Andrea Benson (@heyandreajay) Bsky

Poverty, by America Check out Poverty, by America - #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted reimagines the debate on poverty, making a “provocative and compelling” (NPR) argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Oprah Daily, Time, The Star Tribune, Vulture, The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Public Library, Esquire, California Review of Books, She Reads, Library Journal “Urgent and accessible . . . Its moral force is a gut punch.”—The New Yorker Longlisted for the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award • Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?    In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow.   Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom. by Matthew Desmond on Bookshop.org US!

I read social-justice books for a book club. They can be good but dense. But Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond is written in an accessible way and gave me ways to help change the problem. Highly recommend.

(Affiliate link--Bookshop gives me a small commission.)

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Against Settler Colonialism: A Reading List From Turtle Island to Palestine, Indigenous people across the world continue to resist settler-colonial domination, extraction, and exploitation of their land and communities. We center these tradi...

Against Settler Colonialism: A Reading List

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#booksky

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Uneasy About Sexual Content in a YA Novel? ‘Read the Whole Book,’ Urges Author Malinda Lo “That’s why there is sexuality in my books: because it is part of life. There’s no nefarious purpose,” says author Malinda Lo.

More than 1,800 banned titles in the 2023–2024 school year contained sex-related content. In a new interview, bestselling YA author @malindalo.bsky.social explains the necessity of reading those works in full before considering pulling them from shelves: pen.org/malinda-lo-i...

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The party of small government is now the party of big brother.

8 months ago 11475 3743 437 143

Absolutely this.

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10 months ago 196 30 11 1

It’s that time of year again!

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#BookSky
#LangstonHughes

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What’s the opposite of a Nobel Peace Prize?

I think we have a winner.

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This is like the Emperor's New Clothes. But the United States is the emperor, and Trump and Musk are the tailors.

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Amazing.

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Our Black History Month 20% off book promotion

It's Groundhog Day, and in Pennsylvania Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, predicting four more years of Trump trying to reinstate Jim Crow. Punxsutawney Phil's prognostications are notoriously wrong, and we're working to make damn sure this one is wrong as well. theliteratelizard.com/black-histor...

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Okay, to be honest, this app stresses me out 😥

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I’m so sorry 😞

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Well, I wasn’t gonna, but here I am. Hi.

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Posts by Andrea Benson