RaveThe New Republic... searing ... Cashin has written an astounding book that combines engaging storytelling and powerful empirical evidence to address the civil rights movement’s most pressing piece of unfinished business ... The broad outlines of this story of racial exclusion will be familiar to many readers through the superb work of authors such as Ta-Nehisi Coates and Richard Rothstein. But Cashin is also alert to the rising significance of economic discrimination and segregation that disproportionately hurt Black people ... makes a powerful case that \'geography as caste is destroying America.\' It will be impossible to heal the soul of the country without addressing the defining problem this extraordinary book illuminates.
Eve L. Ewing
RaveThe New RepublicEve L. Ewing...takes on big issues of education, race and democracy in her book, Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side. But Ewing, a sociologist in the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration, a poet, and a former schoolteacher, takes a very different tack, focusing on Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2013 proposal to close a large number of public schools, most of them in African American communities ... Ewing’s stunning account of...recent history underlines the staggering challenge we face in creating the schools necessary to sustain our democracy. We have moved so far away from the concept of equal opportunity for disadvantaged African American students that parents are no longer just fighting for high-quality integrated schools, or even high-quality segregated schools. They are fighting for the right to preserve mediocre schools because what they are likely to be provided in the event of school closure is even worse ... At a time when our democracy is under stress, Ewing...outlines...important paths for strengthening America’s commitment to democratic values.
Justin Driver
MixedThe New RepublicDriver [has] a commitment to the principles of equality ... telling a history of the arguments and institutions that can bring change down from on high ... restoring public education as the fountainhead of our democracy ... When it comes to the critical issue of private school vouchers, Driver is far less persuasive ... Driver endorses the idea, against the wisdom of his former boss, Justice Breyer, who noted that vouchers threaten to balkanize American society along religious lines ... Driver...calls on schools to challenge the racial and economic inequality in the broader society. He has the audacity to contend that low-income, black, and brown children have an equal right to share space with more privileged students in a system of public education. Anything less would be undemocratic.
Chris Matthews
RaveThe New Republic...a remarkable 42-year life that Matthews chronicles with considerable insight from beginning to end ... Robert Kennedy managed to forge a multi-racial class-based coalition at a time when white people were considerably more racist than they are today. In response to the current conditions of economic stress, we have seen the rise of a fake populist who preys on division. But what if a candidate instead sought to unite working class people across racial lines around an inclusive populism that blends compassion for the underdog with a tough-mindedness about the way the world works? Matthews raises the powerful reminder that Robert Kennedy did just that—and so could we.
