Does your understanding of the civil rights movement in the United States include the early activists who advocated single-payer health insurance, the doctors who helped desegregate southern hospitals, or the volunteers who exposed racist policies in the American Medical Association?  

Sharing the often overlooked contribution of the numerous doctors and nurses who risked their careers, salaries, and reputations to courageously challenge egregious racial inequities in the medical profession, renowned historian and Bancroft prize winner Professor John Dittmer presented his new book The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care to the admiration of DC’s progressives and venerable civil rights activists including Julian Bond and Dorie Ladner at Busboys and Poets on 14^th and V on June 11^th.

Dittmer recounted the immeasurable efforts of the members of the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR) from the organization’s formation and extensive participation in marches from the Mississippi Freedom Summer, Selma, Chicago and Wounded Knee to its subsequent radicalization through its opposition to the Vietnam War and its charges against the ossified, imperial – and often explicitly racist – health institutions such as the American Medical Association. Fellow activists and MCHR members such as the esteemed Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan complemented Dittmer’s history with personal anecdotes that drew cheers from audience members as reflections on past activist successes lead to calls for further participation of progressive voices from the medical profession in the health care debate today.

The Good Doctors should serve as an historical precedent for health care and civil rights activists, and a call to action for all those who desire a system of health care that is both exceptional in product and equitable in provision. What the Medical Committee for Human Rights started the progressive community must continue in order to ensure a health care system that considers quality health care a human right rather than a privileged provision.

-Zach

Reviewed by Katie Seitz

One of the best children’s books of recent years is Natasha Anastasia Tarpley’s Destiny’s Gift. Destiny, a little girl who loves words, writing and reading, spends all of her free time at a local independent bookstore, Wade’s Books. Mrs. Wade, who runs the store, enjoys her company and encourages her writing and learning. One day, Mrs. Wade gets a notice that the rent of the store is being raised to a level that she cannot afford. When a devastated Destiny tells her parents, they bring the neighborhood together for a series of actions: a protest, a fundraising block party and book sale, signs, flyers and media alerts. Destiny writes her own token of support, a piece containing everything she loves about the bookstore, which she presents to Mrs. Wade on her own. The book ends with no clear resolution about the fate of the bookstore, but on a moment of deep connection between two generations of women who love words and care about each other.

Destiny’s Gift embodies a number of positive values that make this an excellent story for children. The book contributes to positive and central depictions of women and men of color, as Destiny and Mrs. Wade are both African American and nearly all the other characters appear to be people of color. The authors show people of color owning businesses, engaging in activism to support their community, having happy relationships and strong families, and valuing learning.

The book specifically centers excellent women of color characters, and promotes women’s agency – and men’s support of women’s agency – in the structure of its story. Mrs. Wade is an African American woman business owner, and her story is told without needing to mention her relationship status. Destiny is a smart and talented African American girl whose parents value her and take her concerns seriously, especially when her love of the bookstore translates into the need for action. Her mother and father rise to the challenge and equally devote their time to helping fight for the store, and both men and women are depicted in scenes of the community.

Neither children nor adults are one-dimensional, but display complexity in their feelings and actions. Mrs. Wade is Destiny’s friend and mentor, sharing her knowledge while supporting Destiny’s learning. Destiny also plays a role in the activism that follows the news of the stores closing. Adults display vulnerability, and children are able to give support.

The story line itself is realistic and engaging without depending on an easy resolution to the central problem. In fact, the uncertainty about the bookstore’s fate can serve as a springboard to interesting conversations with the child reader, and a deeper understanding of the social and economic forces at work behind the situation. The book also serves as a way to introduce strategies for activism and social change to children.

Adjoa J. Burrowes’s engaging illustrations combine paper cutouts, watercolors and line drawings to engage readers of all ages, and contribute a great deal to the success of the story. However, the book would benefit from more diversity of body types and the inclusion of visibly disabled people.

Destiny’s Gift is that rare book that sends strong positive messages without preachiness. Its colorful, detailed illustrations and compelling story work together to give the central characters personality and depth, and people of all ages can learn from its ethics of community and caring.

Review of The Peace Book, written and illustrated by Todd Parr

by Katie Seitz

"I'm colorblind. Yellow, brown, green, purple - I treat everyone the same."

"We're all the same on the inside."

Most of us have heard people profess their ability to look past difference by saying that, deep down, humans are all the same. While the intent behind these words is usually admirable, those who erase or miscast difference in the service of tolerance can sometimes unthinkingly impose their narrative of normal, at the expense of others’ very real differences in culture and values.  Such is the problem of The Peace Book, by Todd Parr, which attempts to teach children to embrace difference and peace while struggling with some of the same issues it intends to overcome.

The Peace Book is a striking book, each page a different bright color with bubbly, hand-drawn cartoon characters whose skin tones range from brown to blue. On each page, a sentence starts with “Peace is.” Peace can apparently be any number of things, from growing a garden, to hugging, to watching it snow. The book makes many unstated assumptions that allow us to draw conclusions about the intended audience - white, middle to upper-class American children. For example, “[p]eace is giving shoes to someone who needs them” is a very comfortable sentiment for someone who has never lacked for shoes, and fails to address the root cause of the need. “Peace is traveling to different places” works very well for someone who has the money and mobility to travel - and for whom travel is voluntary. “Peace is learning another language” seems innocuous until we notice that the figures on the page are speaking Japanese, German, Spanish…and Fish and Cat. The book makes no allowance for a child that already – or mostly – speaks another language than English (and then no African or Middle Eastern languages), and invites the startlingly offensive parallel of non-English languages to animal noises.

The art speaks depressingly of the author's limited, inaccurate and often offensive ideas for characterizing people and practices other than the white American standard. "Peace is listening to different kinds of music" depicts a snake-charmer, an trope historically used by the West to exoticize South Asian cultures. The page for "[p]eace is wearing different clothes" creates another offensive parallel between two people shown standing side by side - one in a clown costume, one in an incorrectly drawn niqab. In conjunction with the illustration on the "[p]eace is traveling" page, a person on a camel in a featureless desert, the reader is presented only a caricature of the Middle East and Muslims. As we know from our current political reality, stereotypes of the Middle East and Muslims have had very real and dangerous consequences for people worldwide. When we consider that in recent years most Americans have traveled to the Middle East as soldiers, and that the US depends primarily on the Middle East for the huge amounts of fossil fuels it uses in travel, "[p]eace is traveling" reads as painfully ignorant.

As mentioned before, the human characters in The Peace Book often appear in skin colors not found in nature. However, these are not evenly distributed, and deserve closer examination. Given the range of human skin tones, the fact not a single "main character" has brown or tan skin is troubling. The author is perfectly capable of incorporating brown skin tones, as is evident from the "making new friends" and "being who you are" pages, but brown is apparently only fit for the "group photo"-style layouts. Humans used on pages that refer to some nominally non-white Western culture have a bright yellow or orange skin, except for one, whose skin is blue. The blue character, shown speaking Spanish on the "different languages" page, may alienate children who are already marginalized (as "aliens", often) in much of the United States because of their race or language. I am also concerned that the Japanese-speaking character has bright yellow skin, as it plays into the pernicious stereotype of "yellow people."

On the last page, Parr fills the space with these words: “Peace is being different, feeling good about yourself, and helping others. The world is a better place because of YOU!” I take issue with this ethos, a particularly facile one. Peace, very literally, is the cessation of violence. The things listed in the book are products of a peaceful society, perhaps, but not peace itself. The book’s implicit assertion is that being nice, and doing what one enjoys and is privileged to do in a peaceful society, are bound to make more peace, when we know that simply living our way of life engenders numerous negative consequences for people around the world. A child reading this pablum should be old enough to understand more concrete methods of teaching peace. As for the other elements - difference, good self esteem and helping others - a number of other children's books engage with these themes in a fun and respectful manner.

It may seem to Parr that a child can only conceive of peace as “having enough pizza in the world for everyone,” but we must trust enough in our children to teach them about the underlying notion of world hunger, and that other foods than pizza will be on the menu when it ends. I respect the deep, transformative, radical, difficult work that peace can be. We need a little more faith in the capacity of our children to handle the idea that peace can be hard, can be stretching one’s boundaries, can be changing one’s way of life to preserve another's.

Review of Grace for President by Kelly DiPucchio, illustrated by LeUyen Pham

by Katie Seitz

Grace for President chronicles the political campaign of Grace Campbell, a smart and ambitious elementary school student who, when she learns that not a single US president has been a woman, decides to be the first. Her teacher has the idea to hold a mock presidential election with another class, so Grace has to run against one of the most popular students in school. The book follows Grace and her class through an explanation of the US electoral process and a description of her campaign. While the other candidate, Thomas, trusts that all the boys will vote for him and thus does the minimum to reach out to the other students, Grace's integrity leads her to work on realizing her campaign promises - a cleaner, safer school with better food - even before the election. In the end, Grace's hard work and tireless campaigning pay off, and she beats out her rival.

In the story's climax - the election held in the school auditorium - Grace does not win by a landslide, but by a single vote. There is a certain rueful understanding to that margin of victory, and it adds an element of realism to what might otherwise be a conventional hard-work-pays-off narrative. LeUyen Pham's lively illustrations show Grace to be full of spirit and character, and DiPucchio's text gives a clear basic explanation of the US electoral system. Also, the book deserves praise for making its heroine a girl of color.

Surprisingly, the book seems the least thoughtful around race, or the intersection of race and sex. While implicitly decrying Thomas's sexism (he gets his comeuppance for taking the male vote for granted), DiPucchio avoids any discussion of the race issues at play in an election that pits a black girl against a white boy. It seems impossible that such an outspoken child as Grace would not point out the whiteness, as well as maleness, of our past presidents, but it never seems to occur to her. In addition, while Thomas is portrayed as a superstar - a spelling bee winner, athlete, and science whiz - Grace's only attributes seem to be her drive and charm. She collects activities through the course of the story, but starts out as a blank slate, with no extracurricular activities or even hobbies mentioned to round out her personality.

Pham's illustrations create problems of their own. The children depicted are very diverse - within limits. There seem to be very few children of recognizably Asian descent, and shades of brown skin stop at a certain level of darkness, except for a single pictured child. All five authority figures in the book are white or can be read as such, as well as the little boy who casts the deciding vote in Grace's favor. Finally, there are several illustrations of children wearing Native or "Indian-style" traditional clothing as costumes, both trivializing and misrepresenting Indian cultures, especially when juxtaposed with flower- and bird-costumed students.

While eye-catching and relatively progressive in its message, Grace for President perpetuates other existing prejudices and is ultimately, unlike its heroine, not quite what it aspires to be.

Winter Soldier, Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupation - testimonies by Iraq Veterans Against the War

DC Chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War - event on 11/13/2208 - reviewed by Don Allen, manager of Busboys and Poets Books

One day after the flag-waving and hoopla of Veterans Day, the testimonies of 5 veterans on the stage of the Langston Room were a powerful antidote to the current media narrative. During the recent presidential campaign, the mainstream media and pundits were declaring that the surge in Iraq actually worked. Well, the folks that shared their stories at Busboys and Poets are some of the same folks who delivered this message to the RNC (and a worldwide television audience): "You Can't Win an Occupation."

One of the main tenets of IVAW is that all troops should be withdrawn from Iraq immediately. The "Winter Soldiers" that shared their testimonies with a capacity crowd powerfully demonstrated why it is not only a good idea to withdrawal, but that it is essential for the Iraqi people and the people who are serving in our armed services. From these soldiers we learned that they are suffering because of bad leadership, racism that infiltrates the entire military, sexism, emotional/mental trauma and actual physical pain. This is what the war is doing to our military personnel. And we are the occupiers: Imagine what the occupation is doing the people of Iraq, especially the innocents caught in this ideological war of bad ideals.

Personally, I can't thank these soldiers enough - especially the active duty reservist, Chantelle Bateman, who shared her testimony for the first time. The testimonies of Geoff Millard, the president of the DC Chapter of IVAW, and Adam Kokesh can be read in the book. Unfortunately the testimonies of Bateman, Nick Morgan and Amy Braxton are not yet published, but they will remain in the memories of those who attended. Their powerful words and activism will eventually be the reason that our military pulls up stakes and gets out of Iraq. Let's hope that they can help prevent errors, casualties and death in Afghanistan too.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Reviewed by Don Allen, Manager, Busboys and Poets Books

Set in the very near future, Little Brother goes to technological places that Orwell's Big Brother could not. Students that have read 1984 will love the references to Orwell's original and will appreciate the upgrade.

After a major terrorist attack in San Francisco, 17-year-old hacker extraordinaire, w1n5t0n (pronounced "Winston") is arrested by a Department of Homeland Security that has gone on a civil rights-crushing campaign to fight "terrorists." In no time our clever protagonist realizes that the DHS is the real enemy of the American people, although these same American people roll over and endure the loss of rights so that they can feel safer. Sound familiar?

Shortly after the government crackdown, a group of high school kids figure out how to circumvent the surveillance techniques of authorities and launch a movement to jam the system (and not trust anybody over 25, Woohoo!).

This is a young adult novel, so there are some nifty little history lessons about the Free Speech Movement, Emma Goldman and others along the way. Just watch what happens to the teacher that dares to teach the kids about past mass citizen movements. Throw in a little teenage insecurity about friendships and the opposite sex and the clueless-ness of adults and you have a book that teenagers should love. Rebellious adults will also have a hard time putting this book down, even if it is geared toward the more technologically savvy younger generation.

Video of Antonia Juhasz at Busboys and Poets in the Langston Room

VIDEO of Jennifer Baumgardner at Busboys and Poets in the Langston Room

A People's History of the World by Chris Harman

Reviewed by Eagan Heath, Truman Scholar, Teaching For Change Intern (2008)

Chris Harman’s A People’s History of the World can be rightly described as audacious, in concept if not in execution. This work is not a text that comprehensively walks the reader through so enormous a topic as the title suggests. Perhaps the first thing a potential reader of the book should know is that Harman is interested in the history of class struggle specifically (and not necessarily the history of “the world”) from a fairly orthodox Marxist perspective. The author is not a historian, but rather a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party in Britain and the editor of International Socialism. As one learns from the overtly-written conclusion (or by simply gathering from the book’s unceasing theme of class), Harman is interested in world history insofar as it informs the origins of today’s global capitalism. Nothing approaching a comprehensive history of the world is achieved, nor could it be in 620 pages (without counting endnotes).

What Harman does achieve is something resembling an elaborated and updated Communist Manifesto. The author reminds us of the human toll—in war, suffering, and labor—that history’s most powerful elites required to erect their monuments and sustain their empires. Moreover, A People’s History of the World provides a broad-brush account of the changing conditions of exploitation that have propped up the dominant classes ever since the decline of the egalitarian existence of hunter-gatherer societies.

Due to the focus on the origins of industrial capitalism, Harman’s book is heavy on the Europe, light on the rest. There are a few notable but brief sections on Asia, one on the origins of Islam, and a paltry four pages dedicated to “The African Civilizations,” which deal almost entirely with Europe’s domination thereof.

While academics would never accept the sweeping generalizations that Harman sometimes makes (or his reliance on a few main sources for each section), the lay reader may find the abundance of seemingly academic details frustrating. This is especially true when the author lists innovations or thinkers from a given period without explaining them. One also gets the sense, at least in the chapters that cover pre-industrialization, that Harman is going out of his way to show that Europe was not always dominant, whether in innovation or power. The adjective “backward” is frequently employed to such an end. His disdain for what have become the dominant features of the West is nowhere more apparent than in his chapter on Christianity.

Despite overstepping the bounds of what is reasonable to cover in one single-volume tome, A People’s History of the World offers useful insight into the origins of modernity. The introduction features a worthy reminder that violence and oppression as we know them are not in fact part of human nature, but functions of the various hierarchical and labor-specialized social structures that emerged relatively recently in human history.

	(L-r) Laila Al-Arian, Geoff Millard and Chris Hedges discuss Collateral Damage (Staff photo D. Hanley).

Collateral Damage Authors at DC’s Busboys and Poets (from Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September-October 2008, page 63)

PULITZER Prize-winning free-lance journalist Chris Hedges, co-author Laila Al-Arian and Iraq war veteran Geoff Millard held a jam-packed book signing at Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC on June 19.

Hedges began by giving a good plug for Busboys and Poets. He is a lover of books, he said, who has never bought a TV. This vibrant bookstore is one of the few independent bookstores left in the nation’s capital, he pointed out, as Barnes and Noble and Amazon seek to kill off competitors like Olsson’s and even Borders Books. “I don’t want the owners of Walmart to choose my books,” Hedges said. Busboy’s owner Andy Shallal has successfully blended activism, good food, speakers and books to attract an enthusiastic clientele.

Hedges explained why he and Al-Arian wrote Collateral Damage. After 20 years covering wars abroad, losing colleagues, and facing debilitating PTSD himself, Hedges said he wanted to write about the patterns and poisons of war and tell readers deeply disturbing narratives that are not disseminated in the mainstream press.

Al-Arian and Hedges spent seven months finding U.S. veterans of the Iraq war with the physical and moral courage to stand up and tell the truth about the war. Al-Arian went to pro- and anti-war veterans groups and interviewed 50 veterans. Together they put together a these soldiers’ narratives in gut-wrenching detail —Delinda C. Hanley

VIDEO of Peniel Joseph at Busboys and Poets in the Langston Room