Not Guilty; Fresh Off the Boat
( x-posted to 50books_poc)
35. Jabari Asim (ed.), Not Guilty:Twelve Black Men Speak Out on Law, Justice, and Life
I was disappointed with this anthology. The majority of the authors were middle-class academics, which created a fairly uniform viewpoint and saddled too many essays with a ponderous tone. Two essays were, in my opinion, all but unreadable.
Weirdly, even though I found the memoirs more compelling than the treatises, it was an academic essay that particularly stood out for me: Christopher Cooper (former D.C. street cop, attorney, professor of Criminal Justice, and board member for the National Black Police Association) writing on police mediation versus arbitration in white communities and communities of color. Cooper defines mediation as helping disputants negotiate an agreement between themselves, while arbitration dictates an externally-decided decision (made by the officer) to the disputants. Police tend to use arbitration in disputes between people of color, but are more likely to use mediation to resolve disputes between whites. Not only does mediation convey more respect for the disputants, thus improving the relationship between police and community, but mediated solutions "stick" better than arbitrated solutions.
In Cooper's opinion, the fault for the preference for arbitration in communities of color is a lack of training within police departments (including command staff condoning the tendency of officers to speak disrespectfully about and within communities of color), and the existence of community-based mediation centers that supposedly "work with" the police to provide mediation, but actually dissuade officers from performing mediation. Cooper makes some of the same points as INCITE! in The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: that non-profit mediation centers become more invested in staying in business than in eradicating the problems they exist to solve.
36. Melissa de la Cruz, Fresh Off the Boat
YA chicklit about a new Filipino immigrant on scholarship at an upper-class all-girls private school in San Francisco.
The voice is intended to perky and fun, and certainly has a sense of humor (the requisite opening scene of profound embarrassment is especially well-executed). However, I found the deeper tone quite sad, especially in the beginning. Vicenza is lonely and embattled, and keenly feels her social demotion from the wealthy, high-status position she held in Manila to her current status as a poor and mostly-ignored immigrant in the U.S. Especially poignant are her emails to friends at home in Manila, wherein she details a fantasy life exactly the opposite of what she is experiencing.
However, the plot proceeds exactly as the plot is expected to proceed, and Vicenza re-negotiates her relationship with her parents, acquires loyal friends, sorts out the good-and-decent true boyfriend from the popular-but-not-good-for-her decoy boyfriend, and earns herself some respect among her classmates. Oh, and her emails back to Manila begin to reflect her actual life, too.
So, in the end, the future comes up rosy within the covers of pink-clad books. Just like it's supposed to.
35. Jabari Asim (ed.), Not Guilty:Twelve Black Men Speak Out on Law, Justice, and Life
I was disappointed with this anthology. The majority of the authors were middle-class academics, which created a fairly uniform viewpoint and saddled too many essays with a ponderous tone. Two essays were, in my opinion, all but unreadable.
Weirdly, even though I found the memoirs more compelling than the treatises, it was an academic essay that particularly stood out for me: Christopher Cooper (former D.C. street cop, attorney, professor of Criminal Justice, and board member for the National Black Police Association) writing on police mediation versus arbitration in white communities and communities of color. Cooper defines mediation as helping disputants negotiate an agreement between themselves, while arbitration dictates an externally-decided decision (made by the officer) to the disputants. Police tend to use arbitration in disputes between people of color, but are more likely to use mediation to resolve disputes between whites. Not only does mediation convey more respect for the disputants, thus improving the relationship between police and community, but mediated solutions "stick" better than arbitrated solutions.
In Cooper's opinion, the fault for the preference for arbitration in communities of color is a lack of training within police departments (including command staff condoning the tendency of officers to speak disrespectfully about and within communities of color), and the existence of community-based mediation centers that supposedly "work with" the police to provide mediation, but actually dissuade officers from performing mediation. Cooper makes some of the same points as INCITE! in The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: that non-profit mediation centers become more invested in staying in business than in eradicating the problems they exist to solve.
36. Melissa de la Cruz, Fresh Off the Boat
YA chicklit about a new Filipino immigrant on scholarship at an upper-class all-girls private school in San Francisco.
The voice is intended to perky and fun, and certainly has a sense of humor (the requisite opening scene of profound embarrassment is especially well-executed). However, I found the deeper tone quite sad, especially in the beginning. Vicenza is lonely and embattled, and keenly feels her social demotion from the wealthy, high-status position she held in Manila to her current status as a poor and mostly-ignored immigrant in the U.S. Especially poignant are her emails to friends at home in Manila, wherein she details a fantasy life exactly the opposite of what she is experiencing.
However, the plot proceeds exactly as the plot is expected to proceed, and Vicenza re-negotiates her relationship with her parents, acquires loyal friends, sorts out the good-and-decent true boyfriend from the popular-but-not-good-for-her decoy boyfriend, and earns herself some respect among her classmates. Oh, and her emails back to Manila begin to reflect her actual life, too.
So, in the end, the future comes up rosy within the covers of pink-clad books. Just like it's supposed to.