Books of the Month: "I Want You to Shut the @#$* Up" and "What's the Matter with White People"

Since we didn't have an official book of the month last month we thought we'd run with 2 books to make up for it.  The first is:

"I Want You to Shut the F#ck Up: How the Audacity of Dopes Is Ruining America"

by 

D.L Hughley

And the second is:

"What's the Matter with White People?"

by 

Joan Walsh

 

"I Want You to Shut the F#ck Up:

Per Amazon:

 “Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is.” —Richard Nixon

“I believe America is the solution to the world’s problems.” —Rush Limbaugh

“SHUT THE F#CK UP.” —D. L. Hughley
The American dream is in dire need of a wake-up call. A f*cked up society is like an addict: if you are in denial, then things are going to keep getting worse until you hit bottom. According to D. L. Hughley, that's the direction in which America is headed.

In I Want You to Shut the F*ck Up, D.L. explains how we've become a nation of fat sissies playing Chicken Little, but in reverse: The sky is falling, but we're supposed to act like everything's fine. D.L. just points out the sobering facts: there is no standard of living by which we are the best. In terms of life expectancy, we're 36th--tied with Cuba; in terms of literacy, we're 20th--behind Kazakhstan. We sit here laughing at Borat, but the Kazakhs are sitting in their country reading.

Things are bad now and they're only going to get worse. Unless, of course, you sit down, shut the f*ck up, and listen to what D. L. Hughley has to say. I Want You to Shut the F*ck Up is a slap to the political senses, a much needed ass-kicking of the American sense of entitlement.  In these pages, D. L. Hughley calls it like he sees it, offering his hilarious yet insightful thoughts on:

- Our supposedly post-racial society
- The similarities between America the superpower and the drunk idiot at the bar
- Why Bill Clinton is more a product of a black upbringing than Barack Obama
- That apologizing is not the answer to controversy, especially when you meant what you said 
- Why civil rights leaders are largely to blame for black people not being represented on television
- Why getting your ghetto pass revoked should be seen as a good thing, not something to be ashamed of 
- And how hard it is to be married to a black woman

 "What's the Matter with White People"

Per Amazon:

How scapegoat politics is dividing America and bankrupting the middle classThe size and stability of the American middle class was once the envy of the world. But changes unleashed in the 1960s pitted Americans against one another politically in new and destructive ways—while economically, everyone fell behind except the wealthy.
Right-wing culture warriors blamed the decline on the moral shortcomings of "other" Americans—blacks, feminists, gays, immigrants, union members —to court a fearful white working and middle class base with ever more bitter "us" vs. "them" politics. Liberals tried but mostly failed to make the case that we're all in this together. In All for None and None for All, MSNBC political analyst and popular Salon columnist Joan Walsh traces this deeply disturbing dynamic as it has played out over the last forty years, dividing the country, poisoning its politics, jeopardizing its future—and splitting her working class Irish Catholic family as well.

• Connects the dots of American decline through trends that began in the 1970s and continue today—including the demise of unions, the stagnation of middle class wages, the extension of the right's "Southern Strategy" throughout the country, the victory of Reagan Republicanism, the widening partisan divide, the increase in income inequality, and the drop in economic mobility.
• Shows how liberals unwittingly collaborated in the "us" vs. "them" narrative and failed to develop an inspiring, persuasive vision of a more fair, united America
• Explores how the GOP's renewed culture war—one which could conceivably make Rick Santorum president, and produced radical changes in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, and Virginia—now scapegoats even segments of its base, as it blames the troubles of working class whites on their own moral failings rather than an unfair economy

As the United States becomes a "majority-minority" culture, while the GOP doubles down on racial and cultural appeals to rev up its demographically threatened white base in 2012, Walsh talks about race in honest, unflinching, unfamiliar terms, acknowledging not just Republican but Democratic Party political mistakes—and her own. This book will be essential reading as the country struggles through political polarization and racial change to invent the next America in the years to come.