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May books roundup

It's time for our monthly roundup of recent books of interest to people who are working, organizing, and educating for positive community change. This month's selections include The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart by Bill Bishop; Moyers on Democracy by Bill Moyers; The Place to Be: Washington, CBS, and the Glory Days of Television News by Roger Mudd; and The Message: 100 Life Lessons from Hip-Hop's Greatest Songs by Felicia Pride. You can get these books at your local bookseller, or online, or at the links offered below.

We learned about The Big Sort via a mention on Rich Harwood's blog, Redeeming Hope, in which Rich cited it in a post about nonprofit funders' discomfort when issues of race and class arise. A comment on the book at its amazon.com page reads, "This book is intriguing, convincing, also sad and scary for anybody who hopes to be living in a democracy ... We're living (in) a new segregationist era, and it goes a whole lot deeper than skin." Bishop's book explores how and why, although America as a whole is more diverse than ever, we've divided ourselves into neighborhoods where people live, think, and vote mostly alike; we watch TV news shows and read blogs that mirror, rather than challenge, our political viewpoints; and we attend church with people who believe just as we do. Alas, all this sorting makes us "ideologically inbred," unable or unwilling to communicate with people who don't share our lifestyles and views. This book certainly has important implications for organizers who are trying to bring together diverse groups of people for dialogues and problem-solving. (Order here.)

Moyers on Democracy is a collection of speeches - each preceded by a new essay - by the great public television journalist Bill Moyers, who earlier in his career served as a founding organizer of the Peace Corps, as press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson, and as publisher of Newsday. From his decades of viewing American life and democracy, Moyers now writes about how our nation seems to be betraying its democratic ideals and its reformist history. His topics include the place of religion in public life; the mounting environmental crisis; the struggle to keep public television and radio free of political manipulation and ideological censorship; and Washington's culture of corruption - but characteristically, Moyers keeps a cool head even at his angriest. Studs Terkel says of the book: "Bill Moyers has been my North Star, in his eloquence, his quiet passion and courage, and in the way he presents me and millions of others with the ideals of our nation, from our past to our present to our uncertain future. Always he offers the gifts of thoughtfulness and of hope." (Order here.)

Another noted television journalist of the last half-century, Roger Mudd, is out with his memoir of a life at CBS, NBC, and The History Channel. Writing about the book in The Washington Post, James Rosen said, "Americans under the age of 30 may have no memory of a time when 'anchorman' connoted not some buffoonish Will Ferrell creation but the nation's most trusted figure. 'If I've lost Cronkite,' Lyndon Johnson fretted during Vietnam, 'I've lost middle America.' And in those days, CBS News dominated the capital the way the Yankees once owned autumn. Mudd's The Place To Be brilliantly captures an era when war, protests, riots, assassinations and scandals rocked America and a newly ascendant medium transmitted images of the upheaval in real time." This book may be a good complement to The Big Sort, above, as it also describes a time when most Americans got their national and world news from one of the big networks, not from the bewildering array of niche media we have now. (Order here.)

Ah, but time marches on and these days, niche media is the main way that many people get their news. Felicia Pride explains how music can carry more than a tune in The Message: 100 Life Lessons from Hip-Hop's Greatest Songs. Founder of the pro-book, pro-community website The Backlist and a self-described "literacy advocate, hip-hop baby, and book chick," Pride plumbs the depths of the best, most positive hip-hop music to show how it has affected the way she and millions of others live, work, think, and love. "This book is about searching for the power within and using motivational aspects of hip-hop music to help us successfully maneuver our worlds," Pride writes in the book's intro. (Order here.) 

Do you have another book to recommend, or thoughts about any of these? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

May Day brings rallies

Livin’ in a city where the streets are paved
With good intentions and a people’s faith   
In the sacred promise a statue made
Livin’ in a city of immigrants ...
~ Steve Earle, "City of Immigrants" (lyrics, video)

May Day, known as International Workers' Day throughout most of the world, has in the United States lately become a rallying day for supporters of immigrants and immigration reform - and today is no exception, though rallies this year are expected to be smaller than the historic processions held two years ago. In Detroit, a four-block-long throng marched downtown at lunchtime, carrying signs calling for an end to workplace raids and deportations that separate families. But in Miami, activists are placing more emphasis on a family celebration set Saturday than on a modest march planned today.

In the nation's largest cities, however, crowds will turn out today. Organizers expect a large turnout for a march and rally set later this afternoon for New York's Union Square. In Los Angeles, up to 100,000 people are expected at four different marches that will wind up at a rallying point near City Hall. From the Los Angeles Times:

While most of the attention will be focused on the marchers, the LAPD will also be under a great deal of scrutiny today after last year's mostly peaceful event ended with riot police beating journalists and demonstrators in MacArthur Park. The beatings, captured on television cameras, took place as the police were trying to clear the park after 20 to 30 people starting throwing rocks and bottles. This year, after additional training and cooperation with march organizers, the Police Department leaders say they are better prepared to keep things under control without letting conditions turn chaotic.

Click here for a list of May Day marches around the country and here for some interesting history on why May Day has always been associated with immigrants in America. Finally, here's a compelling column from Ruben Navarrette of the San Diego Union-Tribune on why today's calls for immigration reform are of interest to the 80 percent of U.S. Hispanics who were either born here or are legal residents.  "When they talk to me about the immigration debate, they condemn the hypocrisy of a society that is addicted to illegal immigrant labor but looks for others to blame for the addiction," he writes. "...  Most of all, they scoff at the claim that, as U.S. citizens, this debate doesn't concern them and that the attack is limited to illegal immigrants."

Friday digest-open thread 10/19/07

John Mellencamp has a long history of addressing racism, in such songs as "Jim Crow," "We Are the People," and "Our Country." He's at it again with a new and very timely song called "Jena," which will be on his next CD but is already streaming at his website and on YouTube (click on the image below to play):

Here's Mellencamp's statement on the song:

"I am not a journalist, I am a songwriter and in the spirit and tradition of the minstrel, I am telling a story in this song. The story is not, strictly speaking, about the town of Jena or this specific incident but of racism in America.

"The song was not written as an indictment of the people of Jena but, rather, as a condemnation of racism, a problem which I've reflected in many songs, a problem that still plagues our country today.

"The current trial in Jena is just another reflection of prejudice in our nation. If the song strikes an emotional chord with people and if they examine it and interpret as they will, something will have been accomplished. The aim here is not to antagonize but, rather, to catalyze thought."

John Edwards' call last week for a Citizens Congress continues to draw attention. John Gastil, co-editor of The Deliberative Democracy Handbook, has an op-ed in the Seattle Times. He writes:

"At the present time, our elected officials record our sentiments through polls, talk radio, blogs, ad hoc public forums and the blunt instrument of elections. The public voice Washington hears is already thrice filtered, by special-interest campaigns, media frames and politicians themselves.

"Edwards proposes an alternative means of public expression in American politics. ... the immediate inspiration for Edwards appears to be the "21st Century Town Meeting" developed by the civic organization AmericaSpeaks. Edwards refers to this when he cites the 'citizen-centered projects' that have given ordinary people a voice in designs for the World Trade Center memorial, the redevelopment of New Orleans, [and] health-care reform in California. ...

"... Edwards' proposal is currently a 150-word sketch on a campaign Web site. At this stage, I find myself in the same position as a fan who discovered and adored a garage band before it went mainstream. Having studied deliberative reforms for 15 years, I hope that Edwards' proposal remains true to its roots. The Citizen Congress can satisfy this hard-core fan only if its final form is transparent, representative, deliberative, directive and influential."   

Read it all here. NCDD has a page featuring coverage of and reaction to Edwards' plan. Click here.

Words to ponder:

"What is democracy? The tedious, hard, perplexing, messy, and seemingly endless task of working through what kind of people we are going to be and what kind of communities we will live in. Politics is the work of democracy, and it encompasses practically everything that we can and must do together: how we educate our children, design our communities and neighborhoods, feed ourselves and dispose of our wastes, care for the sick and elderly and poor, relate to the natural world, entertain and enlighten ourselves, and defend ourselves. It also affects what values we seek to defend, what roles are chosen for us by virtue of our identity, and what roles we create for ourselves."

- Bill Moyers, from a 1997 essay, quoted in this column on study circles by Florida resident Mark Kaufman.