'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' This landmark missive from one of the greatest activists in history calls for direct, non-violent resistance in the fight against racism, and reflects on the healing power of love. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

Christmas 1975 and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is riding high in the charts. In a residential street just outside Cardiff, a persistent knocking breaks the stillness of the evening …

When Rob Parsons, a young lawyer, opens his door he finds a man standing before him clutching a bag of belongings and a frozen chicken. Rob and his wife, Dianne, invite him into their home, cook his chicken and offer him shelter for the night. What happens next is an astonishing story of human kindness, self-learning, incredible pain, unbelievable hope and the sheer power of love to change a life.

A Knock at the Door is the true story of Ronnie Lockwood, a homeless man who entered the home of a young couple, became a dustman and lived as part of their family for over 45 years until his death. But this is not just Ronnie’s story – it is also that of Rob and his family. Outwardly the two men’s lives were worlds apart – as Ronnie emptied rubbish bins, Rob flew on Concorde – and yet, they discovered they had similar struggles. Then the day came, at the lowest moment of the couple’s lives, when they turned to the homeless man for help.

But there were also remarkable turnarounds. Ronnie spent much of his spare time volunteering, including at a homeless centre, and ended up having a £1.6 million well-being centre named after him. Rob left his law practice and he and Dianne began a charity that touches the lives of millions of people.

You will have never read a story like this before, but at its heart is a simple message: whether we are a lawyer or a dustman – tomorrow doesn’t always have to be like yesterday.

aIt is worth noting that one of the many positive things that this book has to recommend for itself is a very clear writing style that makes complex legal and social science concepts accessible to a wide array of audiences.a
--The Law and Politics Book Review

"It's law-focused and part of an academic series, but its style and subject matter make it relevant to a broad audience."
--"Pittsburgh Post-Gazette"

"A must read for students of bias, racism, discrimination, and privilege. Lu-in Wang employs readable prose and compelling examples to elucidate these complex issues. Her cutting-edge exposition, especially in the context of health care, offers the reader a deeper understanding of the unseen forces that govern daily life."
--Stephanie M. Wildman, professor of law and director, Santa Clara University School of Law Center for Social Justice

"Does a powerful job of explaining why and how discrimination still plays such a strong role in our society. Like all of the best legal scholarship, this insightful book uses an unexpected, fresh conception to explore an age-old, stubborn problem. The result is a new understanding of both our legal structure and the society in which we live. A strong, helpful contribution to the debate on discrimination, its causes, and the damage it does."--David A. Harris, E.N. Balk Professor of Law and Values, University of Toledo College of Law

"(The book is) law-focused and part of an academic series, but its style and subject matter make it relevant to a broad audience."
--"Emporia Gazette"

a It very effectively manages to put the somtimes-abstract principles of social psychology into real world contexts.a
--PsycCRITQUES

Much as we "select" computer settings by default--reflexively, without thinking, and sometimes without realizing there are other options--we often discriminate by default as well. And just as default computer settings tend to become locked in or entrenched as the standard, discrimination by default creates a situation in which disparate outcomes are expected, accepted, and taken for granted. The killing of Amadou Diallo, racial disparities in medical care, the dominance of Whites and men in certain professions, and even the uneven media attention paid to crimes depending on their victims' race and class, all might be cases of discrimination by, or as, default.

Wang contends that, today, most discrimination occurs by default and not design, making legal prohibitions that focus on those who discriminate out of ill will inadequate to redress the largest share of modern discrimination. She draws on social psychology to detail three ways in which unconscious assumptions can lead to discrimination, showing how they play out in a range of everyday settings. Wang then demonstrates how these dynamics interact in medical care to produce an invisible, self-fulfilling, and self-perpetuating prophecy of racial disparity. She goes on to suggest ways in which institutions and individuals might recognize, interrupt, and override the discriminatory default.

The Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative (GCSWI), which is spearheaded by the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (AASWSW), represents a major endeavor for the entire field of social work. GCSWI calls for bold innovation and collective action powered by proven and evolving scientific interventions to address critical social issues facing society. The purpose of GCSWI was modeled after the National Academy of Engineering, which aimed to identify some of the most persistent engineering problems of the day and then put the attentions, energies, and funding of the entire field to work on them for a decade. The GCSWI does the same for social issues, tackling problems such as homelessness, social isolation, mass incarceration, family violence, and economic inequality. Grand Challenges for Social Work and Society is an edited book that will present the foundations of the GCSWI, laying out the start of the initiative and providing summaries of each of the twelve challenges. The 12 main chapters that form the core of the book, one on each of the dozen Grand Challenges, are written by the primary research teams who are driving each GC project.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), established in South Africa after the collapse of apartheid, was the bold creation of a people committed to the task of rebuilding of a nation and establishing a society founded upon justice, equality and respect for the rule of law. As part of its historic, cathartic mission, the TRC held a special hearing, calling to account the lawyers -- judges, academics and members of the bar -- who had been crucial participants in the apartheid legal order. This book is an account of those hearings, and an attempt to evaluate, in the light of theories of adjudication, the historical role of the judiciary and bar in the apartheid years.

Written by a well-known commentator on the South African legal system who became, by chance, the first witness to give testimony at these hearings, this book reveals, often in the words of those who testified, how the judges failed in their duty to uphold the rule of law. For the most part, the lawyers of apartheid deserted its victims. The few notable exceptions both illustrate the potential for lawyers to have done more and laid the basis for the respect the rule of law still enjoys in South Africa despite apartheid.

Yet, as the author shows, many continue to commit a more serious 'crime'. Failing to confront the past, and in many cases refusing even to attend TRC hearings, the lawyers who could have helped to resist the worst excesses of apartheid remain accomplices to its evil deeds.

This book offers us the spectacle of an entire legal system on trial. The echoes from this process are captured here in a way which will appeal to all readers -- lawyers and non-lawyers alike -- interested in the relationshipbetween law and justice, as it is exposed during a period of transition to democracy.

Newman reinterprets an important moment in the history of the American women's movement. She traces the intellectual roots of the women's movement back to its beginnings, and reveals how it took on racial overtones. The study reveals that the white, middle-class women who were explicitly and implicitly influenced by the American offshoots of Darwin laid the intellectual groundwork for the social movements that followed.

Beginning in 1898, the United States won overseas colonies as the spoils of the Spanish-American War: Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Cuba. Guam and Hawaii were also acquired in that year, and in 1917, the Danish Antilles became the United States Virgin Islands. The racial heritage of the territorial inhabitants paralled that of nonwhite groups in the United States: Native Americans, Africans, Asians, Hispanics, and mixed-race people. The nonwhite race of domestic and overseas colonial people established important links between American domestic racial policies and the racial policies and the racial dimension of American overseas colonies. This book is about these links, as shaped by the prevailing "racial tradition" and social structure in the United States itself. Crucial to examining these links is the little-known role of Booker T. Washington in shaping American overseas colonial policy. It is argued that following colonial acquisition at the turn of the century, the American "racial tradition" was exported to overseas territories, thereby largely determining colonial policy and administrative practices, the nature of social and racial conflict, and the direction and pace of political evolution in the territories.

From Glee to gay marriage, from lesbian senators to out gay Marines, we have undoubtedly experienced a seismic shift in attitudes about gays in American politics and culture. Our reigning national story is that a new era of rainbow acceptance is at hand. But dig a bit deeper, and this seemingly brave new gay world is disappointing. For all of the undeniable changes, the plea for tolerance has sabotaged the full integration of gays into American life. Same-sex marriage is unrecognized and unpopular in the vast majority of states, hate crimes proliferate, and even in the much vaunted "gay friendly" world of Hollywood and celebrity culture, precious few stars are openly gay. In The Tolerance Trap, Suzanna Walters takes on received wisdom about gay identities and gay rights, arguing that we are not "almost there," but on the contrary have settled for a watered-down goal of tolerance and acceptance rather than a robust claim to full civil rights. After all, we tolerate unpleasant realities: medicine with strong side effects, a long commute, an annoying relative. Drawing on a vast array of sources and sharing her own personal journey, Walters shows how the low bar of tolerance demeans rather than ennobles both gays and straights alike. Her fascinating examination covers the gains in political inclusion and the persistence of anti-gay laws, the easy-out sexual freedom of queer youth and the suicides and murders of those in decidedly intolerant environments. She challenges both "born that way" storylines that root civil rights in biology, and "god made me that way" arguments that similarly situate sexuality as innate and impervious to decisions we make to shape it. A sharp and provocative cultural critique, this book deftly argues that a too-soon declaration of victory short-circuits full equality and deprives us all of the transformative possibilities of full integration. Tolerance is not the end goal, but a dead end. In The Tolerance Trap, Walters presents a complicated snapshot of a world-shifting moment in American history-one that is both a wake-up call and a call to arms for anyone seeking true equality.

This book traces the rise of the French National Front and presents an analysis of the organisation's origins, structure and doctrine which concludes that the Le Pen phenomenon represents a modern and sophisticated form of fascism. The authors offer a critical assessment of how political parties and anti-racist organisations have responded to the National Front's exploitation of the immigration issue and examine the political arguments accompanying the reception of foreign workers and their families by French society during the twentieth century.

In 1890, Mississippi called a convention to rewrite its constitution. That convention became the singular event that marked the state's transition from the nineteenth century to the twentieth and set the path for the state for decades to come. The primary purpose of the convention was to disfranchise African American voters as well as some poor whites. The result was a document that transformed the state for the next century. In Sowing the Wind, Dorothy Overstreet Pratt traces the decision to call that convention, examines the delegates' decisions,and analyzes the impact of their new constitution. Pratt argues the constitution produced a new social structure, which pivoted the state's culture from a class-based system to one centered upon race. Though state leaders had not anticipated this change, they were savvy in their manipulation of the issues. The new constitution effectively filled the goal of disfranchisement. Moreover, unlike the constitutions of many other southern states, it held up against attack for over seventy years. It also hindered the state socially and economically well into the twentieth century.

The Great Recession punished American workers, leaving many underemployedor trapped in jobs that do not provide the income or opportunitythey need. Moreover, the gap between the wealthy and the poor has widenedin past decades as mobility remains stubbornly unchanged. Against thisdeepening economic divide, a dominant cultural narrative has taken root:immobility, especially for the working class, is driven by shifts in demand forlabor. In this context, and with right-to-work policies proliferating nationwide,workers are encouraged to avoid government dependency by armingthemselves with education and training. Drawing on archival material and interviews with African Americanwomen transit workers in the San Francisco Bay area, Katrinell Davis grappleswith our understanding of mobility as it intersects with race and genderin the postindustrial and post-civil rights United States. Consideringthe consequences of declining working conditions within the public transitworkplace of Alameda County, Davis illustrates how worker experience-onand off the job-has been undermined by workplace norms and administrativepractices designed to address flagging worker commitment and morale.Providing a comprehensive account of how political, social, and economicfactors work together to shape the culture of opportunity in a postindustrialworkplace, she shows how government manpower policies, administrativepolicies, and drastic shifts in unionisation have influenced the prospects oflow-skilled workers.

There is a great deal of coverage on inequality, and the key determinants of recent trends are increasingly well-documented. However, much less is known about the driving forces behind international differences in inequality. The nine contributions collected in this book set out to examine the fundamental question of What Drives Inequality? These drivers may be so diverse and deep-rooted in the cultural, historical, or geographical characteristics of countries that one can hardly expect comprehensive models or clear-cut causal inference. Nevertheless, the research presented in this book unpacks the reasons behind the wide variations in inequality. Looking across country boundaries, chapters featured include in-depth insights into inequality in Europe, India, and the United States. It provides new results on the impact of public goods and services and on the role of demographic, labor market and, most importantly, fiscal policy determinants. It also brings fresh evidence and perspectives on the measurement of inequality, by examining wealth or broader measures of well-being, and provides some insights about potential "deeper drivers" such as individual perceptions, preferences, and beliefs about inequality and redistribution.

'Powerful and provocative' - Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, author of the Sunday Times bestselling How to be an Antiracist 'A MUST read for any white women who consider themselves "feminist"' - Scarlett Curtis, author of the Sunday Times bestselling Feminists Don't Wear Pink 'An explosive and revelatory argument for deconstructing and confronting the entrenched notions of white supremacy and superiority that still reign today.' - Mireille Harper 'How is it that we have been so conditioned to privilege the emotional comfort of white people?' White tears possess a potency that is rarely acknowledged or commented upon, but they have long been used as a dangerous and insidious tool against people of colour, weaponised in order to invoke sympathy and divert blame. Taking us from the slave era, when white women fought in court to keep 'ownership' of their slaves, through centuries of colonialism, when women offered a soft face for brutal tactics, to the modern workplace, in which tears serve as a defense to counter accusations of bias and micro-aggressions, White Tears/Brown Scars tells a charged story of white women's active participation in campaigns of oppression. It offers a long-overdue validation of the experiences of women of colour and an urgent call-to-arms in the need for true intersectionality. With rigour and precision, Hamad builds a powerful argument about the legacy of white superiority that we are socialised within, a reality that we must all apprehend in order to fight.

Scholars in the Sociology of Race have extensively researched public policy sectors such as housing, taxation, and immigration. However, media policy research has often failed to effectively engage with the critical concept of racialization, driven instead by political and economic perspectives. Racializing Media Policy fills this gap in the sociological, communications, and media studies literatures with its focus on the racialized processes that construct media policy work in the United States. With research that merges subfields of racialization and media policy, explores the US broadcasting policy, and examines racialization without integration and mediating structural challenges, the authors delve into multiple scenarios of racialization in policy. The chapters offer theoretical frameworks and case studies to consider the ways that media policy spaces are embedded with ideologies and praxes surrounding race. Racializing Media Policy contributes to a wider understanding of the role of policy work in the media systems, particularly by examining the ways that race is embedded within those structures. This unique perspective makes the volume an important read for scholars across the Sociology and Media Studies fields, in addition to providing critical context for policymakers.

This book presents multidisciplinary analyses of the historical trajectories of social and economic inequalities in Brazil over the last 50 years. As one of the most unequal countries in the world, Brazil has always been an important case study for scholars interested in inequality research, but in the last few decades has brought a new phenomenon to renew researchers' interest in the country. While the majority of democracies in the developed world have witnessed an increase in income inequality from the 1970s on, Brazil has followed the opposite path, registering a significant reduction of income inequality over the last 30 years. Bringing together studies carried out by experts from different areas, such as economists, sociologists, demographers and political scientists, this volume presents insights based on rigorous analyses of statistical data in an effort to explain the long term changes in social and economic inequalities in Brazil. The book adopts a multidisciplinary approach, analyzing the relations between income inequality and different dimensions of social life, such as education, health, political participation, public policies, demographics and labor market. All of this makes Paths of Inequality in Brazil - A Half-Century of Change a very valuable resource for social scientists interested in inequality research in general, and especially for sociologists, political scientists and economists interested in the social and economic changes that Brazil went through over the last two decades.

When children become entangled with the law, their lives can be disrupted irrevocably. When those children are underrepresented minorities, the potential for disruption is even greater. The Legacy of Racism for Children: Psychology, Law, and Public Policy examines issues that arise when minority children's lives are directly or indirectly influenced by law and public policy. Uniquely comprehensive in scope, this trailblazing volume offers cutting-edge chapters on the intersections of race/ethnicity within the context of child maltreatment, child dependency court, custody and adoption, familial incarceration, school discipline and the "school-to-prison pipeline," juvenile justice, police/youth interactions, and jurors' perceptions of child and adolescent victims and defendants. The book also includes chapters focused on troubling situations that are less commonly researched, but growing in importance, including the role of race and racism in child sex trafficking and US immigration law and policy. Thus, individual chapters explore myriad ways in which law and policy shape the lives of marginalized children and adolescents - racial and ethnic minorities - who historically and presently are at heightened risk for experiencing disadvantageous consequences of law and policy. In so doing, The Legacy of Racism for Children can help social scientists to understand and work to prevent the perpetuation of racial discrimination in American laws and public policies.