Author: Mel Watkins Publisher: Chicago Review Press ISBN: 1569767602 Category : Humor Languages : en Pages : 638
Book Description
This comprehensive history of black humor sets it in the context of American popular culture. Blackface minstrelsy, Stepin Fetchit, and the Amos 'n' Andy show presented a distorted picture of African Americans; this book contrasts this image with the authentic underground humor of African Americans found in folktales, race records, and all-black shows and films. After generations of stereotypes, the underground humor finally emerged before the American public with Richard Pryor in the 1970s. But Pryor was not the first popular comic to present authentically black humor. Watkins offers surprising reassessments of such seminal figures as Fetchit, Bert Williams, Moms Mabley, and Redd Foxx, looking at how they paved the way for contemporary comics such as Whoopi Goldberg, Eddie Murphy, and Bill Cosby.
Author: Jason DeSena Trennert Publisher: St. Martin's Press ISBN: 1466877154 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 239
Book Description
On a sticky summer morning at the end of the Eighties, 19-year-old Jason DeSena Trennert—a bright, unconnected Georgetown undergrad with big dreams and an even bigger power tie—set out for Wall Street. Mustering the perceived panache of the bigwigs, he burst through the doors of America's oldest financial firms. He was roundly rejected. And entirely undeterred. Trennert accepted a position as a cold-caller and charged ahead with the blind zeal of inexperience, finding in the process a genuine affinity for the customs and history of his work. Clinging to his dream from humble beginnings in financial sector Siberia—Morgan Stanley's Brooklyn outpost—and enduring the villainization of a respectable profession across two boom-bust cycles, he opened his own boutique company, now one of the world's leading research firms. Part memoir, part love letter to an institution popularly viewed as a necessary (or as just plain) evil, My Side of the Street delivers the long-overdue defense of the investment banking industry critiqued by Michael Lewis and others, illuminating the ethical and decent majority who take the subway, worry about mortgages, and keep the entire enterprise on its feet. Introducing the general reader to captains of finance, famous on The Street but invisible to outsiders, Trennert lays on display the absurdity and unbridled joy of big business—a comic tale of unlikely success in America's most notorious industry.
Author: Carl Blumay Publisher: ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 528
Book Description
At his death in 1990, multimillionaire capitalist Armand Hammer was known as a philanthropist, a peacemaker, and a family man. Now close Hammer associate Carl Blumay reveals the powerful Hammer's dark side--his marriages, his self-serving deals, sly maneuvers for political favors, ruthless manipulation of business associates, and more. Here at last is the truth about the myth that the man himself created. Photographs.
Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates Publisher: One World ISBN: 0679645985 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 163
Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.
Author: C. Riley Snorton Publisher: U of Minnesota Press ISBN: 1452955859 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 265
Book Description
Winner of the John Boswell Prize from the American Historical Association 2018 Winner of the William Sanders Scarborough Prize from the Modern Language Association 2018 Winner of an American Library Association Stonewall Honor 2018 Winner of Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction 2018 Winner of the Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies from the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies The story of Christine Jorgensen, America’s first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives—ones lived by African Americans such as Lucy Hicks Anderson and James McHarris. Their erasure from trans history masks the profound ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects. In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-black and anti-trans legislation and violence. Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials—early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films—Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable. In tracing the twinned genealogies of blackness and transness, Snorton follows multiple trajectories, from the medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women by J. Marion Sims, the “father of American gynecology,” to the negation of blackness that makes transnormativity possible. Revealing instances of personal sovereignty among blacks living in the antebellum North that were mapped in terms of “cross dressing” and canonical black literary works that express black men’s access to the “female within,” Black on Both Sides concludes with a reading of the fate of Phillip DeVine, who was murdered alongside Brandon Teena in 1993, a fact omitted from the film Boys Don’t Cry out of narrative convenience. Reconstructing these theoretical and historical trajectories furthers our imaginative capacities to conceive more livable black and trans worlds.
Author: Christopher Mele Publisher: U of Minnesota Press ISBN: 9780816631810 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 384
Book Description
The Lower East Side of Manhattan is rich in stories -- of poor immigrants who flocked there in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; of beatniks, hippies, and artists who peopled it mid-century; and of the real estate developers and politicians who have always shaped what is now termed the "East Village". Today, the musical Rent plays on Broadway to a mostly white and suburban audience, MTV exploits the neighborhood's newly trendy squalor in a film promotion, and on the Internet a cyber soap opera and travel-related Web pages lure members of the middle class to enjoy a commodified and sanitized version of the neighborhood. In this sweeping account, Christopher Mele analyzes the political and cultural forces that have influenced the development of this distinctive community. He describes late nineteenth-century notions of the Lower East Side as a place of entrenched poverty, ethnic plurality, political activism, and "low" culture that elicited feelings of revulsion and fear among the city's elite and middle classes. The resulting -- and ongoing -- struggle between government and residents over affordable and decent housing has in turn affected real estate practices and urban development policies. Selling the Lower East Side recounts the resistance tactics used by community residents, as well as the impulse on the part of some to perpetuate the image of the neighborhood as dangerous, romantic, and bohemian, clinging to the marginality that has been central to the identity of the East Village and subverting attempts to portray it as "new and improved". Ironically, this very image of urban grittiness has been appropriated by a cultural marketplace hungry for new fodder.Mele explores the ways that developers, media executives, and others have coopted the area's characteristics -- analyzing the East Village as a "style provider" where what is being marketed is "difference". The result is a visionary look at how political and economic actions transform neighborhoods and at what happens when a neighborhood is what is being "consumed".
Author: Robert Evans Publisher: Jossey-Bass ISBN: Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 344
Book Description
In this insightful look at the human side of school reform, Robert Evans examines the difficult hurdles to implementing innovation and explains how the best-intAnded efforts can be stalled by the resistance of educators who too often feel burdened and conflicted by the change process.The Human Side of School Change provides practical advice on problem solving, communication, and staff motivation. It argues for more realistic expectations about the pace of reform and the performance of leaders. And it presents a way of approaching all school improvement—a conceptual framework for understanding change as a process, educators as people, and leadership as a craft. By concentrating on the realities of life in schools and the common personal barriers to change, Evans illuminates the key sources of resistance to school reform. Grounding his work in a thorough understanding of human behavior and organizational functioning, he provides a new model of leadership along with practical management strategies for building a framework of cooperation, not conflict, between the leaders of change and the people they depAnd upon to implement it.
Author: Brad Steiger Publisher: Visible Ink Press ISBN: 1578592860 Category : Body, Mind & Spirit Languages : en Pages : 305
Book Description
Not only do vampires exist, but they walk among us! Paranormal researcher extraordinaire and author of hundreds of books on the mysterious and unknown, Brad Steiger, reveals that real vampires are not immortal, do not have fangs or sleep in coffins, and have no fear of sunlight or crucifixes. A chilling chronicle of the often-ignored history of vampirism, Real Vampires, Night Stalkers, and Creatures from the Darkside is a shocking account of occultist rituals and the inhuman forces that influence these immortal beasts. From spine-tingling classic tales—Vlad the Impaler, the Countess of Blood—to stories of famous mass-murderers and their shocking, cannibalistic, and vampire-like behavior—Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac Killer, Jeffrey Dahmer—to hair-raising testimony from ordinary people who’ve encountered vampires, and finally to interviews with modern vampires themselves, this frightening collection covers them all. Not for the faint of heart, you’ll encounter 163 terrifying tales of the hideous wraiths and creatures that lurk in shadow, including . . . the Mexican prostitute who mesmerized an entire village, convincing them she was an Incan goddess who required human sacrifice for her magic. the three teenagers who left a trail across the South as they conducted blood-drinking rituals with animals. the mysterious Lady in Black, who draws psychic energy from men who dare approach her as she wanders through city streets and parks. the young bride-to-be possessed by an evil spirit pretending to be her recently deceased uncle. the college student who thought that he had gotten lucky when he was invited to a party by a gorgeous woman—until he found out that the other partygoers seemed to want blood in return for their beer. Shining a light on the horrifying truth, Real Vampires, Night Stalkers, and Creatures from the Darkside dispels many myths but also confirms the truth behind several traits of real vampires. You’ll encounter loathsome slashers, rippers, and murderers who do not promise immortality with their “bite,” only a painful death. The numerous photos and illustrations bring the text to life!
Author: Baratunde Thurston Publisher: Harper Collins ISBN: 0062098047 Category : Humor Languages : en Pages : 279
Book Description
The comedian chronicles his coming of age while analyzing politics & culture in this New York Times–bestselling memoir and satirical guide. If You Don't Buy This Book, You’re a Racist. Have you ever been called “too black” or “not black enough?” Have you ever befriended or worked with a black person? Have you ever heard of black people? If you answered yes to any of these questions, this book is for you. Raised by a pro-black, Pan-Afrikan single mother during the crack years of 1980s Washington, DC, and educated at Sidwell Friends School and Harvard University, Baratunde Thurston has over thirty years’ experience being black. Now, through stories of his politically inspired Nigerian name, the heroics of his hippie mother, the murder of his drug-abusing father, and other revelatory black details, he shares with readers of all colors his wisdom and expertise in how to be black. Beyond memoir, this guidebook offers practical advice on everything from “How to Be The Black Friend” to “How to Be The (Next) Black President” to “How to Celebrate Black History Month.” To provide additional perspective, Baratunde assembled an award-winning Black Panel—three black women, three black men, and one white man (Christian Lander of Stuff White People Like)—and asked them such revealing questions as “When Did You First Realize You Were Black?” and “How Black Are You?” as well as “Can You Swim?” The result is a humorous, intelligent, and audacious guide that challenges and satirizes the so-called experts, purists, and racists who purport to speak for all black people. With honest storytelling and biting wit, Baratunde plots a path not just to blackness, but one open to anyone interested in simply “how to be.” Praise for How to Be Black “Part autobiography, part stand-up routine, part contemporary political analysis, and astute all over. . . . Reading this book made me both laugh and weep with poignant recognition. . . . A hysterical, irreverent exploration of one of America’s most painful and enduring issues.” —Melissa Harris-Perry “Struggling to figure out how to be black in the 21st century? Baratunde Thurston has the perfect guide for you.” —The Root
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Author: Mel Watkins
Author: Mel Watkins
Author: Jason DeSena Trennert
Author: Carl Blumay
Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Author: C. Riley Snorton
Author: Christopher Mele
Author: Robert Evans
Author: Brad Steiger
Author: Baratunde Thurston