Thoreau Center Brown Bag: Whitopia - Race and Public Policy

Whitopia--Race and Public Policy
Presenter: Journalist/Scholar Rich Benjamin
Friday, March 12, 12:30p to 1:30p
Thoreau Center for Sustainability - Pacific Room at Tides

This brown bag gathering will address the impact of race and ethnicity on pressing policy debates: social spending, immigration, citizenship, and voting. Rich Benjamin will discuss his timely research findings on those issues, and the challenges surrounding ethnic diversity, civic inclusion, and progressive public policy. You will be encouraged to offer thoughts on pressing topics: What does the Obama administration, the present Congress, and civil society portend for these policy issues, the quality of race relations, and our democracy’s health? Can we form the necessary ideas and talking points to move a progressive agenda forward, one that revives viable progress towards the commonweal and the common good?

Rich Benjamin is the author of Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America, and Senior Fellow at Demos, a nonpartisan public policy center based in New York. Searching for Whitopia was selected for the 2009 Editor's Choice Award by Booklist and the American Library Association. Benjamin’s social and political commentary is featured on television and radio, in major newspapers and magazines, and in the blogosphere.

Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in a the front desk.

New Books - March 2010

When you hear “West Coast Lady,” “Golden Hairstreak,” or “Great Basin Wood Nymph” what do you think of? The rich and diverse population of butterflies in northern California, of course. And these are just a few of the many species covered in the comprehensive Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco and Sacramento Valley Regions by Arthur M. Shapiro and Timothy D. Manolis, number 92 in the California Natural History Guides series from the University of California Press. UC Press recently donated this book and others from the series to the library's collection, including:

Introduction to Air in California, by David Carle – Carle surveys all aspects of the air around us, how it has shaped life in the state, and how it has in turn been shaped by human activity both locally and globally. Find out why the sky is blue, why it gets so foggy around here, and why some regions are better for growing certain wines than others. It is also a useful guide for more environmentally conscious living, with information on alternative energy sources, regulatory regimes, and tips for cleaner running cars.

Introduction to Fire in California, by David Carle – Over eight million Californians live at risk near the edge of wildlands subject to periodic wildfires. This guide explores the nature of fire and its role in the structure and processes of native ecosystems throughout the state. It also examines how humans have responded to wildfires and lays out the challenges we need to face to realize our place as a fire-adapted species.

Geology of the San Francisco Bay Region, by Doris Sloan – How did the ocean floor get to the top of Twin Peaks? How far do you have to dig beneath your flowerbed in the Sunset District before you find some of the dune sand that once covered half of San Francisco? Such questions are answered in this guide to the diverse, complex, and dynamic geologic processes that have molded the Bay Area over millions of years. In addition to clearly explaining complex topics such as plate tectonics, it suggests places where you can go to explore and to see geology in action.

Also, our friends at the Columbia Foundation made a large donation of items to the collection recently, including:

It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street, by Nomi Prins – Former Goldman Sachs managing director and current senior fellow at Demos, Prins dissects the financial system, the financial disasters of 2008, and the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington that enabled the disastrous behavior of large investment banks.

Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry, by Evan Wolfson – The executive director of Freedom to Marry brings his experience as a civil rights litigator to bear on the legal issues surrounding same-sex marriage and demonstrates why the right to marry for all couples is important for America's promise of equality.

Food is Different: Why We Must Get the WTO out of Agriculture, by Peter M. Rosset - Global food and farming researcher-activist Peter Rosset's guide to how the WTO “free trade” regime and agricultural subsidies have created an unequal food system that benefits a small corporate elite, and to the alternatives being proposed by social movements around the world to protect food sovereignty.

And from an anonymous donor, a fascinating work of scientific journalism:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot – Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old black mother when she died of cervical cancer in 1951. While treating her, doctors took tissue samples for research without her knowledge, and from these samples they began growing in culture the first viable line of “immortal” human cells, known as HeLa. HeLa cells have since been used extensively in many areas of scientific and medical research, aiding in the development of the polio vaccine, AIDS treatments, in vitro fertilization methods, and much more. The Lacks family, however, has derived no benefit from this use of her cells and today lack health insurance. Skloot tells the story of Henrietta, her family, and HeLa, illuminating the human side of issues of scientific ethics, race, poverty, privacy, and the sanctity of the human body.