New Media We Recommend

Below is a list of new materials that we have read/watched in recent weeks. The comments are not a “review” of the material, instead sort of an endorsement of ideas and investigations that can provide solid analysis and even inspiration in the struggle for change. All these books are available at The Bloom Collective, so check them out and stimulate your mind.

Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching, by Paula Giddings – This book is part biography and part history lesson. If you have never read much about Ida B. Wells, then this book is a must. Giddings does a great job of providing insight into a woman who not only challenged the White Supremacist practice of lynching she challenged the patriarchal norms of her day. Wells was an organizer, an agitator, a writer, a feminist and a deeply compassionate woman. After reading this book, Ida B. Wells has become one of my new heroes.

Einstein on Israel and Zionism: His Provocative Ideas About the Middle East, by Fred Jerome – Did you know that Albert Einstein was asked to be the leader of the State of Israel? I didn’t until I read Fred Jerome’s wonderful book about the very public position that one of the greatest scientist took on Israel and Zionism. This book makes clear that Einstein was not a supporter of Zionism or the State of Israel. Laid out in chronological order, the book mostly consists of letters, speeches and articles by Einstein beginning with his thoughts on anti-Semitism in 1919 all the way through til 1955. Einstein on Israel and Zionism gave me an even greater appreciation of the mind of a person who impacted the 20^th Century in unimaginable ways.

Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising’s Image of Women, featuring Jean Kilbourne (DVD) – In this new, highly anticipated update of her pioneering Killing Us Softly series, the first in more than a decade, Jean Kilbourne takes a fresh look at how advertising traffics in distorted and destructive ideals of femininity. The film marshals a range of new print and television advertisements to lay bare a stunning pattern of damaging gender stereotypes — images and messages that too often reinforce unrealistic, and unhealthy, perceptions of beauty, perfection, and sexuality. By bringing Kilbourne’s groundbreaking analysis up to date, Killing Us Softly 4 stands to challenge a new generation to take advertising seriously, and to think critically about popular culture and its relationship to sexism, eating disorders, and gender violence.

Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968 (DVD) – This film brings to light one of the bloodiest tragedies of the Civil Rights era after four decades of deliberate denial. The killing of four white students at Kent State University in 1970 left an indelible stain on our national consciousness. But most Americans know nothing of the three black students killed at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg two years earlier. This scrupulously researched documentary finally offers the definitive account of that tragic incident and reveals the environment that allowed it to be buried for so long. It raises disturbing questions about how our country acknowledges its tortured racial past in order to make sense of its challenging present.