REVIEW: Jay-Z: Made in America by Michael Eric Dyson (5-stars)

Humans have always been resourceful – they find ways to increase power and status, even when it means inventing and convincing others of the validity of something.  For example – at a time when France’s relative power and strength was troubled, Louis XIV basically invented “luxury” lifestyle and merchandise – fabrics, clothing, perfumes and furniture – in the 16th century, and his ambassadors became marketing managers, selling an idea that possessions of a certain quality meant something and inspiring the earliest fear of missing out that we see in modern marketing.

Michael Eric Dyson dives into the “art of hustle” in the first chapter – describing the ways that people, particularly African Americans in poor neighborhoods, have sought to find such niches to improve their circumstances and achieve financial and social success.  He talks about facets of types of hustle based on poverty and opportunity of location as integral to the black experience in the US.

Dyson’s writing works on many levels, skillfully interweaving biographical information about Jay-Z, biographical portraits of other artists, politicians and historical figures, social history, and literary analysis of the lyrics of Jay-Z and other artists.  

Throughout, there are references to conversations that Jay-Z and other artists have through the lyrics of their music – some are serious and some are light-hearted play acting or “dues.” 

Dyson also does a deep dive into masculinity and blackness – analyzing the Hegelian dynamics of Jay-Z and Beyonce’s musical conversations around the complexities of relationships between women and men.  

As a former language major – I really enjoyed Dyson’s analysis of Jay-Z’s lyrics in literary terms, summarized as an “extremely sophisticated romp on poetry’s playground of metaphor and metonymy, simile and synecdoche.”  Dyson dives into all the references to philosophy, history, politics and satire and summarizes as “Jay’s lyrical cleverness masks his deeper intellectual reflections on the world and on black culture itself.”

 “Jay’s openness to a variety of art forms and his understanding that common themes of existential struggle unite disparate genres of music. Thus one of his most successful songs, at a critical point in his career, features a sample from a Broadway musical that highlights the plight of poor, socially invisible children.”  

Jay-Z is a poet, a philosopher and has a strong political voice – which does not lessen as his popularity and success continue.  He’s the first rap artist to become a billionaire, and throughout his career – one where he never writes down his lyrics --  “Jay has also mastered a sneak-and-speak approach to political commentary, He laces his lyrics with pieces of social and political insight, from entire blocs of songs through extended metaphor to just a word or two.”

As Ken Burns highlighted in his documentary of country music in the US -- which featured mostly white artists -- the non-white artists he included stressed repeatedly "it's about the stories."  Hip-hop and rap are also about the stories, and shifting from stereotyped masculine swagger, avoidance of commitment and personal consumption.  There are women calling BS on men treating them poorly and even a young (gay) black artist whose "country trap" song quickly went up the Billboard charts as the most popular song in Billboard history.

Hip-hop / rap artists are not just telling their stories and shining light into the dark corners of our cultural consciousness, but they are working into the general conceptions of many concepts, such as who gets to enjoy "luxury" goods? (See https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/the-new-kings-and-queens-of-fashion-kanye-west-asap-rocky-cardi-b ) -- and importantly, they are changing the rules around power and status.

One of the most appealing traits of Dyson's writing is his passionate enthusiasm for Jay-Z's oeuvre --  his contextualization and analysis of Jay-Z’s music, achievements and life flows in a way that seems clear and almost obvious (as in "Of course it happened that way!").  Dyson provides a fantastic annotated discography at the end of this lovely synthesis of popular culture, history, capitalism and social class.  Or, as my friend Andre says – “Just listen to the music.” 

REVIEW: Jay-Z: Made in America by Michael Eric Dyson 

RATING: 5-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (1 star or less)

So many people recommended this book to me - and even in the "Silent Meditation" pools at Harbin, a random woman could not contain her enthusiasm as I sat silently reading and felt compelled to interrupt me with "That is the MOST PROFOUND book I have ever read."

Aside:  I did not engage with that woman because a) "silent" means no talking; b) if I am reading a book in public, it is not merely a prop to encourage random strangers to strike up conversation; c) perhaps she feels that I am not clever enough to experience the book for myself and she needs to provide guidance (if yes, then piss off); d) if this is the most profound book you've ever read - you clearly aren't reading enough (Start with "Possessive Investment in Whiteness" and piss off).

First - I want to acknowledge that the author's writing style is enjoyable, descriptive and flows nicely.  It was a very quick read.  Lovely descriptions -- but frankly, it got to a point where I felt like this was just a vehicle for his love of writing such descriptions.

Second - his characters are weak and abused, and lacking agency.  

Let's talk about Marie-Laure -- she's the extreme "Angel in a Glass Box."  Oh, poor little thing - she's BLIND!  She can't be expected to do anything, not dress, not pack to flee Paris, not even wash her own hair when she's a flipping teenage girl (no, her father does it while she is, presumably, naked in the bath tub).  

Did the author actually do any research into blindness (causes and correction)?  Did he actually talk to any blind people?  And, how about whether blind people actually count storm drains, make their own breakfast, get dressed and go outside on their own?  I am curious, frankly, to know what she did with most of her time when she wasn't reading from the same two books between age 6 and 16 -- and how did her father find the time to survey and carve intricate wood model puzzle box houses of the French Quarter in Paris and St Malo while also doing all of the things needed to care for his daughter and himself (oh, and work when they were in Paris). 

The orphan Werner and his sister Jutta -- whose parent(s) were killed in the mines (no explanation on the mother) -- find a broken radio and fix it, launching Werner on a quest to learn all about engineering.  He can fix things just by thinking it through -- SHOCKING! Wait - that's what the rest of us do.  We think about things, try a thing and test it out. What's really shocking is that he can be part of a marginal class in a coal mining town and then spend time in a Nazi school and not have any idea that the Nazis were sending trainloads of people off to die. In fact, the German characters seem so protected from the extent of the war that it's laughable.

We can't just let the evil Germans off the hook for ignorance and passive complicity - let's throw in a few random scenes of gratuitous cruelty involving a (possibly Jewish) prisoner, a student who is beaten into a traumatic brain injury because of poor eyesight, rape three women by a group of Russian soldiers (in one sneaky little paragraph) and kill off our German soldier, Werner, on a land mine after he saves the poor blind Marie Laure.

Frankly, I think the more interesting characters are the agoraphobic uncle Etienne whose illegal radio broadcasts reach England and Germany and the housekeeper (60 years of service!) who knows and feeds everyone in the town (where they get the money and food is still a mystery).

So, let's return to Marie Laurent.  She survives the war, doesn't get raped, nary a scratch on her precious little head and... the author doesn't see fit for her to ever have cataract surgery? Not even an attempt to restore some of her vision?  Cataracts are the most curable cause of blindness -- so she goes through a PhD program, works at the museum, collects sea animals (blind) and writes books but hasn't ever bothered to get the cataracts out? Why does the author see fit to punish her this way?  

Oh, wait - because her blindness is merely a trope to allow him to go off on descriptive tangents of sensual exploration.  Used.

Do I have to even get into the ridiculous sub plot of the priceless blue diamond and all it's mythology?  The cancer-ridden Nazi treasure hunter, keen on tracking down the precious gem that will let him LIVE FOR EVER!  YOU WILL NEVER HAVE THE ARK, INDIANA JONES!!!

Why did this get any prizes?  Seriously. I am calling BS. Did Doerr just get the Pulitzer because it was his turn?  Congratulations, white man.

REVIEW: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

RATING: 1 STAR (or less!)

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Winners Take All (2018) by Anand Giridhardas (3-stars)

People who are making money at the expense of the common good are not ignorant about the effects they are having on the world around them.

Take as an example – the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, built by the widow who was the heir to the fortune of Winchester rifles. She earned something like $10,000/minute without having to do a thing because of the pivotal role that those weapons served in the genocide that took place across the US West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sarah Winchester lived in mortal fear of the horrors being caused by those weapons in mass killings of innocent people across the landscape of a country that promoted “freedom.”

To avoid the wrath of angry spirits of the slain, and perhaps because she lacked the power, being a woman in the 19th century, Sarah Winchester commissioned continual work on her house to confound the spirits. This is instead of halting production of the Winchester rifles and closing down the business. Given the power and authority of women at that time, I imagine if she had tried, she would have been committed to an asylum. She did not NEED the money – so why continue a business that was so contrary to her own values?

We live in a society where people at the top are encouraged to accumulate and hoard money – and then to use that money for power to manipulate laws and create conditions for them to continue to make even more money. This can only result in ever-increasing socio-economic polarization.

“The Winners Take All” is written by someone who was raised in a fairly affluent neighborhood in Cleveland, worked as a consultant and has circulated with social/economic elites most of his life. Our author has an epiphany – as many people do in their mid-30s – and realizes that the philanthropy of the wealthy was not addressing the root causes of the social issues they were trying to resolve. Our intrepid young author makes a speech that shocks all his colleagues. Surfing on this wave of credibility as a “whistle blower,” he rushes publish detailing how the wealthy protect their ability to continue increasing their wealth and how people are co-opted into this system – whether they are entrepreneurs, consultants or thought leaders.

Let’s be clear: the emperor is starkers. This is not news. The elites who are part of the power structure will work to co-opt and de-radicalize people, movements and culture. Most people, if not everyone, knows this – or maybe it’s just my good fortune for having pursued an undergrad degree in sociology.

Based on the wide array of reviews of this book – so much hyperbole such “scathing” and “important” – it seems to me that many people fail to see it as “a good start” on a better book. He’s got a lot of great anecdotal detail from his first-hand experience and his interviews – but it is definitely skewed toward the politically liberal elites. He presents his evidence as a body of case studies of individuals – and leaves out important details about what they might actually do to create real change.

“Economistic thinking dominates our age,” says our author -- this has been pointed out by plenty of other people. Business processes are being seen as the best solution for many other domains where they may not be exactly applicable. His first case study of an idealistic young graduate student being co-opted into such economistic thinking as a means for making positive changes in the world provides a small glimpse into the changing beliefs about such education in our society.

Are schools just a way to train and future workers at all levels of the capitalist machine and indoctrinate them into economistic thinking? As Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt discuss in “The Coddling of the American Mind” – schools are becoming less of an environment where young people are exposed to a variety of ideas, taught how to think critically and independently and given space for intellectual experimentation.

Instead, according to Lukianoff & Haidt, schools are becoming more insular and resisting that which is “different” as just flat out harmful or wrong. Is this an outcome of the increasing need for co-optation into MarketWorld or a is MarketWorld a result? There’s much to explore here in the world of secondary and post-secondary education that is unexplored in this chapter.

As a society – we need to revisit what we believe about education and schools: schools aren’t just for training future workers. Increasing socioeconomic polarization and the fear of falling into poverty provides plenty of incentive to conform and make oneself as marketable to MarketWorld as possible.

One of the biggest problems highlighted in this book is the fundamental problem of putting reform of social problems in the hands of wealthy philanthropists. In addition to failing to address/masking the root causes of social problems, allowing the elites to operate in this way increases the power of these elites over the political structure and influence over changing laws to benefit themselves.

He provides a few questions here and there which seem to be straw men and which he doesn’t flesh out or address in depth. “In a world of true gender equality, might not the beauty industry shrink?” Isn’t the beauty industry just a part of the overall problem – what about professional sports, for example? Millionaires playing games (for a limited time until they are literally too physically damaged) for billionaires. I would argue that affects and drives perceptions of masculinity at least as much as the cosmetics and fashion industries affect femininity – are either of these areas so easily taken down buy “true gender equality”? Giridhardas provides a profile of the Sackler family – founders of Purdue Pharma, the creator of Oxycontin. It’s common knowledge that our nation is in the midst of a national epidemic of, not just opioid abuse, but the incredibly addictive Oxycontin – which was aggressively marketed by Purdue Pharma.

As with my example of Sarah Winchester – the Sackler family doesn’t need more money. So, why not just halt the production of Oxycontin altogether? They must still have some rights to the formula – so why not just halt production? Focus some of their money and attention on resolving the addiction issues and helping promote non-addictive pain management therapies (how many acupuncture clinics do you suppose are in “ground zero” McDowell County?).

Throughout the book, Giridhardas touches on the calls from within and outside the elite to increase taxes on the uber wealthy – but doesn’t dive into any actual proposals and what it might look like for the elites to lead the way to reforming what capitalism means.

An increase taxes on any income over $10MM – say to 70% -- might encourage the reinvestment of the profits into the company in the form of increased wages across all levels of an organization, especially if paired with a value of reducing difference in salary between lowest and highest paid employee of a company to, say, 500:1 (instead of the 2,438:1 at Manpower, for example). An increased tax might also be used to fund other initiatives (such as the proposal by NY Representative Ocasio-Cortez to fund a “Green. New Deal”).

While I appreciate the spirit of the book – it presents a terribly skewed perception of the players as mostly US and liberal – leaving out, for example, the Koch brothers and others, giving the impression that maybe they are somehow golden geese (what about the philanthropy of the Gates foundation, for example)? Giridhardas leaves out analysis of the broader global issues (and makes a few snipes toward globalization) and ignores recommendations for solutions entirely.

Giridhardas doesn’t even come close to recommending any such ameliorative strategies for people whose incomes are derived from socially destructive activities. In fact, in his wrap-up, he seems to leave the door wide open for any other alternative, good or bad:

“For the inescapable answer to the overwhelming question – Where do we go from here? – is: somewhere other than where we have been going, led by people other than the people who have been leading us.”

Perhaps the elites are malicious and intentionally manipulating perception through philanthropy – or perhaps philanthropy is just a “Winchester Mystery House” being pursued by people who don’t know how to undo the damage being caused by their addiction to capitalism and the unending drive to hoard wealth. What we need – as much as the criticism and “emperor has no clothes” kinds of reportage in “Winners Take All” – is an escape from this system for the elites and a way to rethink our values around society and wealth.

For more reviews of this book – check out Black Oxford’s review of this book from a broader intellectual and moral perspective. Michael Siliski’s review dives into the proposals as well as other defects of the book

REVIEW: Winners Take All (2018) by Anand Giridhardas 

RATING: 3-stars

 © Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.