuals over time in order to bring the experience of those individuals  and provide a personal feeling to the history.  I think that this is very important in order for people to view events of a time from those who lived at that time.  The weakest of these is Angela Davis who ties the Birmingham Church bombing to President Obama.  Unlike Mather, Jefferson, or Du Bois, Davis is not at the heart of anti-racism, she seems to be in the mix, but not, herself, a leader.  It is probably too difficult to pick a single individual in the time frame to try and characterize the moment or provide a foil through which to view it.

White supremacy is clearly identified.  I think it is more important, however, that Kendi spells out what an Anti-Racist is.  He realistically argues and demonstrates that these labels are fluid and no one person embodies all of the characteristics all the time.  This realistic point of view is very different from my history classes where someone was a certain label.  The label was undermined when even a casual look at the individual revealed pieces inconsistent with the label (Hitler loved his dogs and had a mistress whom he seemed to love--this flies in the face of him being evil incarnate  unless you realize that Hitler can be evil even though he may have done some good things).  Kendi offers a more nuanced look at racists and forces everyone to consider how to turn their own racism into anti-racism.

Personally, I found uplift suasion compelling for a long time.  As I met more and more Black people who were exceedingly capable and in many cases much smarter then I, I lost the idea that Black was different by virtue of being black.  I thought that if this was the way I thought, then surely it was the way others thought, so uplift suasion would be compelling (White people just needed to go meet some Black people).  I never, ever thought that if it would be compelling, it would have already worked.  White people have had many generations to be persuaded and have not been--I should have known that since I didn't walk in the door seeing all people as equal, my parents and society did not.  Racism is nurtured, not nature.  We need immediate equality.

Freedom is not a constrained resource.  In that way, it is like love.  If society doles out freedom to all, freedom does not become less available when someone else gets some.  Freedom does not deplete when it is shared.  Like love, a society which enhances freedom becomes better.  A society that diminishes freedom becomes worse.