Amazing Artifact: All-Negro Comics

 All-Negro Comics: America's First Black Comic Book by Orrin C. Evans 

(edited by Chris Robinson)

All-Negro Comics book cover

Journalist and comic author Orrin C. Evans

Editor and author Chris Robinson

Big thanks to image Comics and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of All-Negro Comics: America’s First Black Comic Book. This was an incredible artifact that documents the first (and only) issue of All-Negro Comics, the work of Orrin C Evans, a Philadelphia journalist, and a team of talented Black artists who sought to share Black stories Black audiences and schools by creating this series. Although it ended up being the only issue, Image Comics work with Chris Robinson and the informative essay by Qiana Whitted helps to preserve and share the story of this important work that helped to redefine Black characters in comics for future generations. I was also excited to learn more about Orrin Evans’s story as a journalist who sought to create a comic book dedicated to Black readers. I can’t believe that I have never heard of him or this issue. I wish that I was aware of his story when I was teaching in Philly because this would have been such a great topic to research and learn more about. Regardless, it’s exciting that this work has preserved and digitized copies of the initial issue. The digital version I read is exquisite and shows no signs of wear. The colors are vivid, yet retain some of that muted comic color you’d see on the page. I was surprised at how vibrant and fresh some of the dialogue was in some of the stories as well, especially the Ace Harlem detective story. That character along with Lion Man were my two favorite sections from this collection. They were both more in the traditional mode of comic characters, a detective and a kind of superhero protecting the land from invading mercenaries. The others comics were also interesting to read, although as Whitted notes in her essay, they also have similar issues of representation that Evans and his team were probably trying to address yet also maintain some kind of audience attention (like Bubba in Lion Man or the women portrayed in Sugar Foot and Snake Oil and Ace Harlem). Some of these characters run the risk of perpetuating stereotypes that other comics engaged in, but  Whitted explains how characters like Lion Man and even the Dew Dillies present opportunities for Evans and his team to show that Black characters were capable of being brave and adventurous, as well as noting that some Black children may have struggled with companionship and finding friends amid segregation. The messages in these comics were not blatant and explicit, but rather subdued and implicit, which allows the stories, action, characters and humor to be more fully noticed.

I really appreciated the essays that were contained in this collection as well. Whitted’s essay explaining the history of this collection and how the second issue never came to be was fascinating to learn more about. It was also cool to see that Evans envisioned this comic being in schools as a way to appeal to more Black students. Her essay noting Evans’s intention reminds readers of the importance of representation and how meaningful that can be for students of color, especially considering that this issue was published around the time that Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted their doll studies that eventually influenced the Brown decision. Whitted’s research also helps to explain why there is a longer narrative in the collection that has no real comic panels, reminding readers that comics were highly regulated at this time. I was actually wondering whether there was some pushback from government and parent organizations that tried to strictly regulate comics in the 40s and 50s. While I’m sure that they would face racism, I also wondered whether some of the stories in this comic that featured murder and violence might have faced similar scrutiny to other comics.

The latter part of this collection contains other essays from Black comic artists that testify to the power of discovering this collection, and updated versions of the comics. This was really interesting to see as well since the artists presented the stories in more modern ways that also tried to address some of the problematic characters and representations in the initial issue. The art in these updates is also more diverse in style, yet still manages to be distinct and captivating. The stories are equally interesting. I really enjoyed reading this collection both for the historical significance of this collection but also for the aesthetic elements of these comics. Highly recommended! 

Sometimes Dead Is Better: The Fisherman by John Langan

 The Fisherman by John Langan

The Fisherman book cover

Author John Langan

The Fisherman by John Langan is a disturbing and disquieting novel that contained both disgusting and fantastic imagery and situations, which is probably why it was one of my favorite horror novels that I’ve read this year. Although the book came out nearly 10 years ago, the story is almost timeless and reflects the qualities and characteristics of many great American horror and gothic writers. I loved the way that Langan frames the story of Abe, a widower who befriends a co-worker who also experienced the tragic loss of his family. While Abe and Dan came to their grief in different ways, Abe, whose wife died of cancer a few years prior to Dan’s family’s car accident, recognizes the signs of grief that mark Dan as adrift and struggling. Abe uses fishing as a means to pull himself out of the house and eventually uses it as a means to bond with and support Dan as he tries to navigate his loss and life without his family. Abe is a great narrator, and I loved his candid revelations about his grief and behavior after his wife’s death. His story is both relatable and engaging, making the sense of loss accessible as well as creating a sense of empathy for him. It’s also why his ability to notice Dan’s sense of grief after his family’s accident makes Abe even more likeable. There’s something about Abe’s narrative that reminds me of some of the best Stephen King narrators. He is honest and lays his grief bare, but at the same time presents his loss and grieving behavior in some kind of humorous and relatable hindsight.

Abe’s story takes a detour as he and Dan set out to fish at Dutchman’s Creek, a remote and legendary fishing spot in upstate New York. On their trip to Dutchman’s Creek, they stop at a diner where the owner, Howard, shares a legend about the creek and its supposed mythical qualities. I was really surprised at this shift of perspective from Abe and Dan’s bonding over their grief to a story told to Howard by an elderly resident of the town about her father and husband’s experiences with The Fisherman of Dutchman’s Creek. This part of the story was incredible and had so many different influences streaming through it. The story is a story of immigrants who take the opportunity to make a new life for themselves in New York, with Rainer escaping from his studies at a university in Germany for initially unknown reasons. There’s also the mysterious Dort, who loses his wife and becomes somewhat reclusive, but also wealthy after her death. Dort also befriends a mysterious man in black who ultimately overtakes his home. There seem to be parallels between Dort and Abe and Dan, who have all lost their spouses. In many ways too, Rainer also experiences a kind of cultural death, but he sees opportunities to remake himself using his intuition, knowledge and skills rather than relying on other means, like his esoteric linguistic studies from the university. His rebirth/renewal is similar to the reemergence that Abe experiences with fishing. Both men find new life through water, as Rainier eventually becomes a mason working on a new reservoir. I also couldn’t help but think about Moby Dick with some of these elements in both narratives. Abe, a shortened version of a biblical name, tells a story of his own previous experiences much like Ishmael, the narrator of Melville’s classic. Furthermore, Rainier’s colleagues in masonry are primarily immigrants as well, similar to the diverse make-up of the Pequod’s crew. Both stories also feature a Leviathan-like beast, a large, terrible beast whose whiteness represents death and the unknown. Furthermore, the little community that Rainer settles in with mysterious older men kind of reminded me of Hawthorne’s work where members talk about one another and gossip occurs. However, I think that Poe and Lovecraft probably stood out as one of the most prominent examples from Howard’s nested narrative. There are elements of guilt that some of the characters experience from their losses and actions, and this grief ends up haunting them in ways that they cannot imagine. However, it is the strange creatures that come from the waters that eventually become Dutchman’s Creek that resemble the kinds of cosmic horror that Lovecraft described as the old gods. Rainier’s application of his university studies, his mystical learning and ability to craft sigils and symbols to harness the dark powers really reminded me of Lovecraft’s work. There are also many references to mythology, particularly Egyptian mythology (Apep or Apophis) and Biblical mythology (Leviathan). This was also a really cool reference and a way to represent the kind of power and chaos that can be unleashed when people try to challenge nature.

One other reference I couldn’t help but notice from this story was that of RW Jacob’s classic story “The Monkey’s Paw” or its more recent novelization in King’s Pet Semetary, where the message is to be careful what one wishes for (or maybe sometimes dead is better). Part of Dutchman’s Creek’s allure is its ability to conjure up the dead and bring them back to life; however, like all of these great stories, this kind of return comes at a cost, primarily to the wisher or those that seek to spend some last moments with their lost loved ones. Helen, a wife and mother who dies and “comes back wrong”, helps to remind readers of this important message, and she was one of the more terrifying examples of the unnatural consequences of trying to cheat death. Langan repeatedly describes her eyes as a haunting, glowing yellow, but also notes how her body, destroyed by a carriage accident, remains bent at odd, unnatural angles. She speaks in a watery, garbled voice, and eventually undergoes a kind of piscine transformation. Her husband, George, struggles to keep his sanity after Helen’s return, and eventually experiences one of the more frightening and gross deaths, spewing continuous streams of black water and eye-headed tadpoles. I loved Langan’s imaginative creatures and consequences of exploring the dark arts. He created such a terrifying vision and unique spin on these stories, making it compelling to read. Rainer and colleagues eventually must battle Der Fisher, the mysterious man who has brought so much chaos to the town, and the remainder of Howard’s story details these events. There’s so much inventive cosmic horror happening in these sections, it was really cool to read. However, I loved how Langan uses this story about death and grief to set us up for Abe and Dan’s visit to Dutchman’s Creek, leaving us to wonder about Dan’s intentions of visiting this creek where the dead seem to return, but possibly all wrong or at a cost. It’s a great narrative structure that has several interconnected stories all tied together. It’s a brilliant book, and I’m glad that I was finally able to read this amazing story. I know it was on my to-read list, and after reading Langan’s essay from the excellent collection Why I Love Horror edited by Becky Siegel Spratford, I knew that I wanted to read this book. It exceeded my expectations, and is a book I not only recommend, but would love to revisit. 

Amazing Book About Bruce Lee and Asian American Identity: Water Mirror Echo by Jeff Chang

 Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America by Jeff Chang

Water Mirror Echo book cover

Author Jeff Chang

Huge props to Mariner Books and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of Jeff Chang’s epic new book Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America. Jeff Chang has written, in my opinion, the definitive history of hip-hop in Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, which was one of the best books about music I have ever read, and his latest book will probably be the definitive book about Bruce Lee. Although the book is part biography, it also seeks to examine how Bruce Lee’s career and legendary status fits into the development of Asian American identity, but also the global struggle for identity and rights in emerging and developing nations in the late 60s and early 70s. Although I was interested in learning more about Bruce Lee’s life and career, Chang’s book presents so much more to consider both in the US and globally as a way to examine how Bruce Lee’s iconic gung fu and nose swipes provided hope and inspiration to many people across the globe.

Chang’s book is thorough and detailed in telling Lee’s story and examining the historical and social context of the events and influences that eventually led Bruce Lee to become one of the first Asian male leads in American films. There are 3 sections of the book: Water, Mirror, and Echo. Water focuses on Bruce’s early life in Hong Kong, as well as his family life. I didn’t know too much about Bruce Lee’s family or early life, except that he had trouble in school in Hong Kong due to fighting. What was interesting to learn about was that his father was an actor and opera star, and Bruce starred in some films as a child with his father. This section also details how Bruce eventually came to study gung fu with Ip Man, the famed sifu. What I also enjoyed about this section was learning more about how various global factors like war and the revolution in mainland China impacted Bruce and his family’s life in Hong Kong. Although he came form a family of performers, the war and revolution created some instability for his family. Although Bruce was born in the US, Chang details the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892 and how racism and stereotypes about Chinese in particular motivated the US to limit immigration and create quotas. While it may seem that Chang’s historical context is something of a digression, it actually helps to establish some of the other elements of the book that make this such a fascinating read. For one, this act limited the number of Chinese immigrants that could apply for citizenship, and as working performers, the Lee family would most likely not be eligible to apply for citizenship. More importantly, Chang identifies some of the racist stereotypes that shaped the national sentiment towards Chinese immigrants from other Asian countries. These stereotypes, shaped not only by the media’s imperialistic bent but also by literature like Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu ended up limiting the kinds of roles that Asian Americans could play in films and on television. This kind of limitation would influence the trajectory of Bruce’s career and make him push harder to become a lead in films.

This section also examines Bruce’s migration to the US. Since he was born in the US, he was a citizen, although he needed to register for selective service to maintain his citizenship Interestingly, Bruce struggled to stay out of fights in Hong Kong and had to eventually leave for the US, moving initially to San Franscisco and then to Seattle. This was also fascinating to read about as Bruce refined his philosophies about gung fu here, as well as working as a waiter at one of the first Chinese restaurants in Seattle. I enjoyed learning more about Bruce’s ideas about gung fu and how he tried to push his body to the limits to achieve more control and force in his fighting style. In addition, this section outlines the kinds of racism and discrimination that Bruce faced in Seattle. Like the first section, Mirror also details some of the historical and cultural events that were occurring in the mid to late 1960s that had a bearing on Asian America and Bruce’s life. Vietnam was probably one of the most significant factors in Bruce’s life at this time since as a US citizen, he was eligible for the draft. However, Chang also presents Bruce as a normal American teen boy, trying to navigate his life and future with the specter of war hanging over his head. I loved reading about his experiences at college, and how he continually charmed women and teachers with his jokes and physical demonstrations. Bruce also didn’t really seem to know what he wanted to study, vacillating between physical education and drama. Chang also notes how Bruce approached writing assignments, often bringing in Taoist poetry and philosophy or translating Chinese poetry to support his ideas. As someone who has taught international students from China, the idea of intellectual property and plagiarism in the US and China is very different. Although Bruce attended British schools in Hong Kong, I would imagine that the idea of putting in quotes and famous lines was more of a sign of scholarship than plagiarism. Chang presents Bruce as a performer—someone who was eager to demonstrate his physical capabilities and attract attention, but also someone who was seeking to further define himself on his own terms, particularly by demonstrating the power, strength and possibilities of gung fu. In this section, Bruce also meets Linda Emery, who would eventually become his wife and mother to his children. To highlight the kind of racism Bruce and Linda experienced, Chang notes how Linda had to hide her relationship with Bruce from her mother until they were about to elope. It seems that Bruce eventually won over his mother-in-law’s confidence in the ways that he charmed many others. Regardless, this section introduces Linda’s perspective, who helped to support Bruce in his quest to redefine gung fu and share his philosophies for self-defense with a larger audience.

Mirror, the second section, chronicles at Bruce’s move to California as well as his move to the screen and his attempts to share gung fu an American audience. Prior to this, Bruce opened a school to teach his brand of gung fu, Jeet Kune Do, a style descended from Wing Chun. This section also details some of Bruce’s students and colleagues who eventually taught at his schools. I enjoyed learning more about the evolution of martial arts in America, which it seemed like was primarily centered on the west coast. There are a few great stories about how other schools challenged Bruce’s school, and apparently one famous fight between Bruce and another sifu. I wasn’t aware of this event, but it seemed like a major event in the martial arts scene that led to Bruce’s rise among American martial artists. Chang examines how eastern influences were seeping into the counterculture, which may have led to a greater interest in martial arts like gung fu. With the increasing prominence of competitions and a growing interest in studying Eastern philosophies, Bruce begins to make connections in Hollywood, attracting some prominent clients to train with. He also lands a role as Kato, the assistant to the Green Hornet. I found this to be one of the most interesting sections of the book since it delves further into the dearth of roles for Asian Americans on television or movies. The show The Green Hornet is on television due to the popularity of Batman, but Bruce’s role as Kato limits his speaking and initially limits his opportunities to fight. There are some entertaining antics in this section detailing Bruce’s struggles to work with the slower, ham-fisted stunt coordinators, as well as how challenging it was to capture his speed and fluid movements on film. However, Chang also notes the limitations that other Asian American actors like Anna May Wong faced. Relegated primarily to stereotypical roles, Bruce had to fight to bring Kato more humanity and pathos and develop him as a character more than a stereotype. Again, Chang’s research and analysis provides important insight into the limitations that Asian American actors faced then and continue to face today. Furthermore, it sets the stage for Bruce’s continued push to get films featuring gung fu and Asian leads produced and distributed. Another fascinating aspect of this section is the connections that Bruce establishes through his teaching more than his acting as Kato. Bruce’s students include Steve McQueen and James Coburn, two prominent actors who attempted to help Bruce develop scripts. Yet, we also see how these actors both viewed Bruce’s role in his scripts—as more of a sidekick or supporting actor than the lead. Although there have been more films produced with Asian American leads, Chang’s research detailing this challenge in Bruce’s life reminded me of Charles Yu’s award-winning book Interior Chinatown where the main character, Willis Wu, seeks to move out of his generic Asian Man or Background Oriental role to play the “Kung Fu Guy”. Mirror and Echo both trace Bruce’s struggles to push for leading roles for himself, and his continued bets on his own stories, acting, and action to lead films. Studios did not feel the same way, which is why Bruce eventually leaves Hollywood for the opportunity to make films in Hong Kong again.

The last section, Echo, focuses mostly on Bruce’s attempts to get his films made. I have seen these films, but didn’t realize their chronology or how they came about. Furthermore, I didn’t really think about how Enter the Dragon has 3 leads… I just always thought Bruce Lee was the lead in that film. However, Chang notes that by including a white actor (John Saxon) and a Black actor (the great Jim Kelly), the studios attempted to appeal to all audiences and tried to capture the emerging Black audience that exploitation films like Shaft had recently found. I found this section equally interesting to learn how strategic Bruce was in trying to leverage the Hong Kong studios against Warner Brothers to get Enter the Dragon made. Furthermore, I didn’t realize how popular the films like The Big Boss and Fists of Fury were initially in Asian countries like The Philippines as well as in America. Chang explains that Bruce’s ability to fight those who hold power, to act as a kind of defender for the downtrodden was part of the appeal of these films and Bruce’s iconic screams, kicks, and punches. What stood out most to me from this section was how much Bruce had to work to convince studios and industry executives that he would be a bankable star. Part of this was the result of his popularity in Hong Kong and other Asian markets, but even then, studio executives seemed hesitant. Furthermore, they frequently resisted his recommendations for plot points and even naming the film Enter the Dragon. I’m glad that they eventually sided with him, but I think it shows the kind of limited roles and opportunities that actors of color had at that time, and even today. Reading this section detailing how Bruce had to fight to push his vision forward reminded me Thomas Golianopoulos’s recent book The Life of Singleton about John Singleton, who also experienced challenges and barriers trying to enact his vision for bringing Black films and stories to the big screen. Even though Singleton’s story takes place 20 year after Bruce Lee’s death, it shows that how Hollywood prefers stereotypes and tropes to actual representations, and how breaking free from those molds can sometimes be viewed as a risk. Although Singleton lived to his 50s, he still died young like Bruce. I wondered whether the kind of stress and barriers that Hollywood presented to both these men impacted their health and well-being, and whether racism had some impact on their health. It’s not something that either book said or implied, but readers can see how much harder these two artists needed to work to attain their vision and the kinds of concessions and prices they had to pay to move closer to the system, and how, at times, they had to work outside the more traditional system to bring their ideas and visions to life.

Water Mirror Echo is an incredible book. It’s long, but thorough and compelling. Chang includes relevant historical and social movements to indicate both how these events and trends influenced Bruce, and how, in other ways, he influenced them. While I was familiar with Bruce Lee’s films, this book presented a whole new side of him and helped me further understand his influence on Asian America. Much like Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, Chang presents a detailed and complex subject, identifying various connections and influences to examine how this subject, Bruce Lee, has impacted popular culture and American identity. As I was reading this book, I was pulling up videos of Bruce’s movies and showing them to my son, who had never really seen him fight before. I loved that he referenced award winning author and scholar Viet Thanh Nguyen too in determining how Bruce Lee’s career and striving further influenced Asian American identity. His inclusion not only brings an authority to the context of Bruce Lee’s life, but also helps to establish how vast and diverse Asian American identity is. I highly recommend this book! It’s one of the best biographies/histories I’ve read this year. 

Paradigm Shifts in Education: Diane Ravitch- An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else

 An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else 

by Diane Ravitch

An Education book cover

Author, Scholar, Activist Diane Ravitch

Many thanks to Columbia University Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of Diane Ravitch’s fascinating new book An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else. I’ve been following Ravitch’s blog for nearly 13 years, and I’ve come to appreciate the articles she shares as well as her insights. Her posts have become a welcome part of the start to my mornings, but more importantly, the articles she shares, the researchers and journalists she references, and the issues she highlights have expanded my awareness about issues in education, both nationally and around the world. I’ve previously read The Death and Life of the Great American School System and Reign of Error, but I didn’t know too much about Ravitch’s background beyond what she’d share on her blog. I was aware of how seismic her shift in beliefs were when she came out against standardized testing, school choice, and other reformist movements in education, but at that point, I knew she held some positions within the Bush I administration. Ravitch’s new book provides much more insight into her personal life, her experiences with education, and how she eventually became a proponent of school reform in the 80s and 90s but gradually shifted to a different mindset after realizing the failures of educational reform. As she frames this shift in her introduction, she “went from being a staunch conservative to being ‘woke’”, and I loved learning more about how this shift occurred, and why, based on her life experiences, it really wasn’t surprising that someone like Diane Ravitch would continue to question her own beliefs and ideals and move towards beliefs and ideals that supported student learning, teachers, and schools. What was most fascinating, and also somewhat sad, was how Ravitch’s views, whether conservative or progressive, seemed to repel one group or the other. She shared an anecdote about leaving Columbia to work in the Bush I administration, and when she returned to Teacher’s College, she wasn’t welcomed back. Similarly, during her time in the US Department of ED, democrats controlled Congress and informed her that they would not allow any of Bush’s policies to pass. These experiences helped to highlight that many eras of American life were (and continue to be) polarized, but Ravitch’s experiences throughout this book help to remind us of  “the importance of admitting error, of keeping an open mind and regularly looking at evidence, of listening to people with whom I disagreed.” I really appreciated this mindset, especially today when it seems that nearly everything we read or encounter is either meant to make us enraged or is manipulated to induce a kind of emotional response rather than to calmly think the information through and consider its meaning. Furthermore, Ravitch’s experiences remind us that we do have the right to change our opinions, and that as we continue to grow, learn, and live, this is a natural outcome. Our values, our preferences, and even our priorities will change over time, and we should be able to admit either when we were wrong or why these aspects of our selves have changed.

Ravitch’s book straddles the line between a kind of memoir and a philosophical reflection, examining how one’s ideas and beliefs shift over time. She begins the book discussing her family and her experiences growing up in Texas among a large Jewish family. I really enjoyed learning more about Ravitch’s family, and the kinds of experiences and encounters she had with racism and classism in Houston. Furthermore, it was interesting to learn about the expectations for women at the time, and how despite pushing young female students into home economics, Ravitch always wanted to write. I found it really interesting, though, that someone who is primarily known for education didn’t study education or really think about becoming a teacher. The chapters that focus on her experiences at Wellesley were also fascinating to read. Not only do they portray a picture of what college life was like in the early 60s, but Ravitch also had some famous classmates, and it was cool to read about the shows she put on with them. More importantly though, I enjoyed reading about her love for learning and writing, and I could see how this desire to continuously learn, to be intellectually curious, led her to continue to ask questions about schools and systems of learning.

I won’t go too much into her personal biography, but Ravitch’s chapters focusing on her marriage and her emerging scholarship of the New York school system are both fascinating and sad. As she begins to grow and develop as a writer and focuses more and more on education in NYC, events in her marriage challenge her beliefs and ideas. As Ravitch reminds readers, this was a much different time when women had fewer options, and her marriage to a more traditional man from a wealthy family probably led her to continue to accept her husband’s wishes for her. Yet, it was amazing to learn about how gained a foothold in a small publication, which led to new opportunities to learn and study with scholars of the history of education and school systems at Columbia, which eventually led to Ravitch writing a book and earning her PhD.

I found these subsequent chapters to be the most interesting, as Ravitch begins to learn more about inequality in schools and to recognize their potential as the great equalizer in American society. Her own personal story about her beliefs and ideals in schools is fascinating and seems to come largely from her own experiences as well as the research on the history of education in America. It was fascinating to read about the many times she attended functions at the White House, how she became a member of think tanks and helped to shape policy and curricula in different states. Although she discussed helping to write the California state History curricula and standards, I was wondering whether she ever worked with Jerome Bruner, who was responsible for many important shifts in American education in the 1960s, and largely helped to shape the idea of a spiral curriculum. His constructivist ideas helped to shift American education away from the behaviorist trends that dominated education and are still in practice in some form in many schools. Nevertheless, Ravitch discusses the many educational and political luminaries with whom she worked during the 80s and 90s, and it was fascinating to learn about this. However, what I found most fascinating was to learn about the policies she worked on during her tenure in the Department of Education during the Bush I presidency. While she had primarily positive things to say about Bush I, the whole policy was based on belief—belief that if they talked about higher standards, then it would someone trickle down to teachers and students, who would believe in themselves and work harder to achieve. They didn’t advocate for any additional funding or programs, but asked teachers and schools to do more with less (sound familiar?). In many ways, it reminded me of how the Regans addressed other issues with pithy sayings like “Just Say No.” It’s a nice sentiment, but really provides no real support or guidance. And now, as the department is eviscerated and its own secretary has deemed its role useless, is it any wonder why the public sentiment towards the Education Department has become so negative?

Ravitch continues her story, noting how the Clinton years brought in some eventual reforms, but I found the chapters that dealt with Bush II and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to be the most fascinating and relevant to my own experiences. I began teaching in 2000. I was actually student teaching during the 2000 election and remember just how the kind of unsettled nature of the election reflected my own uncertainty about graduation and entering the workforce. Ravitch’s own skepticism of NCLB was exactly what I remember experiencing sitting in a schoolwide PD meeting where our principal informed us that within 9 years, we needed to have all students proficient in Math and Reading. Although none of the teachers were opposed to student achievement, we were all working towards that goal every day, I think that all of us realized the improbability of this lofty goal. There was incredible variability, and I remember that I had students who rarely came to school or who had such severe behavioral problems that they were routinely referred for in-school suspension, where I had to somehow make worksheets for them to learn the materials we worked on in class. NCLB, as Ravitch mentioned about another policy, looked good to the public, but was not realistic in schools. Furthermore, she notes that many of these reformist policies were top-down approaches that punished schools that didn’t meet the standards. Furthermore, by attempting to align student performance to teachers, NCLB and its descendants like Race to the Top, created a system rife for cheating and/or avoidance. Furthermore, with so much weight on standardized tests, teaching became more test-preparation oriented, with fewer lessons focusing on concepts or ideas and more and more of a drilled down focus on skills and rote practice. It’s a section of the book that elicits a little PTSD from my last years in the classroom, but through Ravitch’s skepticism and questions about the nature of standardized testing and the punitive nature of these reforms, she helps to highlight the great cost that this era of American education had on students, teachers, and schools. Prior to the NCLB chapters, Ravitch discuses the shift in NYC’s schools with Bloomberg and Klein, which seems to be one of the loci of the reformist movements that ushered in the kind of corporatization of schools. It was actually shocking to read about some of the events that happened both in schools and personally to Ravitch and her partner, Mary. Throughout this experience, Ravitch continued to question and meet with individuals with whom she disagreed or questioned to learn more about how or what the other side thought. If anything, I think this is one of the key take-aways from Ravitch’s book—that it is important to listen and attempt to understand those with whom you may disagree. It’s a point she continues to reference throughout, and it also helped her to gradually understand the scam of school reform. She was able to begin to see how school choice, charter schools, and vouchers were used for purposes other than what they were initially designed for. Or how the reforms often addressed issues of choice or vouchers as a means to provide opportunities for families in poverty, but when looking at the outcomes, the results often tell a different story. It is Ravitch’s willingness to listen to others, but also her insistence on reviewing the facts and outcomes that informed her decisions to no longer advocate for vouchers, choice, or standardized testing.

With social media and the internet leaving a long digital trail of our lives, our thoughts and ideas, and our writing, there’s a lot for people to sift through and explore our thinking. We often see how people’s old tweets or posts are dredged up to possibly catch them in a lie or challenge their current beliefs. While Ravitch doesn’t have anything to apologize for, she offers a wonderful exploration of how our lives and experiences inform our values, ideals, and our priorities, but also how these can shift over time with further experiences, interactions, and learning. Throughout it all, Ravitch reminds us to keep our minds and ears open, to consider other’s perspectives, but to also evaluate our own positions against the evidence and ideas. I also appreciated her closing thoughts where she acknowledges how the books and articles she read influenced her thinking and ideas, and how it is important to sometimes take a step outside of our comfort zone and connect with a writer, book or ideas that challenge our assumptions and thinking. It may not shift our perspectives, but it may offer us further understanding of another perspective, which is something that we do not often see today. This is a great book to read for anyone who is involved or interested in American education. Since I am a regular reader of Ravitch’s blog and have read some of her books, I found this book to be fascinating. Highly recommended!

PS- I felt like there was so much to write about in this book. However, I forgot to mention how much I loved reading about Ravitch’s interactions with Bayard Rustin. I graduated from West Chester University and lived right next to Rustin Park. I minored in African and African American Literature, a program that was run through the Douglass Institute, and Rustin’s legacy was incredibly important to many of my professors and me. I couldn’t believe that Ravitch had Rustin sing in her home! It was really amazing to read. 

 The Life of Singleton: From Boyz N The Hood to Snowfall by Thomas Golianopoulos

The Life of Singleton book cover

Author Thomas Golianopoulos

Many thanks to Hyperion Avenue and NetGalley for sending me an advanced copy of Thomas Golianopoulos’s meticulously researched critical biography/filmography of the late John Singleton titled The Life of Singleton: From Boyz N The Hood to Snowfall. I was incredibly excited to find this book since I grew up with Singleton’s films being an important part of my life, and Singleton was included in another recent book on young filmmakers of the 90s titled Generation Tarantino by Andrew Rausch. Rausch’s book was a great overview of the changes that were evident in the 90s cinematic scene, but the chapter on Singleton primarily examines his 90s output (Boyz, Poetic Justice, Rosewood, Higher Learning) and doesn’t really delve into his personal life the way that Golianopoulos’s book does. Golianopoulos deserves much praise for researching and crafting an interesting and critical study of Singleton’s films, as well as the various factors that influenced his films. We learn about Singleton’s early appreciation for films, growing up in South Central Los Angeles in the 70s and 80s, and how his internships on sets like Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and The Arsenio Hall Show influenced his treatment of cast and crews and introduced him to future collaborators like Lawrence Fishburne and Ice Cube. As Golianopoulos notes, Singleton was both a titan of film and a complicated man, and because this is an unauthorized biography, readers learn more about Singleton’s personal life and relationships, which I found to be incredibly fascinating in this book. Nevertheless, it’s also amazing that there haven’t been more critical retrospectives on Singleton’s work since he was the youngest and first Black director nominated for an academy award nearly 35 years ago! Although his subsequent films never attained the same kind of critical response that Boyz did, Golianopoulos shows that Singleton’s persistence and vision to bring compelling and meaningful Black stories to the screen demonstrate the significance of Singleton’s filmography.

Golianopoulos organizes the chapters with Singleton’s films, with chapters focused on films he worked on from Boyz to Poetic Justice, with the earliest chapters focusing on Singleton’s life before filmmaking. It was great to read about his experiences growing up as a film lover and eventually gaining acceptance to USC’s famed filmmaking program. However, I found the film chapters to be much more engaging, as Golianopoulos provided key details about the development and production of each film, focusing on how Singleton developed ideas, found actors to work with, and eventually sought out funding from studios for his projects. Singleton famously insisted on being the director for Boyz, despite having no experience and being straight out of USC. His success with the film led the studio to provide him with nearly anything he wanted for his follow-up. It’s crazy to think that Poetic Justice was even made, featuring two superstars of music, Janet Jackson and Tupac, as well as other luminaries including Maya Angelou and Regina King. Golianopoulos examines some of the issues that plagued the development of this film, including many of Singleton’s supporters noting that he was trying to write a film told from a woman’s perspective as a young man with limited experience. Although Poetic Justice didn’t achieve the same critical success as Boyz, it has still been recognized as an important film from the 90s, and it emphasizes Singleton’s attempts to move Black narratives out of genre pictures and into more mainstream dramas. What I found particularly interesting about these chapters was the development and eventual falling out of Singleton’s friendship with Tupac, whom he claimed would be DeNiro to his Scorsese. It was fascinating to learn more about how Singleton and Tupac viewed each other as beneficiaries of their success, with Singleton encouraging Tupac to stop rapping and stick to acting. As Golianopoulos reports, Tupac’s continued development of the Bishop-thug life persona caused issues on the set of Poetic Justice and seemed to have distanced him from Singleton. It’s a shame to think about what could have been an incredible director-actor combo.

Other chapters detail similar challenges and difficulties with productions with many of them coming from Singleton himself. However, Golianopoulos also notes how as Singleton’s reputation worsened and his box office returns decreased, studios ended up putting more and more restrictions on his work. These kinds of limitations also made productions more challenging and led to limitations in the scripts and films he was able to move ahead. I actually didn’t even realize that he directed the second entry to The Fast and the Furious films, which at the time was one of the highest grossing films of the year and Singleton’s highest grossing film of his career. It was interesting to learn, though, that many of Singleton’s closest friends wondered about why he chose to work on this film, since it didn’t really match up with the previous stories that he brought to big screens. Furthermore, the success of 2 Fast 2 Furious didn’t seem to bring him any new large budget films. I loved reading about the proposed film projects that Singleton either was attached to or couldn’t get made; it was interesting to think about the different bigger budget stories that Singleton tried to make, including a Black Panther film due to his love of comic books that pre-dated the current Marvel craze by nearly 20 years. There were other projects with Will Smith and Wesley Snipes that never got off the ground, but were interesting to think about what could have been.

Singleton found more success with two excellent films from the early 2000s Hustle and Flow, which he produced, and Four Brothers, which he directed. I actually remember seeing these films in the theater and loving them. Both films were gritty throwbacks that seemed out of place for the more popular films of the time, yet totally entertaining for someone looking for a unique voice in film. Although maybe not as symbolic as Boyz, both films examine underdogs or those individuals living at the margins of society who seek to challenge the more dominant systems and find their voices and places by taking power back. Golianopoulos continually references the importance of Kurosawa for Singleton’s films, and I can see how some of these films represent that kind of post-war Kurosawa that show how marginalized people have to fight and scrape along to survive. Although Singleton did find further success with some of his later films, he was still in his 30s when these films were made, which is crazy to think about. Compared to some other filmmakers, he was still relatively young, Golianopoulos notes how some of his personal life may have taken a toll on his health. For one, Singleton loved women, often to a fault. Golianopoulos interviewed many of the women Singleton was involved with and who were mothers to his children. Although Singleton tried to care for his children, Golianopoulos explains that as a director trying to get films produced and work long hours on the set, Singleton didn’t always have the time to take care of his kids. I thought that Golianopoulos provides a fair balance, noting the different ways that Singleton attempted to keep involved in his kids’ lives, but also noting the strain he had with their mothers and how his busy work schedule often prevented him from being more involved in their daily activities.

As Singleton looks to capitalize on the success of these films, he only had one other film directed after Four Brothers, Abduction, which seemingly ended his film career. However, this failure led to Singleton’s third act as a television creator and director. I loved learning more about his involvement with Snowfall, a show that I regularly watched and waited for the weekly episodes to drop. I actually ended up watching the first season about 6 months after it started, but I absolutely loved it, and I couldn’t believe that Singleton directed some of the earliest episodes. It kind of felt like it was a prequel to Boyz, identifying some of the possible events that led to the gang affiliations shown in Boyz. Despite achieving success with this show, Singleton’s health and homelife continued to deteriorate. He had numerous girlfriends, and with social media, it seemed that many of them were in contact with each other. It also seemed that because Singleton relied on his vision and stamina as a director, he was a little less likely to check up on his health and acknowledge the kinds of vision and cardiovascular problems he was experiencing. Singleton eventually experienced a stroke in 2019, was put in a medically induced coma, and died a few days later. I actually remember being upset about Singleton’s passing and wondering what would happen to Snowfall. I also couldn’t believe that Singleton was only 51 when he died. Golianopoulos notes that during his final years, many of Singleton’s friends and colleagues noted how unhealthy he looked. Yet he continued to work, compelled to tell Black meaningful and significant Black stories.

Golianopoulos has written an important book that details the life and legacy of one of the most important directors of the last 35 years. Although Singleton’s film legacy is well-established, Golianopoulos also reports on his more complicated personal life. Singleton’s life was interesting, but also incredibly complicated. Golianopoulos does note at the end of the book some of the complexities he encountered while working on this book, struggling with “the responsibilities that accompanied writing a book like this on a titan like Singleton.”  He notes that Singleton has an awe-inspiring life story, and an astonishing drive, yet he was flawed. This book is a great balance of these aspects of Singleton’s life. Nevertheless, Golianopoulos notes these aspects in the acknowledgements at the end of the book. He also notes that this biography is unauthorized but also features reporting from nearly four hundred interviews. I wish that this note was at the beginning of the book to further explain the writing process. Many of the quotes and dialogue from Singleton’s conversations were specific, and I wondered whether these were accurate quotes or from memory. It wasn’t always clear. Interestingly, one of the more prominent voices in the book was Brett Ratner, who has faced his own personal challenges as a director. I was curious to think about what Singleton would have thought about Ratner’s latest film project for Amazon. Golianopoulos’s reporting is engaging and entertaining. It kept me reading, especially as Singleton’s career continues to take off in the film industry and his personal life becomes even more complicated. Regardless, this was a great book on one of the most important directors of the last 35 years. This is a great book for fans of film and popular culture, and I hope that it leads to more critical evaluations of Singleton’s work. Highly recommended. 

Traveling From Chocolate City in The Mothership: Make My Funk the P-Funk by Daniel Bedrosian

 

Make My Funk the P-Funk: Parliament-Funkadelic's Meteoric Rise in 1975 from Chocolate City to Mothership Connection 

by Daniel Bedrosian

Make My Funk the P-Funk book cover

Author and musician Daniel Bedrosian

A big thank you to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of Daniel Bedrosian’s fun and enlightening new book Make My Funk the P-Funk: Parliament-Funkadelic’s Meteoric Rise in1975 from Chocolate City to Mothership Connection. While not necessarily a traditional book on the band’s influence and formation, Bedrosian, who has been funkin’ it up with Parliament-Funkadelic for the past 20 years, provides a brief history of the band, as well as setting the historical context for the band’s evolution from inhabiting Chocolate City to exploring outer space and other realms with the Mothership Connection. Bedrosian also provides an overview of the albums and the musicians who contributed to these albums, and brief biographies for many of the varied members of Parliament-Funkadelic. Amazingly, Bedrosian has also somehow catalogued the vast samples from P-Funk’s history. I think this resource alone is well worth any hip-hop fan’s time and money. Parliament-Funkadelic’s music has provided much of the samples and beats that fueled the early and golden years of hip-hop, and if you don’t know, now you know. I loved seeing which songs were sampled by which artists, and although there are websites that are dedicated to this, it was still cool to find a print reference that also includes biographies and a discography with notes on each of the songs. As a result, this book is more like a reference book than any kind of narrative biography of the band. It is highly informative, and with Bedrosian’s experience and knowledge as a member of the band, he has unique access to other members, providing some key details and information about the making of some of the most iconic albums from a band that basically redefined R’n’B by cutting out their own genre of Funk. It’s really cool to read.

Although P-Funk played an important part of my life in high school, my first encounters with P-Funk were from George Clinton’s “Atomic Dog”. I still remember being blown away by this video, featuring cartoons and a video-game like setting, with such catchy and fun music and lyrics. I don’t think that my early encounters with P-Funk influenced hip-hop made me realize that they were from the same mind, but I think I’ve always wanted to get funked up. Bedrosian’s book is a great reference and read for those who enjoy tearin’ da roof off or getting funked up. As I was reading about all of the albums, the kinds of thematic directions that Clinton and Company took the funk, I felt excited and appreciative of how unique and influential this music has been. Reading Bedrosian’s book also made me think about another book I read about Sun Ra’s Chicago (Sun Ra's Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City) and how living in a city like that helped him develop not just his music, but also his ideas about freedom and society, and how a kind of Afro-futuristic utopia was a kind of answer to much of the racism and discrimination that permeated America. In many ways, Bedrosian’s overview of the events in the early 70s that influenced P-Funk presented some bleak situations. In particular, he notes the end of the Vietnam War and how Black soldiers were affected as having an important influence on P-Funk’s music (one of the original members of the Parliaments was killed in action in Vietnam). Furthermore, Watergate and the kind of dire political situation also had an impact on America’s view. Thus, Parliament ended up working on Chocolate City, where the members of Parliament can create their own kind of earthly, urban utopia. I was also thinking about the J.B.’s and “You Can Have Watergate…”, which probably featured Fred Wesley. Also, it made me think about Gil Scott Heron’s Winter in America, which takes a much darker look at Watergate and America in the mid-70s. Obviously, different artists had different tracks, and Parliament’s is a much more joyous vision for society. Plus, it’s great to see how Parliament envisioned a place like Chocolate City brining other important Black artists together to celebrate and create, serving important functions within this administration (one I’d greatly appreciate now). It’s also interesting to think that Clinton returned to this idea of a Black White House in the 90s with “Paint the White House Black,” and presaged the Obama administration by about 33 years. Nevertheless, reading Bedrosian’s analysis of the time period and the lyrical content of this important album made me think about other albums from around the same time and even other musicians, and how the can use their music for a vision of utopia or to challenge any difficulties or inequalities in society. I loved thinking about the idea of P-Funk as just being like an antidote for all of the social ills. While it might not necessarily take care of all the problems, the music just makes you want to move, and sometimes just dancing and celebrating (tearin’ da roof off) is exactly what we need at the time.

Bedrosian notes that not all was bad in the world. Baseball saw some of its first African American managers hired, and there was some breakdown in the Cold War with the US and Soviet astronauts meeting in space, also possibly influencing some of the content of later P-Funk music. Bedrosian goes on to provide an overview of Parliament, the band, and how it eventually evolved from The Parliaments to Parliament and Funkadelic. I also loved this chapter. I had no idea George Clinton formed this band in Plainfield, NJ, which is also the home of Bill Evans, who is not as funky, but is another important NJ musician. I also didn’t even realize that Clinton started the band in the 1950s, and that P-Funk has been around for more than 70 years. This chapter provides more information about how the social turmoil of the 60s also influenced Parliament’s music, and eventually led to the formation of Funkadelic, which I always found as a harder sound than the funk of Parliament. This chapter also provides details about how members arrived in the P-Funk family, and I also loved learning about many of the key members, and how their unique musical voices contributed to the sounds of P-Funk over time. I’ve known about Bootsy and Bernie, and I’ve always been fascinated by Eddie Hazel’s playing, but I didn’t realize all of the other drummers and guitarists that joined on, as well as how Fred Wesley came to be involved in the band.

The Subsequent chapters detail the discography of Parliament Funkadelic. Bedrosian provides analysis of the music and songs, as well as who played which instruments on which tracks, which was interesting to learn because George Clinton would often ask musicians to take up the drums even though that was not their main instrument. It was also cool to read about the different effects, synthesizers and other studio effects that Clinton and crew used to develop and hone the P-Funk sound of the 1970s. There’s a lot to learn in these pages, and it immediately made me want to return to all of these albums that I haven’t listened to for a while. I also learned a fun fact that Let’s Take It To the Stage was like one of the first diss records where Funkadelic tried to provoke some of the other big funk bands of the time.

These chapters covering the discography from Chocolate City to the early 80s comprise most of the book. As I was reading, I kept thinking how great it would be to have some pictures, and Bedrosian included this in a little more than midway through. There are some promo posters, albums from different countries, and some concert photos. There’s a great advertisement for Let’s Take It to the Stage as well featuring a drawing of a woman in a burger. I also liked seeing Clinton come out of a coffin for shows like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Just looking at the Mothership Connection album covers took me back. That was the first Parliament album I had, and I remember getting it from a hip-hop record store in Norristown, PA. I couldn’t how many hip-hop songs came from the tracks on this album. It was such a strange cover of this big Black man in short shorts coming out of a UFO. Such a great album, and such great art work! Bedrosian’s book took me back, and was a great way to not only reminisce, but also look forward and to be grateful for artists like George Clinton, Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins, among so many more.

The book ends with appendices that have biographies of the various members, which was also really interesting to read. There were many members from NJ, but Parliament pulled from all over the country. I also think this was the second book I’ve read over the past few months that featured the Brecker Brothers (Peter Ames Carlin’s Tonight in Jungleland about the making of Born to Run). However, Appendix B “Select Samples and Interpolations” was the part of the book that really amazed me. Bedrosian has organized the samples by album, and then lists the samples chronologically. Again, it was fun to read the different artists and see how hip-hop (and other music) has evolved by going back to the past. Sampling is really a unique aspect of Black music in America, part of the tradition of Signifying, and Bedrosian helps to catalog some of the most significant samples for hip-hop. I also loved how he regularly acknowledges the early elements of hip-hop in P-Funk’s music. This was an awesome book! It’s a great book for music fans, but especially for hip-hop fans. I’m really grateful to Bedrosian for writing this book, and for Bloomsbury Academic for publishing it. It brought the funk back into my life at a time when I needed it most. Highly recommended!

 

 

 

 

Enshittification- How it Happens and What Can Be Done

 Enshittification: When Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It by Cory Doctorow

Enshittification book cover

Author and advocate Cory Doctorow

Big thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and NetGalley for allowing me to preview Cory Doctorow’s necessary new book Enshittification: When Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. Doctorow, who coined this term that identifies the ways in which products and services decline in quality and offerings over time, shifting the benefits from end users to shareholders, develops an argument that identifies several examples of online products that have degraded over time and how users are often helpless or trapped in using these services. Enshittification is defined as the process of collapse or worsening of the internet and its services for users while profits for corporations and its shareholders are prioritized. Enshittification is a complicated process, but Doctrow uses real and familiar examples from big technology companies as well as examples from previous companies and services to explain how we got to this point and why customers are stuck with these piles that were previously fun and useful. Throughout the book, Doctorow makes an impassioned case that is at times both funny (maybe in an absurd way) and provocative. Although I felt myself growing angry at many of the instances he analyzed in Enshittification, I also recognized that there are alternatives and hope, even if they often come at a cost for users and consumers like us.

I probably became aware of the word “enshittification” sometime at the end of last year, when lists with new inclusions in the dictionary are included. As Doctorow notes, “It’s a funny, naughty word, and its funny and naughty to say,…But that’s not why the American Dialect Society named it is word of the year…The Reason for enshittification’s popularity is that it embodies a theory that explains the accelerating decay of the things that matter to us.” I appreciate this distinction, and Doctorow’s book is thoughtful and well-researched with examples to further highlight the ways in which these services and platforms begin as useful and fun spaces for people to connect or solve problems, but eventually corporations find ways to maximize profits, especially after people begin to show an interest or need for a certain service. While Doctorow uses some well-known examples (like Facebook, Twitter/X, and Apple), there were other examples that might not be as well known, but help to highlight the enshittification. One example was the SNOO Smart Sleeper from the Happiest Baby, an expensive ($1695) self-rocking cradle that plays the sounds of the womb. This rocker recognizes when babies begin to cry, and will rock the baby back to sleep once the crying activates it. In order to extract new revenue from new parents desperate to sleep, Happiest Baby decided that these advanced features would cost $20 a month. This expensive rocker becomes merely a rocker that could have probably been bought for much less but will require an additional $240 a year to utilize sounds and self-rocking. As Doctorow notes, many baby devices, clothing, and toys are often passed down or re-used by the same family after their child grows out of them. This $20 per month charge is a way for the Happiest Baby corporation to find some additional money for those that are gifting or passing on their rockers. I had a similar experience when I purchased my home about 4 years ago. The home had a generator, and I was able to register the generator in my name. However, the generator company kept sending me information about a monitoring subscription—an app that let me track whether my generator was online and if it needed any tune-ups or anything. The generator has lights that indicate this, and if one of the lights is not green, I can look up what the color or code means. However, the app makes it easier to monitor. Yet, the app subscription is about $7 a month. I was surprised to learn that this wasn’t just a normal feature included with the generator, but an added cost. Even though the company has the ability to share the status with me via an app, it will cost me extra money per month to monitor that. Furthermore, the company sends out emails that claim that my generator requires an update for the new monitoring system, a 4G LTE connector. At first, I thought that the message was letting me know that some valuable piece of my generator was going to be obsolete, but after doing a little investigation, I realized that they were just trying to get me to purchase the new connection that would enable a more expensive app subscription.

“Enshittification is when you combine the banality of evil with an internet-connected device and a federal law that criminalizes doing anything with that device that the manufacturer dislikes.” We can see other examples of this online and in other platforms like Amazon, Facebook/Meta, and Twitter/X, where verification was once a kind of crowdsourced effort, but now can be purchased for a monthly charge, which invites new levels of fraud and abuse among users, as Doctorow explains. However, Doctorow not only examines the instances of enshittification, but also many of the factors that have led to enshittification over the years. Sadly, our government and the unfettered capitalism that limits regulation and competition are some of the ways that corporations are allowed to become too big to care. Furthermore, Doctorow explores how the process of enshittification not only hurts consumers, but how it affects workers. He uses examples of Uber drivers and Amazon and DoorDash delivery drivers to show how these corporations are able to skirt legal protections for employees when work is conducted “through an app”, which was surprising to learn about. Furthermore, the apps for Uber and DoorDash, according to Doctorow, will often push workers to lower fares, with DoorDash never indicating how much of a tip their dashers will receive for their efforts. Interestingly, some workers have created other apps that help the workers out, learning whether to decline jobs that might not offer as much money. It’s interesting to see these kinds of battles between workers and major corporations, or between end users and corporations, as they try to battle the enshittification. Doctorow refers to the “old, good internet” throughout the book, and these examples of people pulling resources and knowledge together for improvement for workers or consumers is a good example of that kind of community that builds out of these steaming piles.

Although Enshittification is filled with many examples of how our experiences end up worsening over time with these platforms, Doctorow presents some hope and this was another bright spot of his book. For one, he noted that the Biden administration was one of the first in over 40 years that began to take major corporations to task for their enshittification. This is the second book that I’ve read recently that acknowledged some of the work that the Biden administration did on behalf of citizens to improve their digital and consumer lives. Cass Sunstein’s recent book Manipulation frequently cited the Biden administration’s work against corporations that practice a kind of manipulation that continues to enroll people in services. Similarly, Doctorow noted many of the advancements against enshittification that were led by the Biden administration including the development of the CFBP and Lina Khan’s promotion to lead the FTC after writing a popular legal review of Amazon’s practices. Although it seems like a long time ago, Khan was confirmed with a large majority (only 28 Nay votes), and JD Vance and Matt Gaetz said they approved of her work (although apparently the Wall Street Journal wrote many pieces that criticized her work). Additionally, Doctorow notes the historic cases anti-trust cases against Google and Warner Brothers that were brought during the Biden administration. These kinds of legal actions pointed to a new direction that listened more to the will of the people and recognized the issues that were occurring due to corporations becoming too big to care. Although Doctorow notes how the CFPB has been ultimately rendered useless by DOGE, there may still be some hope in Trump’s administration for continued pushback against big tech corporations. Yet, this hope is also tempered by the fact that the current president is the most incompetent leader of all time, who also now owns a social media company that is built on the same Mastodon servers that Twitter/X used and now owns a large stake in a cryptocurrency “company”. Doctorow quotes the writer William Gibson “The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet,” to note that we are experiencing what has happened online IRL, but not all at once. Trump’s “famously chaotic governance style and self-contradictory bluster make it hard to predict what Trump will do about competition, antitrust, interoperability, and labor law,” yet Doctorow has some hope that Trump will end up listening to some of the Trump coalition that is advocating more for labor rights and antitrust measures, although it may come as a result of advantages for his own companies and interests. Nevertheless, the Google antitrust case was initiated under Trump’s administration, and there is support from others for Lina Khan’s actions against supposed monopolies. “This enforcement will be corrupt in the sense that Trump will be picking companies that he, personally, hates the most, rather than the companies whose lawbreaking represents the greatest threat to the American public. But it will not necessarily be corrupt in the sense that Trump will bring cases against innocent companies. Nearly all big companies are guilty.” It’s interesting to consider, and I appreciated Doctorow’s somewhat humorous look on the sunny side of this current administration. Among these final thoughts are looking at how other countries manage to wrangle the vast reach of big tech companies and seeing their moves against privacy overreach as a model of getting big tech companies to respect customers and their rights, rather than finding ways to exploit and work around them. However, I also appreciated Doctorow’s views on the resurgence of unions and the important role that unions have played in shaping better living and working conditions for Americans. Although worker rights have been eroding, Doctorow notes that now is the best time to advance membership and continue to organize for more rights. Like enshittification, organizing for labor is also a complex process that is largely influenced by environmental and social factors, and it seems like the time is right since people are angry and desiring better conditions for their work and their lives. It’s interesting that Doctorow can spend much of the book noting how conditions continue to get worse in our lives due to our reliance and use of technology but end the book with hope and a call to action.

Enshittification is an important book that many people should read. It provides a useful insight into the problems that we encounter on a daily basis, and how we feel so stuck in these services and platforms we use (or maybe we don’t even notice their worsening conditions, and we are just conditioned to accept them as they are). It not only presents the reasons why things are continuing to grow worse, but it also explains the stages that these companies go through to progressively pass the benefits from users to companies to eventually bypass all benefits to only the corporation or shareholders. This is a great book to use for a course, where students could use Doctorow’s theory/framework to examine their own experiences with platforms or companies, and try to propose solutions or their own call to action to improve conditions or services. Highly recommended!