Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence

At Amazon Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence.

Alice Goffman's TED Talk (VIDEO)

Last night I was rummaging through my stacks and stacks of books --- the overflow of books I own, of which I have no shelf space --- looking for Herbert Gutman's, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925. I actually did find the book, which somehow had found a spot on my bookcases downstairs (the stacks of books upstairs in my bedroom are piled high in the corners next to the bookshelves I have up there). 

While this was happening, I confused Herbert Gutman for Irving Goffman, the father of Alice Goffman, who is the author of the bombshell book, On the Run:On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City. The book's controversial, actually. The New York Times had a huge write-up on her in the Sunday magazine: "The Trials of Alice Goffman: Her first book, ‘On the Run' — about the lives of young black men in West Philadelphia — has fueled a fight within sociology over who gets to speak for whom."

Anyway, that's how I ran across Ms. Alice's TED Talk, which is mentioned at her Wikipedia page. The video of her talk posted at the TED website has been viewed over 2 million times, and the YouTube video below almost 280,000 times. 

She's gets very emotional, with her voice cracking and her nearly coming to tears as she gets further and further along in her talk --- it's quite compelling. 

In any case, now you know the story of how I came across this video.

Watch:

She was denied tenure at the University of Wisconsin (obviously mostly as a result of the book controversy), and she's now a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pomona College, where "unnamed activists calling for her offer to be rescinded due to unsupported and unsubstantiated claims of racism in her work and research methods."

Naturally. *Sigh.*

In any case, enjoy the show!

Alice Goffman's Hiring at Pomona College an 'Egregious' Case of 'Anti-Blackness'

"No more whites should be hired."

See Legal Insurrection, "Pomona College Students: Hiring White Prof an ‘Egregious’ Offense."

Following the links takes us to Campus Reform, "Students demand Pomona rescind offer to prof because she's white."

Here's the students' open letter, "Letter to the Pomona College Sociology Department."

And at Commentary, "New Rule: White Women Should Not Study Black Communities."

New Rule: White Women Should Not Study Black Communities - by @marksjo1 https://t.co/2ppy8zehgJ pic.twitter.com/HY24oSHIdv

— Commentary Magazine (@Commentary) April 24, 2017

Edmund Wilson, Apologies to the Iroquois

*BUMPED.*

I picked up a used copy.

And the book's available at Amazon, Edmund Wilson, Apologies to the Iroquois: With a Study of the Mohawks in High Steel, by Joseph Mitchell.

Also at the New Yorker, "APOLOGIES TO THE IROQUOIS (OCTOBER 17, 1959 ISSUE)."

Wilson was a very interesting fellow. He published To the Finland Station, a study on "the course of European socialism," in 1940 (and much more).

Eduardo Kohn, How Forests Think

Put this one on the gift lists for your tree-hugging, vision-quest enviro-leftist family members.

From Eduardo Kohn, How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human.

William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears [BUMPED]

Professor Wilson's work is increasingly in vogue. Lots of folks are citing it, from J.D. Vance to Katherine S. Newman and Hella Winston.

I have a copy of the book on my living room bookshelf.

Time to crack it out again!

At Amazon, William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor.

William Julius Wilson, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide

This book is certainly timely, although it came out 20 years ago. But reading it again, it's uncanny how it speaks to our current troubles. Perhaps it reflects the politics of the Clinton years, when Democrats were seeking something of a "third way" between the extremes of left and right politics. Whatever it is, we definitely need to find a way to bridge our differences, which by now have become an enormous chasm of ideological division and hatred.

In any case, at Amazon, William Julius Wilson, The Bridge over the Racial Divide: Rising Inequality and Coalition Politics.

Hat Tip: J.D. Vance, who cites Professor Wilson in his book, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.

In the Mail: Matthew Desmond, Evicted

Crown Publishers sent me a copy of Matthew Desmond's fantastic new book, Evicted.

I've read the first couple of chapters and it's amazing. I'm going back to it as soon as I finish The Closing of the Liberal Mind.

Check it out, at Amazon, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City.

In this brilliant, heartbreaking book, Matthew Desmond takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the $20 a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of boys to look after, tries to work his way out of debt. Vanetta participates in a botched stickup after her hours are cut. All are spending almost everything they have on rent, and all have fallen behind.

The fates of these families are in the hands of two landlords: Sherrena Tarver, a former schoolteacher turned inner-city entrepreneur, and Tobin Charney, who runs one of the worst trailer parks in Milwaukee. They loathe some of their tenants and are fond of others, but as Sherrena puts it, “Love don’t pay the bills.” She moves to evict Arleen and her boys a few days before Christmas.

Even in the most desolate areas of American cities, evictions used to be rare. But today, most poor renting families are spending more than half of their income on housing, and eviction has become ordinary, especially for single mothers. In vivid, intimate prose, Desmond provides a ground-level view of one of the most urgent issues facing America today. As we see families forced into shelters, squalid apartments, or more dangerous neighborhoods, we bear witness to the human cost of America’s vast inequality—and to people’s determination and intelligence in the face of hardship.

Based on years of embedded fieldwork and painstakingly gathered data, this masterful book transforms our understanding of extreme poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving a devastating, uniquely American problem. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.

Older Americans Find Community at McDonald's

Older Korean-Americans in New York, especially.

Here's the initial story from last week, at NYT, "Fighting a McDonald’s in Queens for the Right to Sit. And Sit. And Sit."

But see this interesting piece from doctoral candidate Stacy Torres, a today's op-ed pages, "Old McDonald's":

THERE’S an old Italian saying, “A tavola non si invecchia,” which means: At the table, you don’t grow old. All of us, of whatever age, need to socialize in public places to feel connected and alive.

That sense of shared conviviality was notably absent recently when police officers removed loiterers, many of them elderly Korean-Americans, from a McDonald’s restaurant in Queens. The slew of comments that followed a report of the dispute were unsympathetic to those who whiled away their hours there.

One New York Times reader commented, “It is only in the inner city that McDonald’s and Starbucks are the gathering places for the unwashed, elderly, incompetent and infirm. I suppose this is the price for being a city dweller. These people ruin everything!” Others offered proposals to “solve” the problem by making the seating uncomfortable or removing it altogether, suing the elderly customers or playing blaring rap music to drive them away.

Older patrons may test the limits of public dawdling, but this phenomenon — call it loitering or community building — is essential for the survival of many people 65 and older. According to the last census, seniors constitute 12 percent of New York City’s population. Many of them are single, sometimes far from family, and have lived in their localities for decades, their entire lives even. For the past four years, I have studied how neighborhood public places help older Manhattan residents avoid isolation and develop social ties that offer support, ranging from a sympathetic ear to a small emergency loan.

Like the teenagers who linger over sticky tabletops at Burger King and McDonald’s, these older people have reached a time when their lives do not revolve around work and family. In the absence of those, these public places can anchor routines and provide a sense of structure and belonging.

A Manhattan bakery I observed had served as a de facto senior center for decades. The owner allowed customers to linger; many stopped in more than once a day. The bakery hummed with conversation: It felt more like a social club than a business, with a cup of coffee being the modest price of admission.

Yet the elderly are often now hindered by the loss of neighborhood places that have closed because of gentrification and rising retail rents. When that West Side bakery was shuttered, its patrons were forced to regroup in other neighborhood locales, including a nearby McDonald’s.

For retirees on fixed incomes who may have difficulty walking more than a few blocks, McDonald’s restaurants remain among the most democratic, freely accessible spaces. Much of the appeal lies in the fact that, as an elderly patron said to me, “you can sit all day and nobody bothers you.” At the branch I observed, the tolerance for older New Yorkers also extended to the homeless, people who appeared mentally unstable and teenagers who congregated after school — even when they occasionally flung ice cubes at one another.

An afternoon at McDonald’s opens up a world of people-watching opportunities. One elderly regular I observed sat an entire day and greeted a changing cast of passers-by, acquaintances and friends — a welcome alternative to sitting alone in her apartment with worsening dementia.

Ray Oldenburg, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of West Florida, calls these gathering spots “third places,” in contrast to the institutions of work and family that organize “first” and “second” places. He sees bookstores, cafes and fast food joints as necessary yet endangered meeting points that foster community, often among diverse people. The Yale sociologist Elijah Anderson likens public settings such as Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia to a “cosmopolitan canopy,” where people act with civility and converse with others to whom they might never otherwise speak.

The care-taking performed by such places extends to all kinds of groups. A professor of sociology at Princeton, Mitchell Duneier, has found a Chicago cafeteria that supports older working-class African-American men in this way. I have interviewed people who tell me they don’t like senior centers because “they’re depressing”; in these cafes, they can form emotional attachments with a wider mix of people.

I'm convinced my dad would have lived longer had he not lost his mobility, which essentially forced my sister to move my dad move into a retirement home. He lasted there not even six months and then was placed in a hospice where he died. He was old and lonely. He stopped eating enough to keep his weight on. So, I can see why older people like to gather, to have some coffee and see others similarly situated. To see some friends and happy faces. It's a lifeline. And there but for the grace of God go I.

Keep reading.