Reader's Place: November 1, 2021
What we mean when we say “we”
The “we” in these titles range from Native American comics to American political activists to African American farmers to Japanese American resistors to imprisonment to a startup that flopped.
We had a little real estate problem: The unheralded story of Native Americans in comedy, by Kliph Nesteroff, 2021 (Library Catalog}
Comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff focuses on one of comedy's most significant and little-known stories: how, despite having been denied representation in the entertainment industry, Native Americans have influenced and advanced the art form. Profiles important events and humorists from the 1880s to the present.
We need new stories: The myths that subvert freedom, by Nesrine Malik, 2021 (Library Catalog)
A rigorous examination of six political myths used to deflect and discredit demands for social justice. Interweaving reportage with an incendiary analysis of American history and politics, the author offers a compelling account of how calls to preserve "free speech" are used against the vulnerable; how a fixation with "wokeness," "political correctness," and "cancel culture" is in fact an organized and well-funded campaign by elites; and how the fear of racial minorities and their "identity politics" obscures the biggest threat of all-white terrorism. What emerges is a radical framework for understanding the crises roiling American contemporary politics.
The cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the great startup delusion, by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell, 2021 (Library Catalog)
The definitive inside story of WeWork, its audacious founder, and what its epic unraveling says about a financial system drunk on the elixir of Silicon Valley innovation-from the Wall Street Journal correspondents whose scoop-filled reporting hastened the company's downfall. Nearly $40 billion of value vaporized in one of corporate America's most spectacular meltdowns.
We are each other's harvest: celebrating African American farmers, land, and legacy, by Natalie Baszile. 2021 (Library Catalog)
Natalie Baszile brings together essays, poems, photographs, quotes, conversations, and first-person stories to examine black people's connection to the American land from Emancipation to today. In their own words, middle aged and elderly black farmers explain why they continue to farm despite systemic discrimination and land loss. The Returning Generation--young farmers, who are building upon the legacy of their ancestors, talk about the challenges they face as they seek to redress issues of food justice, food sovereignty, and reparations.
We hereby refuse: Japanese American resistance to wartime incarceration, written by Frank Abe, Tamiko Nimura; art by Ross Ishikawa, Matt Sasaki, 2021 (Library Catalog)
Three Japanese American individuals with different beliefs and backgrounds decided to resist imprisonment by the United States government during World War II in different ways, showing the devastating effects of the imprisonment, but also how widespread and varied the resistance was.
Compiled by Ina Rimpau