BOOK REVIEW: The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson is an original, unique debut novel about love, family, identity, destiny, multiple universes, societal collapse, and climate change. It’s in a genre that I would call “science fantasy” since it involves science fiction ideas like travel between worlds and the devastating effects of climate change as well as fantasy tropes like a goddess named Nyame who lives in the space between the worlds and the devolution of human society into multiple task-centered tribes.

The main character in The Space Between Worlds is Cara (usually short for Caramenta), a lesbian from a downtrodden part of the world called Ashtown. Cara is a “traverser,” someone who can travel between the 380 known copies of our Earth that can be accessed in the multiverse using technology which is basically akin to magic. Of course there are an infinite number of alternate Earths but we can only visit this arbitrary number because that’s how many we can detect that “resonate” with ours. Climate change and societal collapse have devastated our Earth so we use our access to these other Earth to supplement our access to resources. Human beings can only travel from one earth to another if on the earth they travel to their doppelgänger is dead. So, people who grow up in circumstances that make their survival very unlikely (i.e. they are most likely dead on the other Earth) are now incredibly valuable. Cara is dead on all but eight other Earths so there’s a lot of traversing that she can do safely from our world to 372 others. This makes her one of the most desirable traversers. The reason Cara is dead on so many Earths is that she’s the daughter of a drug-addicted mom and eventually became the paramour of Adranik, the violent emperor of Ashtown. However on our earth, referred to as Earth 0, Cara lives in the palatial Wiley City and works for the Eldridge Institute, whose brilliant but probably psychotic founder figured out the “technology” to send people between worlds. All we know is that when Cara is in the space between worlds she senses the presence of a godlike figure that traversers call Nyame and  when she wakes up after having travelled (the process involves loses consciousness) she has painful bruises all over her body.

The worlds that Johnson have created in The Space Between Worlds are all impacted by end-stage capitalism (Cara is only a resident of Wiley City because of her employment with Eldridge. She is eligible for citizenship in four years, but if she loses her job before then, she can be deported all the way back to the slum of Ashtown.); rampant climate change (outside of Wiley City, clean food and water are scarce, the air is metallic and on “bright days” the sun is literally strong enough to blind and burn you); and societal collapse (Cara’s adopted family have their own church, there’s another tribe or guild for sex workers called the House, and another for assassins called the Runners).

Ultimately the effectiveness of the book is sourced in the issues it raises about identity, family and love. Cara is in love with her “handler,” a woman named Dell who is a citizen of Wiley City and who has long-standing family wealth. The sinusoidal nature of the strength and intimacy of their relationship is one of the central plot points. Another main idea, which is likely to be more compelling to some readers, is the question of identity and the nature of destiny. Cara interacts with various people in her life on multiple versions of Earth, so she’s aware that her destiny is/was often death, but she also sees the same people, even those she thinks she knows intimately, having subtly different (and sometimes disturbingly similar) personalities and possibilities on different Earths. This raises the centrality of the question of destiny: are our futures predestined regardless of minor differences between scenarios? Do relationships outlast different realities? Can people change?

In some sense, The Space Between Worlds is a time-travel story. It’s contours and have the same shape of coexisting possibilities branching off from a single reality as a result of the ability to travel between Earths existing in the multiverse. Overall, I was impressed by the complexity and creativity of this debut more then I was enthralled by it. Apart from Cara, I didn’t really care what happened to the other characters, even the ones that Cara cared about. I feel like the setting of the story was more interesting than the plot occurring in it and I would have been interested in another plot imbedded in the same world (or worlds). As a science fiction book it barely works due to the paucity of included scientific elements. However, as a work of speculative fiction it is very effective, as the questions of how our world could have devolved into Cara’s Earth 0 are compelling. It’s clear that Micaiah Johnson is an author to watch and I will be paying attention to what she writes next.

Title: The Space Between Worlds.
Author: Micaiah Johnson.
Format: Kindle.
Format: 322 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Date Published: August 4, 2020.
Date Read: February 20, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.33/4.0).

PLOT: B.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: B+.

BOOK REVIEW: The Fated Sky (Lady Astronaut, #2) by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Fated Sky is the sequel to a book I mostly enjoyed (The Calculating Stars) but my enjoyment of this Hugo award-winning novel was leavened with some qualms and niggling concerns. While I liked getting to know the main character Elma York and was thrilled with the prominent appearance of mathematical concepts like the Fibonacci series and prime numbers, there always seemed to be “something off” about the ethos of the first book. The premise is very clever: suppose the Space Race started a decade earlier due to an external animating force caused by a cataclysmic event which makes the necessity of humanity colonizing the solar system more urgent because the Earth will become increasingly more inhospitable in the next century. This time shift means that the social tensions based around race and gender that actually happened in our 1960s and 1970s occur in the book’s timeline of the 1950s in the context of the Space Race. The  main character, Elma York,  is a white Jewish woman who is something of a mathematical savant. She and her husband Nathaniel get jobs with the International Aerospace Coalition (IAC). She becomes a celebrity as the “Lady Astronaut” and thus is given leeway to break barriers and violate cultural mores without repercussions someone of her status would be expected to suffer. In the first book it was somewhat titillating to see these issues addressed (even awkwardly and somewhat ineptly) in the context of a speculative fiction novel but on further reflection I don’t think the overall result is positive and this becomes increasingly clear in the second book. The problem for me with both The Calculating Stars  and The Fated Sky is that in most social situations the reader is more aware of the racial or cultural implications than Elma is. This device of Elma’s cluelessness is one that the author uses to demonstrate the illogic of discrimination and animus repeatedly to the reader. I would argue that while the author uses the device effectively she also repeats and frequently re-inscribes racist and sexist tropes (inadvertently, I think) while trying to illustrate how wrong these are to the reader. In The Fated Sky there are numerous examples of this problem. For example, Elma is on a ship to Mars with 4 men and 3 women when she finds a (used) condom. Of course she assumes that one of the men (probably the captain, whom she has a very difficult relationship with and is a known philanderer) is forcing himself on one of the other women (both of whom are women of color). It doesn’t even occur to her that it could be evidence of sexual activity between two of the men! But there are numerous problem with this scenario. 1) (why) would 2 (presumably straight) men having sex on a 3-year space journey be using condoms (especially in an era where contraception was basically illegal and HIV/AIDS didn't exist)? 2) why would an allegedly intelligent astronaut not know to not throw a condom away in the toilet and  cause a disruptive plumbing incident? 3) why would the author later kill off one of the gay characters in a freak accident? Does the author not know about the vicious trope of the doomed homosexual who always dies before the end of the story? Despite revealing society’s homophobia through Elma’s cluelessness the author has reproduced it through her treatment of the two male characters who loved (in multiple senses of the word) each other. While it is true by martyring one of the gay characters she raises the profile of the remaining gay character but there's no way to dispel the conclusion that by having a freak fatal accident occur to one of the gay characters is a re-enactment of the "doomed homosexual" trope. There are (many) other examples of how the author does this in The Fated Sky  with both gender and race (Elma is sometimes quick to notice and call out patriarchal/sexist behavior but then some of her favorite and most lauded activities involve her prowess in the kitchen!) One interesting aspect of the book that is a highlight, is the portrayal of multiple Jewish celebrations (even in space!). The sensitivity by which a minority religion is portrayed is incongruous to how ethnic and racial minorities are depicted. For example, race is the primary fault line in the time being portrayed in the books but as I have said before, the author uses the main character's outsider status to illustrate to the reader how ignorance/unfamiliarity with the lived experience of others can highlight the salience and pervasiveness of racism and sexism. But the problem is that these encounters are only ever presented to the reader through Elma's perspective, which tends to marginalize the agency of the characters who are racial (and ethnic) minorities. Overall, I was somewhat dubious about reading the second book in the series after reflecting more on the deficiencies of the first (which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel). But the large number and the high average Goodreads ratings of both books convinced me to give it a try despite these misgivings. It's unlikely I will make that mistake with the third book!

Title: The Fated Sky.
Author: Mary Robinette Kowal.
Paperback: 384 pages.
Publisher: Tor Books.
Date Published: October 1, 2018.
Date Read: April 21, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★☆☆  (3.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.33/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B-.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

I was only supposed to read two stories, “Belles Lettres” and “The Necessary Changes Have Been Made” in order to decide which should be included in a collection of texts that address race, white supremacy and (mis)representation of Black people in the media. While both of these stories are good (and "Belles Lettres" is particularly trenchant) they imbricate race with so many other issues that I felt the primary point would’ve been lost or “diluted.” So I continued reading the collection and when I got to the title piece knew I had found what I was looking for. The first story “The Heads of Colored People: Four Fancy Sketches, Two Chalk Outlines, and No Apology” also weaves in other issues (police shooting, intraracial dynamics, Blerd culture) with multiple depictions of Black masculinity that I found quite compelling. The only other story which I felt could have satisfied my requirements is “Fatima The Biloquist.” I love that we get to see multiple depictions of Fatima in various stories in the collection. I connected with this  particular story because it does such a clever job of discussing racial representation in the context of class, phenotype and language. However, the standout stories in this collection (for me), apart from the aforementioned “Heads of the Colored People” and “Fatima The Biloquist” were “Suicide, Watch” and “Not Today, Marjorie.” When I reached the last paragraph of “Suicide, Watch” I burst out laughing so loudly my husband laying next to me said “What happened?” Even when I recounted the story I couldn’t stop giggling at the brilliant premise and payoff of that story. "Suicide, Watch" is worth the price of the entire collection. Many of the stories are about unlikable people or people in uncomfortable situations and not every story is great or memorable. (But one of the joys of short story collections is that if you don’t like what you’re currently reading, it will be over pretty soon.) Some of the more memorable stories may be ones I didn’t particularly like, such as “This Todd” and “The Subject of Consumption.” Overall, I would definitely recommend the collection as a whole and I know I am going to be anticipating reading what Nafissa Thompson-Spires writes in the future. Title: Heads of the Colored People. Author: Nafissa Thompson-Spires. Paperback: 203 pages. Publisher: 37 INK/ Atria. Date Published: April 10, 2018. Date Read: April 21, 2019. GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0). OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0). PLOT: A-. IMAGERY: A. IMPACT: A-. WRITING: A.

WATCH: Ta-Nehisi Coates' Opening Statement in Reparations Congressional Hearing

Cory Booker Announces 2020 Presidential Run

Cory Booker announced on Friday February 1 (the beginning of Black History Month) that he is running for the Democratic nomination for President in 2020. The 49-year-old, vegan, bachelor junior U.S. senator from New Jersey joins the most diverse presidential aspirant field ever. It already features Kamala Harris (U.S. Senator from California), Kirsten Gillibrand (U.S. Senator from New York), Elizabeth Warren (U.S. Senator from Massachusetts) and Julian Castro (former secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration).

NSF Awards $9M To Advance STEM Leadership at HBCUs

The National Science Foundation has awarded up to $9 million to support the Center for the Advancement of STEM Leadership's goal of broadening participation by underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Specifically, the Division of Human Resources Development in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources has approved a 4-way collaborative award to Fielding Graduate University (1818424), North Carolina A&T University (1818459), University of the Virgin Islands (1818425) and the American Association of Colleges & Universities (1818447) to 1) examine how intuitive, unwritten codes of excellence in leadership result in the broadening participation success of HBCUs and to integrate this knowledge into STEM higher education reform; 2) provide a community of scholars with a world-class leadership development program that integrates personal and institutional histories into broadening participation research and practice; and 3) assimilate the HBCU institutional narrative into the national undergraduate STEM reform knowledge base through mainstream outreach and knowledge transfer outlets.

Here's a quote from the press release announcing the award:

The University of the Virgin Islands (UVI), which houses several other NSF-funded projects, will lead the research component of the project. The research will focus on studying the nature of the leadership styles and strategies associated with the stellar record of HBCUs in graduating African Americans in STEM and in being national leaders in preparing African Americans for doctoral study in STEM. 

“Our faculty and students have perfected various models of success that must be researched, studied, compared to others and disseminated throughout the nation,” said Dr. David Hall, President of UVI. “The future of the U.S. and world economy turns on the work that is occurring in various STEM fields, and HBCUs play a critical role in attracting, developing and inspiring future leaders in this field. This is an awesome and humbling task that we and our partners are ready and willing to undertake.” 

North Carolina A&T State University, a leading HBCU research university in the STEM fields, will team with Fielding Graduate University, long known for its leadership studies programs, to conduct leadership development programming in broadening STEM participation for emerging academic leaders. Based on CASL’s research findings, this effort will seek to establish the foundation for informing HBCUs and all of American higher education on the research-based strategies for producing new leaders to broaden STEM participation. 

“Fielding is proud to be a part of advancing leadership in the STEM fields through the establishment of this collaborative national Center,” said Fielding President Dr. Katrina Rogers. “Since its founding, Fielding and its faculty have pioneered a model of quality graduate education that links research and practice in support of social change and justice. Receiving support from the National Science Foundation for CASL is an affirmation of this legacy and its promise for the future.” 

“As an institution with a long history of leadership in STEM disciplines, North Carolina A&T State University is truly excited about the timely creation of this new center for STEM leadership,” added Chancellor Harold L. Martin Sr. “As we and so many of our peer institutions scale up to meet the growing national demand for highly educated, well-prepared graduates in STEM professions, the work of this center will provide meaningful support for these efforts. Having well-prepared leadership for this important work is essential, both now and well into the future.” 

The Association of American Colleges and Universities, recognized nationally and internationally as the leading association dedicated to advancing the quality, vitality, and public standing of liberal education and inclusive excellence in higher education, will lead the knowledge transfer and outreach efforts of CASL. It will leverage its research findings to rightfully place HBCUs at the center of our nation’s effort to produce a more diverse and competitively trained STEM workforce. 

“CASL is exactly what we’ve needed in undergraduate STEM education reform for a very long time,” says AAC&U President Dr. Lynn Pasquerella. “This important work is in perfect alignment with AAC&U and our more than 1,400 member institutions who recognize that HBCUs are vital to sustaining our competitive edge in scientific discovery and innovation. I applaud the CASL leaders for their vision and foresight.” 

Although I used to work at the NSF, I had nothing to do with this award (I was in a different division in the same Directorate) but I think this is a great development! I hope CASL is successful at achieving its goals.

2018 US OPEN: Women's Final (and Semifinals Review)

Serena Williams (USA) [17] vs. Naomi Osaka (JPN) [20]

This is my prediction post for the 2018 US Open women's final. Last year I incorrectly predicted that Madison Keys would beat Sloane Stephens in the 2017 US Open final.  This year I have correctly predicted 3 of 4 women's quarterfinals, 3 of 4 men's quarterfinals, 1 of 2 men's semifinals and 1 of 2 women's semifinals. I will also predict the winner of the 2018 US Open men's final between Juan Martin del Potro and Novak Djokovic.

WOMEN'S SEMIFINALS REVIEW

Serena Williams (USA) [17] d. Anastasja Sevastova (LAT) [19] 6-3 6-0. I thought that this match would be a bit tougher than it turned out to be, thanks to the willingness of Serena to go to the net to finish points quickly.  Sevastova has aspects of her game similar to Roberta Vinci who provided Serena one of  her most devastating losses here in New York in 2015 when she was attempting the calendar Grand Slam. Because Serena's game is so powerful, people often have difficulty coming up with an effective game plan against her, but moving the ball around and mixing up pace is usually a better idea than trying to outhit her. She can get frustrated and impatient if she makes too many errors and then starts to press and make more errors. Sevastova attempted this strategy, but Serena remained calm and cool as she overwhelmed the Latvian with powerful strokes hit deep into the corners of the court.

Naomi Osaka (JPN) [20] d. Madison Keys (USA) [15] 6-2 6-4. This was a very impressive performance by the 20-year-old Japanese player. Keys is one of the most powerful players (on both tours). I was also impressed with the gains she has made in her movement and defensive abilities. But she still goes for broke way too often, leading to errors at inopportune times. However, it's not clear that Keys could have done much to avoid this result due to the level of play of her opponent. Osaka faced 13 breakpoints and saved all 13, oftentimes with aces (even on the second serve!) or unreturnable serves.  Meanwhile, she earned 4 breakpoints on Keys' serve and converted 75% of them. Both players served well, but, surprisingly, it was the younger player who played the bigger points better. She totally deserved to win this semifinal and reach her first major final, where she will play her idol.

WOMEN'S FINALS PREVIEW

Serena is appearing in her 31st major final (23-7) while Naomi is in her very first. In fact, Serena appeared in  (and won) her very first major final in 1999 in New York, exactly 19 years ago, when her opponent was not yet 2 years old. As I have mentioned very many times before, very few players win their very first major final (especially if they are playing against someone who has already played in one previously). As usual, both players have huge achievements at stake on the result of this match. If Serena wins she will finally match Margaret Court's grand slam total of 24 major titles (amazingly, exactly 45 years to the day Court won her last major) and will become just the 4th woman to win a major title after becoming a mother (Court, Evonne Goolagong and Kim Clijsters). If Osaka wins she will become the first Japanese player to win a major title (she's already the first Japanese woman to reach a major final) just four years after Kei Nishikori reached the US Open final. Their games are very similar, because Osaka has modeled hers after her idol and she has the physical gifts to do so. The problem is that Serena is the original, and even though she is almost 18 years older, she basically does everything better than Naomi. The only advantage Naomi has is her age, but that is a double-edged sword that can count for and against her. MadProfessah's pick: Serena.

#NSF REPORT: U.S. Doctorate Recipients At Near All-Time High (2016 Data)

The National Science Foundation has released its annual Survey of Earned Doctorates and there are some interesting nuggets in the data (up to 2016):

• The largest share of doctorates awarded in 2016 was in the life sciences (nearly 23 percent), followed by engineering (17 percent), and psychology and the social sciences (16.5 percent). All fields of humanities and arts made up 10 percent of doctorates awarded.
• The time between students entering graduate school and receiving doctorates has fallen in all fields of study over the past 20 years, but, on average, it still takes years longer to earn a doctorate in non-S&E fields than in S&E fields.
• The number of S&E doctorates awarded to U.S. citizens and permanent residents grew 2 percent since 2015 and 39 percent since 2006. The number of doctorates in S&E fields awarded to temporary visa holders grew 2 percent since 2015 and 20 percent since 2006.
• The number of doctoral awards to temporary visa holders is highly concentrated -- 10 countries accounted for 71 percent of the doctorates awarded to temporary visa holders from 2006 to 2016. The top three countries -- China, India and South Korea -- accounted for 54 percent of the doctorates awarded to temporary visa holders.
• Women have earned a slight majority of all doctorates awarded to U.S. citizen and permanent residents each year since 2002, and women have earned more than 30 percent of all doctorates awarded to temporary visa holders over that period.
• From 1996 to 2016, the number of women earning degrees in S&E fields increased by 84 percent.
• The number of doctorates awarded to blacks or African Americans who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents increased by 32 percent from 2006 to 2016. For the same period, the proportion of doctorates earned by Hispanics or Latinos increased by 67 percent.

One key take-away for me is that 1) Latino doctoral recipients now outnumber African-American and that the gap between male and female STEM doctorates is actually slightly widening, even as both numbers increase (see the graphics at the top of this page).

Hat/tip STEMPROF newsletter edited by Mark Connolly.

ANNIVERSARY: Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassinated This Day In 1968 #MLK50

Today is April 4, 2018 the 50th anniversary of the date that Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. My mother was VERY pregnant with me at the time and thus for some reason I have always had an affiliation with Dr. King, since I was born a few weeks later.

Many people are using the anniversary to discuss and analyze the "progress" that has been made towards equality and ending racial discrimination in the United States in the 50 years since he was killed.

However I just want to take a moment and recognize that the man who had already won a Nobel Peace Prize and catalyzed the civil rights movement was 39 years old when he was gunned down by a white man, James Earl Ray, who was hoping to forestall or reverse changes in the area of race relations in the United States.

GRAPHIC: The racial/ethnic demographics of U.S. Top 10 metro areas

Information on race in America, especially in metropolitan areas in the United States. This is from a recent deep dive into race, politics and demographics by the Boston Globe's award-winning Spotlight team as the paper tried to examine why Boston is perceived as "more racist" than other big cities.

Lost Einsteins: New Report Demonstrates Variation In Innovation Opportunity by Class, Race and Gender

There’s an interesting new report (from Stanford’s Raj Chetty) showing how lack of diversity in STEM is leading to reduction in the number of innovations being created in this country, even by low-income children who would be expected to be inventors due to their proficiency in math in school. (Generally proficiency in mathematics is a predictor of patent filing.) The report calls the result of this gap “Lost Einsteins.”

The New York Times wrote about this latest report this week:

The researchers worked with the Treasury Department to link the tax records with patent records. Doing so allowed them to study the backgrounds of patent holders (and the study focused on the most highly cited, significant patents). The researchers — Chetty, Alex Bell, Xavier Jaravel, Neviana Petkova and John Van Reenen — were also able to link these records to elementary-school test scores for some patent holders.

Not surprisingly, children who excelled in math were far more likely to become inventors. But being a math standout wasn’t enough. Only the top students who also came from high-income families had a decent chance to become an inventor.

This fact may be the starkest: Low-income students who are among the very best math students — those who score in the top 5 percent of all third graders — are no more likely to become inventors than below-average math students from affluent families.

Here is a graphic which demonstrates the difference in patent-holding by income level.

Of course there is also variation by race and by gender as well:

This report explains why broadening the participation in STEM is so important. As Chetty says "There are great differences in innovation rates. Those differences don’t seem to be due to innate ability to innovate.”

Our goal should be to make sure that the difference in innovation rates are not related to race, gender or income.

REPORT: No Educational Achievement Gap Between Multiracial and White Students

A new report published by the Brookings Institute, a liberal think-tank in Washington D.C. claims that there is educational gap between multiracial and white students. This would seem to contradict the race-based theories  trying to explain the achievement gaps which are often found when one analyzed educational attainment data through a racial and ethnic lens.

Here's an excerpt from the report, authored by Jonathan Rothwell, an Economist who works at Gallup

Despite the growing number of multiracial students, almost no attention has been given to their educational outcomes. But gaining a better understanding of how multiracial students perform may cast useful light on the causes of race gaps more generally. My analysis shows that:

1.    Students of multiracial identity are from families with lower socioeconomic status than whites; 

2.    They attend schools that are far more integrated with whites and Asians compared to blacks, Hispanics, American Indians, and Pacific Islanders 

3.    Multiracial students have the same average test scores as whites on math, science, and writing; 

4.    For reading tests, multiracial students outperform other groups, including Asians; and 

5.    These results contradict the controversial hypothesis that between group differences in IQ result from genetic differences between races.

These findings suggest that the race gaps in academic achievement in the United States are the result of inequality, especially in terms of access to educational opportunities, and therefore could be closed under fairer political, social, and economic arrangements.

This is just more evidence about the socially constructed nature of race and the arbitrariness of racial categories. If "white"

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Crystal Griner and David Bailey

Since the names Crystal Griner and David Bailey are on people's lips this week they are today's Celebrity Friday entry. These are the names of the two Capitol Police officers who were with U.S. Representative Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) on Wednesday when a gunman opened up fire on a group of Republican congressmen practicing for the annual baseball game.

Joe My God reports that Griner is openly lesbian and has a wife. She is credited with firing the fatal shot that stopped the assailant and was visited at the hotel by President Trump.

Others have noted the irony that two not only did Black people saved the life of Majority Whip Scalise who has been linked to white supremacists, but that it was a lesbian with a wife who arguably saved his life even though Scalise is strongly opposed to same-sex marriage and full citizenship for LGBT people like Griner.

SATURDAY POLITICS: Party Affiliation Influences Perceptions of Bias

The topic of how different groups of people view the prevalence and salience of discrimination against various groups is a subject that I have often blogged about here. Five Thirty Eight looks at the polling data from PRRI that I had previously discussed and makes an argument about how in the Trump era notions of "civil rights" and "discrimination" and what the government should do about these issues is going to be very different than what it was in the Obama and Bush administrations.

What we can say already, however, is that in its first 100 days, Trump’s administration has in some ways redefined who the U.S. government views as facing discrimination or marginalization. 

The administration is not proposing less intervention from the federal government, which is the typical Republican approach, but rather it is seeking to wield federal power, just as Obama did. But whereas Obama’s policies focused on protecting African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims, people who are gay or transgender, and other groups that most Americans view as marginalized, Trump and his team are focusing on defending different groups: Christians, police officers, victims of crimes by undocumented immigrants, and people who fear Latino immigrants are taking their jobs or redefining U.S. culture, among others. 

This approach is akin to civil rights for the Trump coalition, a shift in focus away from groups that Democrats (and the data) view as facing more discrimination and toward groups Republicans believe are more often marginalized.

This idea is part of today's discussion of Saturday Politics.

BOOK REVIEW: Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles

This is the 6th book in the Penn Cage series and the 3rd book in Greg Iles' Natchez Burning trilogy. Although I loved this series overall I was somewhat disappointed by the concluding entry in the series.

The books are incredibly complex, almost gothic tales of intrigue and suspense, set in the southern city of Natchez, Mississippi in "present day" and in the 1960s. The primary character is Penn Cage, a former criminal prosecutor turned best-selling author who is the son of Dr. Tom Cage, a white doctor who has lived in Natchez all his life and is respected by the white and black citizens of the town alike.

The book (and entire Natchez Burning trilogy) is animated by the secrets Penn's dad is keeping (and has kept) in the context of the explosive (and violent) racial politics of his hometown.

In Mississippi Blood  the primary plot is about the trial of Dr. Cage for the murder of Viola Turner, the beautiful black woman who was Tom's nurse in the 1960s and who was assaulted and raped and eventually exiled from her hometown by an extremely racist group called the Double Eagles (they separated from the Ku Klux Klan because that group wasn't hardcore enough on racial issues!) Viola was dying of cancer and the two had an assisted suicide pact.

My primary issues I had with this book was that the story just became a bit too operatic and unbelievable over time, with plot developments and shocking revelations occurring in the context of an extremely dramatic trial. To be honest, this was probably a weakness of the earlier books as well, but I looked past it because I was so invested in what was happening to the characters in those earlier books. (And all 6 books in the Penn Cage  series are action-packed, emotionally resonant thrillers also.) Because Mississippi Blood  is almost certainly the final book in the Penn Cage series, several bridges have been burned (and primary characters dispatched  in the earlier entries in the trilogy) so that somehow my connection to and interest in these remaining characters seemed less intense.

Overall, Mississippi Blood is a very suspenseful, action-packed, mystery-thriller with thought-provoking and complex racial politics woven throughout and an extremely compelling read.

Title: Mississippi Blood.
Author: Greg Iles.
Paperback: 704 pages.
Publisher: William Morrow.
Date Published: March 21, 2017.
Date Read: May 10, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★ (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

This was my first audiobook. My husband and I listened to it on our anniversary vacation in Hawaii (Kauai and Kona).

The narrator is Bahni Turpin and she is quite impressive. She provided individual voices for each of the characters and her vocal inflections communicate the nuances of the story and made the book a delightful experience. I would probably "read" another audiobook by her from an author I was ambivalent about just because she was the narrator! (Yes, she is that good.)

I'm not sure I'm a fan of the audiobook experience overall. I feel like I did not have as continuously engaged an experience with the audiobook as I would have had if I had read the book in either "dead tree" or electronic form. But it was fun to share the experience with my hubby. There were some scenes and plot points that my husband asked me about that I missed but as a whole the book was the source of many thoughtful and interesting conversations, which is one of the key reasons to read, in my humble opinion.

All that being said, The Underground Railroad  is very effective at depicting the horrors of slavery and illustrating the toxic effects of white supremacy and legal racial subordination on both Black and White people. There's an especially affecting scene when the ramifications of harboring a fugitive slave in a upside-down version of North Carolina become chillingly clear.

Another thing that comes across is how difficult life was back then without the modern technological advances we are now used to (in 2017); I'm not talking about fancy inventions like iPhones and electric cars and the Internet, but basic necessities of modern life we almost always take for granted like antibiotics and anesthesia and electricity. 

The Underground Railroad also points out all the different ways that people's humanity is degraded by the various horrible jobs (slave catcher, slave boss, overseer et cetera) that they are forced to undertake in order to survive. This is true of the black people and the white people in the book.

Although its calling card is the fact that the "metaphorical" Underground Railroad we have heard of in history books is a real thing in the book, to me this was a minor point, and even a bit silly. The primary selling point of The Underground Railroad is its depiction of slavery (even in a fictionalized, heightened form).

The Underground Railroad is also a compelling (and action-packed) story about what happens to a number of slaves named Cora and Cesar.


Title: The Underground Railroad.
Author: Colson Whitehead.
Paperback: 320 pages.
Publisher: Doubleday.
Date Published: August 2, 2016.
Date Read: January 17, 2017.

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

QUEER QUOTE: Draconian 30-Year Sentence Overturned In HIV Criminalization Case

The case of Michael Johnson has been a cause celebre for years, an emblematic of a toxic stew of race, (homo)sexuality, homophobia, AIDSphobia and criminal justice that produces (and is produced by) HIV criminalization statutes. Johnson is a Black gay man who at age 23 was sentenced to 30 years in a Missouri court in summer 2015 because the former college wrestler did not disclose to his male partners that he  knew he was HIV-positive before they engaged in unprotected sexual activity (some of which was recorded on cellphones). This week comes the news that an appellate court has overturned that draconian sentence (conviction for 2nd degree murder would have received less jail time) and ordered a new trial.

The Washington Post reports:

During the trial, Johnson remained adamant that he informed his partners of the positive HIV test. He pleaded not guilty. The prosecution, however, impeached his testimony using three clips of cellphone conversations, recorded while Johnson was jailed. In one snippet of phone conversation, Johnson admitted he was just “pretty sure” he had informed his partners he was HIV positive. 

After slightly more than two hours of deliberation, a jury declared Johnson guilty of three crimes, all felonies under Missouri law: one count of recklessly infecting a sexual partner with HIV, one count of recklessly exposing a partner to HIV and three counts of attempting to recklessly infect a partner with HIV. In July 2015, Judge Jon A. Cunningham of the Circuit Court for St. Charles County sentenced Johnson to 30 years in prison. 

[...] 

Presiding Missouri Court of Appeals’ Eastern District Judge James M. Dowd wrote Tuesday that Johnson’s trial was rendered “fundamentally unfair” by the prosecutors; they tarried too long handing over the cellphone calls recorded while Johnson was in the county jail. “The State’s blatant discovery violation here is inexcusable,” the judges concluded.

Johnson's lawyer Lawrence Lustberg, the ACLU of Missouri and Lambda Legal celebrated this week's result. Lustberg's comment is today's Queer Quote:

"Statutes like the one used to prosecute Mr. Johnson are inherently problematic, as they promote stigma and animus towards people living with HIV in violation of their legal and constitutional rights."

The ACLU notes that the new trial is being ordered due to prosecutorial misconduct and not the underlying constitutional frailty of the criminal statute Johnson was charged and sentenced under.
MadProfessah will continue to follow this case closely and urge readers to contribute to organizations like Lambda Legal, ACLU and the Center for HIV Law and Policy.

Hat/tip to Washington Blade and Washington Post.

GRAPHIC: Crime Rate versus Stop-and-Frisk in NYC

Kevin Drum has an excellent post today describing the facts about stop-and-frisk in New York City which graphically shows the relationship between the crime rate and stop-and-frisk policy (which stopped doing in 2014 after a federal district court judge ruled the NYPD's policy was illegal racially profiling Black and Latino men).

Since a picture is worth a  thousand words, I'll let the graphic speak for itself! But you can also read Kevin Drum's piece yourself.

REPORT: Racial Disparities Exist In HIV Criminalization

This will not be a surprise to anyone who has been following the story of HIV criminalization in the United States over the last few years. The Black AIDS Institute has issued a report on a new academic finding that exposes the racial disparities that exist in HIV criminalization.

Two studies—one commissioned by the Williams Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law that conducts independent research on sexual-orientation and gender-identity law and public policy, and the other presented at the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, in July 2016—link the criminalization of HIV to higher rates of incarceration for PLWHA of color, and community activists confirm it.

[...]

Researchers found that while White men made up 40 percent of the people diagnosed with HIV in California, only 16 percent of them had had contact with the criminal-justice system related to their HIV status. Black men made up 16 percent of PLWHA but 19 percent of those who had contact with the criminal-justice system. They were also more likely than White men to come into contact with the system repeatedly based on their HIV status: 25 percent vs. 10 percent. Overall, White men were more likely to be released and not charged. Black women made up only 4 percent of the population of PLWHA, yet an astounding 21 percent of them had come into contact with the criminal-justice system. Researchers say that more work needs to be done to identify what is driving the racial and gender disparities. 

In July, Trevor Hoppe, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Albany, presented his paper "HIV: Does Race Impact Sentencing Under Criminal HIV Exposure and Disclosure Laws in the United States?" at AIDS 2016. Hoppe looked at five states—Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Missouri and Tennessee—and found that Black men were given an average sentence of 110 months after being convicted on an HIV-specific criminal law, while White men averaged 74 months for violating the same statute. He found the greatest racial disparity in Arkansas, where Black men's sentences were double those of white men—279 vs. 140 months. "In Arkansas, Black men were sentenced to a dozen more years," says Hoppe.

There are too many examples of public policy not keeping up with the advancement of scientific knowledge about HIV transmission and, unsurprisingly, it is people of color who appear to be disproportionately impacted by this. Just ask Michael Johnson!

Fusion Adds Data To #GayMediaSoWhite Discussion

John Walker at the Fusion website analyzed the covers of the magazines of The Advocate, Out and Attitude and produced this useful infographic (seen above) to determine the (lack of) diversity represented therein.

The summary of the data is:

Representation on the cover of Out, June 2011 – May 2016In the past five years, Out has featured 78 people on the cover of its magazine. That figure includes repeat appearances by Dustin Lance Black, Ellen Page, Neil Patrick Harris, and Zachary Quinto. The mag’s upcoming May 2016 issue will feature Troye Sivan, a gay white singer-songwriter from Australia who rose to fame on YouTube.
Sixty-six of those 78 people have been white (85%), and 31 of those white people have been queer and/or trans (40%). Twelve of the 74 individuals featured on Out‘s covers have been people of color (15%), and eight of them have been queer people of color (10%).Representation on the cover of The Advocate, June 2011 – May 2016I was unable to locate cover imagery for the following six issues of The Advocate: September 2011, December 2011, January 2012, May 2012, June 2012, and July 2012. But of the covers I was able to find—excluding the publication’s more abstract, evocative cover art—at least 35 people have been featured on the cover of The Advocate over the past five years.At least 10 of those 35 individuals have been people of color (29%). At least eight of those 35 were queer and/or transgender people of color (23%). That includes the mag’s April/May 2016 cover star DeRay Mckesson, a prominent figure in the Black Lives Matter movement who is currently running for mayor of Baltimore.Representation on the cover of Attitude, June 2011 – May 2016Attitude has featured 111 people on its covers in the past five years. That tally includes repeat appearances by Adam Lambert, Dan Osborne, Gareth Thomas, Greg Rutherford, Harry Judd, James Hill, Thom Evans, and Tom Daley.
One-hundred and six of those 111 have been men (95%). The remaining five were women (5%), all of whom were white. (This gender disparity isn’t as troubling as it could be, given that—unlike The Advocate and Out—Attitude is specifically marketed to gay men.) No trans or nonbinary people of any race or ethnicity have been featured on the cover of Attitude in that timeframe.

The overall data can be summarized with this final quote of the data analysis is:

By the way, of the 21 people who appeared on more than one of these magazine covers, we found that seven (33%) are straight white cisgender men. Two of the repeat cover stars are queer women (10%), Lady Gaga and Ellen Page. Just one (5%), Michael Sam—who has been seen on both Out and Attitude—is a person of color.

Discuss!