EQUALITY NOT A REALITY? THESE NATIONAL WINNERS POINT THE WAY

2002 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award Winners

December 10^th, 2002

In the only award of its kind, a tiny but far-reaching national center for the study of bigotry and human rights today named 10 new books as outstanding in helping shed light on bigotry in America. Moreover, they help carve paths towards social justice.

The books, featuring a range of styles, stories, and topics, were named winners of the 2002 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award. The award was made on Human Rights Day by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights, a national organization which works to promote ways for people to become more active in creating an equitable world for all. The center, housed at Simmons College in Boston, was founded in 1984.

The awards were made by an eclectic review panel from across America representing a wide variety of ages, occupations, cultures and ethnic groups. What the books have in common, says Myers Center Director Loretta Williams, is that they all offer the readers a chance to step beyond common assumptions and hesitancies and "connect in different ways to dismantling bigotry."

"These aren't just any books," says Williams. "They bring often-taboo topics to print. They provide a kaleidoscopic view of what we humans have built in the past. They get people to thinking, again and anew, that maybe some folk have good ideas about changing intractable problems."

"Our winning authors write of resiliency in response to oppression," said panelist Anupama Taranath of Seattle, WA. "They are saying things that were not said so boldly in the past. At the core, they all have insights for those working for social change."

The books include three novels, two memoirs, and five different sociopolitical analyses. Topics offer readers the chance to step beyond stereotypes about homogeneity within racial or ethnic groups, reservations about connecting religious beliefs to social policy, common assumptions about "criminals" and welfare recipients, young readers' abilities to handle the history and realities of bigotry, "whitewashed" media coverage, and white affirmative action.

2002 Honorable Mention List

Rilla Askew,
Fire in Beulah
(Viking, 2001)

Fire in Beulah tells historically accurate events in the form of fiction. Askew's riveting novel is set within the context of the 1920s Oklahoma oil rush and the Tulsa "race riots," showing the social and racial ramifications of towns infused with newly rich money in an era of greed and staggering racism.

Jimmy Santiago Baca,
A Place to Stand: The Making of a Poet
(Grove Atlantic Press, 2001)

Disadvantages faced by poor persons of color grow exponentially when they are incarcerated due to both the nature of prison system and life, and an apathetic public that has no desire to address issues of "bad" folk. Baca's book is a page-turner of a memoir about growing up in New Mexico disenfranchised due to a combination of factors, and about his learning to read and write while incarcerated. Now a noted poet, Baca's story is one of resiliency.

Stephen Hart,
Cultural Dilemmas in Progressive Politics: Styles of Engagement Among Grassroots Activists
(University of Chicago Press 2001)

This book examines how citizens might best engage persuasively with social and political activism and change. Hart looks at the way community and advocacy groups frame their messages, and sometimes diminish their effectiveness by not being culturally robust.

Karen Hesse,
Witness
(Scholastic Press 2001)

Witness is a young adult novel centering on bigotry and mounting tensions in a small Vermont town in the 1920s, conveying what drew some people to the Ku Klux Klan in the turbulent years following World War I, and how others with small but significant acts of courage broke the power of the Klan.

Latina Feminist Group,*
Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios
(Duke University Press, 2001)

Telling to Live deliberately weaves practice and theory to make compelling narratives of 18 women forging their lives' journeys, and their academic and political stances.

*Members of the Latina Feminist Group are Luz del Alba Acevedo, Norma Alarcón, Celia Alvarez, Ruth Behar, Rina Benmayer, Norma E. Cantú, Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Luz del Alba, Gloria Holguín Cuádraz. Lisa Fiol-Matta, Yvette Gisele Flores-Ortiz, Inés Hernández-Avila, Aurora Levins Morales, Clara Lomas, Iris Ofelia López, Mirtha N. Quintanales, Eliana Rivero, Caridad Souza and Patricia Zavella.

Graciela Limón,
Erased Faces
(Arte Publico Press 2001)

The three main characters come together in the liberation struggles of the Chiapas people from the abusive Mexican government. The author weaves the portrayal of "big" societal issues of oppression and resistance into the stories of her characters, yielding a compelling portrait of a society in transition.

Rubén Martinez,
Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail
(Metropolitan Books 2001)

Martinez, associate editor at Pacific News Service, spent four years living among one extended indigenous family. The book follows a southwestern Mexican family, and the amalgam of cultures, as various family members deal with conditions on a tomato farm in Missouri, strawberry farms in California, and slaughterhouses in Wisconsin.

Kenneth J. Neubeck and Noel Cazenave,
Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card Against America's Poor
(Routledge 2001)

This is a powerful expose of a deeply-rooted form of racism that hits poor people in general, not just those of color. The authors examine the federal and state welfare reform in the 1990s that made finding the way out of poverty the "personal responsibility" of mothers. They show how racist stereotypes about welfare recipients resulted in escalating antipathy toward public assistance. Practical recommendations for action are offered.

Philip F. Rubio,
A History of Affirmative Action 1619-2000
(University Press of Mississippi 2001)

Philip Rubio paints a comprehensive historical backdrop for looking at how white privilege dominates the casting of the U.S. as a nation and society. The impetus for this historical review is Rubio's curiosity about the emotional intensity generated--particularly by white workers, but also some of color--by the modest 20th century policy of affirmative action as a compensatory measure to help correct racial inequities.

Neil Websdale,
Policing the Poor: From Slave Plantation to Public Housing
(Northeastern University Press 2001)

Community policing is touted as one step forward in making urban communities more habitable, but Websdale vehemently disagrees. He provides data and analysis from his ethnographic study of a Nashville, TN, public housing development. He talked with both the police and the "policed," to conclude that community policing is a contemporary parallel to slave patrols before the Civil War, and the segregated patterns of punitive control under Jim Crow.

2002 Honorable Mention List

For additional information on the authors and contents of the books, or for contact information for the authors, contact lorewill@myerscenter.org, or call 617-521-2171.

Co-sponsors of the book awards are American Friends Service Committee, Center for Democratic Renewal, Fellowship of reconciliation, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Conference for Community and Justice; National Urban League, PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), Political Research Associates, Poverty & Race Research Action Council, Unitarian Universalist Association, United Church of Christ, and individual and institutional donors.

The Myers reviewers give and gain much as they go about their work over the year -
thank you, thank you, thank you, reviewers!!!

Congratulations to each of the authors for their joining the Myers Circle of Winners! Thank you for stimulating in readers expanded ways that we can effectively work for social justice today.