Tell It to the World: an Indigenous Memoir

Tell It to the World: an Indigenous Memoir by Stan Grant

Pages: 255 pages

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

A CNN correspondent shares the story of how he grew up in Australia and how even though he is now successful, growing up an Aboriginal Australian effected him. Grant shares his personal experiences with racism as a child through his adulthood. He found a route to self-worth through reading the writings of James Baldwin. He compares Australia's treatment of the Aborigines to America's treatment of Native Americans and blacks. 

I was unaware of this part of Australia's history. I knew that there were several Aboriginal tribes already living in Australia when Great Britain first sent settlers and then prisoners to live there. However, I did not know how the Aboriginals had been treated from the very beginning and how they are viewed as other, still today. 

He shares how the ongoing racism in Australia and the world continues to cause hardship, anger, and shame for him as an indigenous man. He argues that the effects of early colonialism and oppression are now everyday realties that have shaped countries and governments and we all have to realize this to change it. 

Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in its Finest, Darkest Hour by Lynne Olson

Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in its Finest, Darkest Hour by Lynne Olson

Author Lynne Olson details the story of how the U.S.'s "special relationship" with Britain came to be, told from the perspective of three American men who featured prominently in Britain during World War II: Edward R. Murrow, the head of CBS in Europe; Averell Harriman, who ran FDR's Lend-Lease program from its London base; and John Gilbert Winant, the U.S. ambassador to Britain.   

496 pages.

Our Kids The American Dream in Crisis by Robert D. Putnam

This book was cited in this year's Kid's Count data issued by our Office of Social and Economic Data Analysis at MU.  Putnam explores how the 'American Dream' of opportunity has evolved from his generation, 1950s, to the experience of current young people age 18 through early twenties.  He focuses on the differences in parenting, families, schooling, and community.  The comparisons are stark, and highlight the stratification of neighborhoods into high income/low income with little interchange between them.  He describes consequences of that de facto segregation, using interviews with contemporary young people and their parents, contrasted with the experience of members of his generation. The basic insecurity, whether of shelter, family, inadequate schools, and drugs and crime in communities, of the lowest income families has meant that many children are growing up in very precarious situations.  And yet we expect these kids to conform to the ideals of the American dream, to understand how to navigate college or trade school and move into stable jobs.   Putnam offers some solutions, in the final chapter, but focuses most on local action, and not much on the more sweeping changes that would be needed to have any true impact. 368 pages