#evicted book

[pizzagirlll]

YOOOOOOOOOO NY BOOKS ARE HERE!!!!

I love early Christmas presents

This is what the cow says by the way

[hoorayiread]

Evicted, A Book Review

Has a book ever made you so uncomfortable that you wound up reading faster? Because I read this book in about a week (last year I read 14 books. I'm not one of those Booktok people that reads 5 thousand-page novels a month).

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond is a non-fiction book published in 2016 about the affordable housing crisis. More specifically, it examines the lives of several poor families living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and tells their stories. This book examines how and why people become trapped in cycles of poverty and what constant eviction does to people physically, financially, and psychologically. It also suggests ways our wellfare system could be overhauled to alleviate this.

Time, care, and empathy was put into this research. Desmond made an effort to look at both white and Black families during his project, analyzing the racial discrimination and segregation that is still very much a part of everyday American life. The families in these stories had problems such as drug addictions, criminal records, and a history of poor choices (you know, the kinds of things Fox News likes to rant about), but still portrays them in a sympathetic light. There is one person in this book, Crystal, who was prone to erupting into fits of violence when under exreme stress due to a history of severe childhood trauma. She hurt people, but I still came away from this book firmly believing that she deserved a roof over her head.

One of the chapters that really sticks out in my mind is titled "Lobster on Food Stamps." It tells the story of a poor woman in a trailer park who spent her entire monthly allotment of food stamps on a single, indulgent seafood dinner for one. Stories like this are a very common talking point for political pundits that like to demonize poor people. But Evicted uses this woman's story to explain why this happens: when you are extremely poor, it is next to impossible to dig yourself out no matter how much you save and what choices you make. There is no way out. Genuinely. Indulging will make the pain go away, at least for today. It is, ultimately, a very human choice.

Evicted is a difficult read, emotionally. Every time I sat down to read this thing it was always "Oh, great, Arleen's getting kicked out of another place for some bullshit reason." This isn't a fun book, but it's important. I've also heard good things about Desmond's followup Poverty, by America.

Now, nonfiction can't be spoiled, so let me end this review with the last line of the book:

"No moral code or ethical principal, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become."

[nomasmaestras]

10.30.17 | Just finished Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City for English Lang and Comp. It was sort of a strenuous read just because of the heavy subject matter but it was so rewarding. Very eye opening to see another point of view on life. (This is the point in the book where I got very passionate - the whole point of the persuasive tactics, I guess)

[hoorayiread]

The Ethics of Learning Ethics

I want to be a good person. I want to positively contribute to the world and encourage others to do the same. I also just want to know what the world is like outside of myself. Thus, I read nonfiction.

A few years ago, I read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It's a book that discusses the ethical issues that have cropped up again and again in the advancement of modern medicine, and it is full of great information. However, it's main premise revolves around the story of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cancer cells were cultured without her consent. This line of cells has led to numerous scientific advancements that have generated millions, if not billions of dollars for research companies while the Lacks family lived in poverty. The book then goes on to research that family, obtaining interviews and even befriending some of the family members. And Skloot talks about how awful it was that Henrietta was exploited in that way.

Then Skloot proceeded to not pay the family. She admits this in her book. She gives some kind of justification for it, but it's been bothering me ever since I read it.

(Robin Tynan wrote an article for Medium titled "Your unconsious bias is showing-- a critique of 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks' by Rebecca Skloot," if you want more info)

Currently, I am reading Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond. Coincidentally, I came accross a video from Gene Lee on Tiktok, where he mentioned that very same book. He mentioned it in passing while criticising how academics are often very sheltered from the consequences and lived experiences of everyday poverty. After this, I decided to look for articles that took a more critical look at Evicted to see if I couldn't find a more well-rounded look at the issues it tackles, but the only ones I found came from landlord websites and people that felt poverty was an individual matter rather than a systemic issue (I found a right-wing website that blamed poverty on unwed mothers. Do you care if I don't cite that source?).

One issue I think I'm facing is a lot of this information I'm finding comes from white people (Gene Lee is Black, but every other person I've mentioned has been white. And I am, too). I need a diversity of sources but, hey, what would you know? Systemic racism exists! I do have some authors of color coming up on my to-read list, including another non-fiction book written by a Black woman, but still.

Then again, one cannot fix the world by reading books alone in their room.

[pandxareads]

Review: Evicted by Matthew Desmond

The description of this book grabbed me right away: an in-depth examination of the relationship between landlords and tennants in the poorest areas of American cities. I also expected it to be full of the same cliches that always seem to be called on during discussions of poverty. I was prepared to agree with the spirit of the book while rolling my eyes at the details. I was wrong.

Matthew Desmond immersed himself in the lives of the people he wrote about, even living for extended periods in a trailer park and, later, in a rooming house. He shadowed landlords during visits to properties, court hearings, and at their own homes. Many times throughout the book, Desmond sites meticulously designed and executed studies that he conducted during his research. The result is an incredibly detailed account of a complex issue written with heart-wrenching empathy. While it is clear Desmond takes the side of the tennants, he writes about landlords and other powers that be with great respect and fairness. The picture he paints is nothing if not well-rounded. 

By following only a handful of families in one US city (Milwaukee) and supporting his findings with statistics and facts of the whole nation, the author shows not only the scale of the problem but the magnitude of the pain it causes. The level of research alone makes this required reading for anyone looking to broaden their understanding of major human rights issues facing the US today. 

For more information on Matthew Desmond and Evicted, check his website.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. 

[62foryou-blog]

One of the most heartbreaking moments in Matthew Desmond’s “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City”— and there’s a shameful assortment to choose from — is when 13-year-old Ruby Hinkston takes refuge in the public library. She’s come to use the computer. It turns out that she’s been slowly building her dream house with a free online game, and she wants to visit it again.

“It had clean, light-reflecting floors,” Mr. Desmond writes, “a bed with sheets and pillowcases, and a desk for doing schoolwork.”

This cheerful vision in pixels forms an almost unbearable contrast to the filth of Ruby’s own apartment. The kitchen sink is stopped up, as is the bathtub and toilet. There are mattresses everywhere, their exposed innards revealing humming burrows of cockroaches — and the mattresses may be the least terrifying of their redoubts. They also fill the kitchen drawers and erupt from the nonworking drains.

Living in extreme poverty in the United States means waging an almost gladiatorial battle for creature comforts that luckier people take for granted. And of all those comforts, perhaps the most important is a stable, dignified home. Yet as a culture, notes Mr. Desmond, we have somehow failed to commit ourselves to providing this most fundamental and obvious necessity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/books/evicted-book-review-matthew-desmond.html