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Showing posts from February, 2022

Review: The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

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The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones My rating: 5 of 5 stars The old adage that history is written by the victors while not always true definitely has enough truth to it that one should always be concerned and critical of histories that reinforce a largely harmonious, homogeneous, and heartening history.  This is why The 1619 Project is so refreshing and powerful because it amply challenges the conventional history told in schools and popular media that centers white men's striving for more freedom (which often translates into wealth and power for everyone but is still concentrated among white men).  In its place, the writers center the enslavement of black people as the economic, intellectual, social,  medical, cultural, and legal center of the U.S.'s history. It does this effectively, drawing amply on substantial and wide-ranging established historians and primary sources to illustrate this picture.  After read

Review: Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education

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Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education by Jay Timothy Dolmage My rating: 4 of 5 stars Dolmage explores the structural and institutional aspects of ableism that permeate throughout higher education's present and past. Simply put, the academy does little to include people with disabilities. At the core of this exploration, he illustrates how some bodies are upheld by these aspects and therefore, granted the means to study and pursue knowledge while other bodies are devalued and meant to be the objects of study, often with an insistence to dismiss or cure.  It's a brilliant critique that first discusses how the rhetoric of institution spaces highlight the ways institutions create and maintain their spaces as spaces that are not accessible or made accessible through measures that draw attention to those in need of accessible measures (rather than a natural part of structures through practices like universal design).  He pivots i

Review: Reading, Writing, and Racism: Disrupting Whiteness in Teacher Education and in the Classroom

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Reading, Writing, and Racism: Disrupting Whiteness in Teacher Education and in the Classroom by Bree Picower My rating: 4 of 5 stars At a time when pundits rage about critical race theory being taught in K-12 with no real understanding of what that is, nevermind its near-utter absence from K-12 teaching and learning, Picower's book is both a breath of fresh air and a call to teachers, parents, and most critically important, teacher-education programs.  The book highlights the framework of racism through institutional, interpersonal, internalized, and ideological approaches.  From there, she highlights the presence of these different racist approaches embedded within the curriculum, classroom practices, and mindsets by educators.  In this first section, she draws upon example upon example of how blatant acts of racism are present throughout the curriculum or show because people have caught and challenged them.  These examples include things

Review: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

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Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez My rating: 4 of 5 stars If one ever sought to understand the particular recipe of religious fervor, politicking, and hypocrisy that represents much of Evangelical Christianity in the United States over the past 100 years, they would do well to read this book.  Kobes Du Mez illustrates how evangelicals in the 20th century embraced a particular mixture of traits including dominance-informed masculinity, advocacy for wars of assertion and profit, a xenophobic and religiously bigoted disregard for others, and political maneuvering that forfeited their believes and practices in the name of power. She also shows how evangelicals used radio, television, and social media over the decades to offer up a version of Christianity that was somehow always on the cusp of being destroyed in the US (despite overwhelming evidence otherwise) while simulta