Brown Pride

Houston is the largest city in the Gulf South, a region sometimes referred to as the “black belt” because of its sizeable African American population. Yet, over the last thirty years, Latinos have become the largest ethnic minority in Houston, which is surpassed only by Los Angeles and New York in the number of Latino residents. Examining the history and effects of this phenomenon, Black-Brown Solidarity describes the outcomes of unexpected coalitions that have formed between the rapidly growing Latino populations and the long-held black enclaves in the region. Together, minority residents have put the spotlight on prominent Old South issues such as racial profiling and police brutality. Expressions of solidarity, John D. Márquez argues, have manifested themselves in expressive forms such as hip-hop music, youth gang cultural traits, and the storytelling of ordinary residents in working-class communities. Contrary to a growing discourse regarding black-brown conflict across the United States, the blurring of racial boundaries reflects broader arguments regarding hybrid cultures that unsettle the orders established by centuries-old colonial formations. Accentuating what the author defines as a racial state of expendability—the lynchpin of vigilante violence and police brutality—the new hybridization has resulted in shared wariness of a linked fate. Black-Brown Solidarity also explores the ways in which the significance of African American history in the South has influenced the structures through which Latinos have endured and responded to expendability. Mining data from historical archives, oral histories, legal documents, popular media, and other sources, this work is a major contribution to urban studies, ethnic studies, and critical race theory.

Weaving together personal stories, history, and analysis, Same Family, Different Colors explores the myriad ways skin-color politics affect family dynamics in the United States. Colorism and color bias—the preference for or presumed superiority of people based on the color of their skin—is a pervasive and damaging but rarely openly discussed phenomenon. In this unprecedented book, Lori L. Tharps explores the issue in African American, Latino, Asian American, and mixed-race families and communities by weaving together personal stories, history, and analysis. The result is a compelling portrait of the myriad ways skin-color politics affect family dynamics in the United States. Tharps, the mother of three mixed-race children with three distinct skin colors, uses her own family as a starting point to investigate how skin-color difference is dealt with. Her journey takes her across the country and into the lives of dozens of diverse individuals, all of whom have grappled with skin-color politics and speak candidly about experiences that sometimes scarred them. From a Latina woman who was told she couldn’t be in her best friend’s wedding photos because her dark skin would “spoil” the pictures, to a light-skinned African American man who spent his entire childhood “trying to be Black,” Tharps illuminates the complex and multifaceted ways that colorism affects our self-esteem and shapes our lives and relationships. Along with intimate and revealing stories, Tharps adds a historical overview and a contemporary cultural critique to contextualize how various communities and individuals navigate skin-color politics. Groundbreaking and urgent, Same Family, Different Colors is a solution-seeking journey to the heart of identity politics, so that this more subtle “cousin to racism,” in the author’s words, will be exposed and confronted.

GORDON BROWN's three years in power were among the most turbulent in Downing Street's post-war history. Brown at 10 tells the compelling story of his hubris and downfall, and with it, the final demise of the New Labour project. Containing an extraordinary breadth of previously unpublished material, Brown at 10 is a frank, penetrating portrait of a remarkable era, written by one of Britain's leading political and social commentators. Using unrivalled access to many of those at the centre of Brown's government, and original material gleaned from hundreds of hours of interviews with many of its leading lights, Brown at 10 looks with greater depth and detail into the signal events and circumstances of Brown's premiership than any other account published since the May 2010 general election. It also relates, for the first time, the full extraordinary tale of the pivotal role played by Brown in persuading the world's leaders to address the global banking crisis head-on. The result is the definitive chronicle of Gordon Brown's troubled period in Number 10, from the unique perspective of those who worked most closely with him.

Gangs continue to commit criminal activity, recruit new members in urban, suburban, and rural regions across the United States, and develop criminal associations that expand their influence over criminal enterprises, particularly street-level drug sales. The most notable trends for 2011 have been the overall increase in gang membership, and the expansion of criminal street gangs' control of street-level drug sales and collaboration with rival gangs and other criminal organizations.

Over the past few decades, the writings of Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) have reclaimed a place of prominence in the American literary canon. Yet despite the explosion of teaching, research, and an ever-increasing number of doctoral dissertations, there remains no up-to-date overview of Brown's work. The Oxford Handbook of Charles Brockden Brown provides a state-of-the-art survey of the life and writings of Charles Brockden Brown, a key writer of the Atlantic revolutionary age and U.S. Early Republic. The seven novels he published during his lifetime are now studied for their narrative complexity, innovations in genre, and social-political commentaries on life in early America and the revolutionary Atlantic. Through the late twentieth century, Brown was best known as an author of political romances in the gothic mode that proved to be widely influential in romantic era, and has generated large amounts of scholarship as a crucial figure in the history of the American novel. This Handbook extends its focus beyond the well-known novels to address the full range of Brown's prolific literary career. The Handbook includes original essays on all of Brown's fiction and nonfiction writings, and offers new interpretations of the contexts of his work: from the literary, social, political, and economic to the scientific, commercial, and religious. The thirty-five contributors in this volume speak in new ways about Brown's depictions of literary theory, social justice, sexuality, and property relations, as well as colonialism, slavery, Native Americans, and women's rights. Brown's perspectives on American and global history, emerging modernity, selfhood and otherness, and other topics, are explained in comprehensible and up-to-date terms. In addition to opening up new avenues of research, The Oxford Handbook of Charles Brockden Brown provides the intellectual foundations needed to understand Brown's enduring impact and literary legacy.

"She stayed for over half a century. When the failing school was closed at the end of her first year, Brown remained to carry on. With virtually no resources save her own energy and determination, she founded Palmer Memorial Institute, a private secondary school for African Americans. In the fifty years during which she led the school, Brown built Palmer up to become one of the premier academies for African American children in the nation. Of the hundreds of African American schools operating in North Carolina around 1900, only Palmer gained national renown, outlasting virtually every other such school."--BOOK JACKET.

A Study Guide for Sandra Cisneros's "My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

Betrayed by the third generation weapons, the Zoeks are scattered. Some have been taken to the Experiment Halls, while some are still in hiding. In an unfortunate twist, Memory and Abednego are taken into custody by a small precinct. The law enforcement have no idea what is ahead of them, but they have an awful feeling it has something to do with the disappearances in the neighborhood a few months before. Tyme, Tech, and Ghost befriend the Gutter Rats, a group of ex-gang members. The three Zoeks unravel the Elite’s plan to destroy the neighborhood with one violent act at a time. While their friends fight to save lives, the rest of the Zoeks find themselves in the hands of Agent Jagger and the Elite Representatives. Who will be sold? Who will be executed? And will they ever see each other again?