Appealing But Dated Whitey Bashing
930531
She's A Whitey In Jeans
She's An Outlaw
She Don't Wear A Bra

(from "Outlaw")

Can you dig it?

OK, just in case you don't know, this is the "Hundred Pounds Of Clay" guy. Remember him? The clean-cut poppy crooner of the 1961 hit (which I never liked) turned to casual socio-political commentator on these two Atlantic releases from 1970 and 1971. In the liner notes he even confesses to understanding the radicals of the time, but not exactly endorsing their agendas (e.g. The Black Panthers). It was known as "radical chic", or coolness by proxy, at least by stuffy white people (aka The Establishment, who are largely the target of these two albums.)

I wonder if McDaniels would have felt the "Supermarket Blues" had the owner been Korean? Just a thought.

The result is an often hilarious pair of relics from the late Flower Power era (see above), which, frankly, is a welcome reminder to a time when everything in popular black--sorry "African-American"--music wasn't about bling, consumerism, gangstas and bitches. Seriously, when was the last time an R&B/soul/hip-hop/rap performer concerned themselves with the plight of the American Indian?

I can't say that these two albums are an entirely genuine reflection of the cultural/political scene of the early seventies, but at least Eugene McDaniels' approach is appealingly earnest, if not also regrettably a little too "Hair" (the 1967 ubiquitous & highly defining musical). "Love Letter To America" and "Unspoken Dreams Of Light" sound as if they were lifted directly from an Off-Broadway revue named something like "Rise My Brothers!", complete with histrionics & forced, cracking vocals.

Anyway, I was surprised by how much I liked these two releases, despite the dated material.
417010
The plot is fairly well constructed, but naive in many ways. The biggest problem I had was with the narrow focus of the characterizations.  I found many of them slightly offensive.  The two main protagonists are a perfect, white, fundamental Christian couple with a beloved-by-all blond child.  Nothing wrong with that, but everyone else is relegated to stereotypes and the Langley's manage to be the heroes.  There is the kindly, old, black man who they 'help' by giving him a menial job landscaping. The ditzy waitresses can't dress appropriately until given uniforms.  The villain is Jewish. The Langley's also "help" their Catholic friends understand Jesus. The author should have done some research to discover that Catholics are Christian's, too, and we accept our faith and are 'born again' when we make our Confirmation. No Catholic would be as confused as Pierce and Zoe are, nor would they be likely to go to the Langley's for spiritual advice.  Just because we don't hold hands when we pray doesn't mean we don't think God is with us all the time.
4226716
The only reason to consider this mediocre mystery is to catch a glimpse of the casual bigotry and racism prevalent in the 1930s. Through crude stereotypes and racial slurs, the author manages to defame Africans, Jews, Arabs, Italians, Chinese and Asians in general before taking a final shot at people of mixed race - all expressed as the common views of the day.
1014646
This is a good (entertaining in parts) history. It is a passionate book. However, it was first published in 1962 and it hasn't aged well in the company of modern Jewish historiography.  Dimont tends to make connections between events and draw inferences which, in the absence of footnotes, sometimes appear as almost wild generalisations.  Often he pounces on one or two people or events as encompassing a totality of explanations for hisotrical trends.  For example, the influence of Alfred Rosenberg on the Nazis is undoubtedly exaggerated in the book. The book lacks the socio-political sophistication of modern works but, allowing for the cold war context after WWII, it is still worth reading with some reservations.
697923
The basic premise of this book is faulty, which is that racism is reserved for white people and that white people feel they are racially privileged over non-white people. This book is just another whiteness studies book, and whiteness studies is the next phase is bashing non-Jewish white people. Whiteness studies is racist against white people - plain and simple. Racism against white people has been institutionalized in American society, and white (more specifically the non-Jewish white male) are bashed in the media, in the public school system, in the workplace (as a result of Affirmative Action), and in society in general. I've frequently heard racist anti-white comments made by "minorities" (especially from black Americans) over the years and they get away with it due to the progressive-liberal politically-correct system in place today. I have been personally racially discriminated against in both the military and the civilian workplace by minorities in position of supervision and management who've established a double-standard favoring their minority group and have therefore shown favoritism to members of their minority group at the expense of whites. I haven't seen this "white privilege" the author is talking about. I've seen "minority" privilege (especially black-American, not African or Caribbean black) which really comes down to anti-white bashing so these "minorities" can feel better about themselves.

There are a number of liberal whites who have "white guilt" (as a result of years of politically-correct indoctrination in the media and public schools) who agree with whiteness studies, but there are other whites like myself (and some non-whites as well) who see right through this racist, leftist, politically-correct, anti-white charade.

Go ahead and read the book, but just bear in mind that it is just another product of politically-correct garbage that is racist against white people.
4138747
None of the films is a bad one but most of them are clearly outdated for today viewers.
Maybe the only exception (in my view) is the story about the german prisioner that was able to escape,( a real strory), as it shows the out of common determination of a human being to obtain his freedom objective, It also shows the "fair play" behaviour that was common among the british officers during that period.
3051109
I read this book in the mid-90s when I was in college. This book dares shed light on the underlying reasons behind poverty, repeat single motherhood, crime, the welfare state (specifically, it's beneficiaries), and our country's general descent into a white ghetto. Many people accused the author of racism due to the findings about racial differences in IQ, but Murray points out, via alarming statistics, the growth of a new white underclass. Unfortunately, his predictions have pretty much been born out.  I see so many wives focusing on the negative traits they see in black Gatos, but I see white youth have been embracing cattle culture for 30 years now, and it's time to pay the piper. White people are almost now at the same level of risk for becoming a Great White Ghetto, and are starting to exhibit many of the traits that predicted the fall of black communities over 40 years ago. For example, Murray takes pains to point out that whites are now having more out-of-wedlock children, higher divorce rates, in juvenile delinquency rates are going through the roof. This is what brought the black community down, and unfortunately, whites are well on their way.  Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I'm convinced that certain white intellectual Elites, who isolate themselves from the very poor people they claim to embrace, are behind this. They have use the education system to basically dumb everyone down equally so that they can remain on top. Oddly enough, white Academia number or some of his strongest credit when this book was released, along with the usual suspects race-baiters.
3557999
This is a much-ballyhooed pb original from the Golden Age. It's a smooth, professional job, as are most books from this era, but it doesn't match it's rep.

It's plot is very similar to John D Macdonald's earlier THE EXECUTIONERS, though it's hard to say to what extent Macdonald influenced Colby. (They seem to have been published a year apart.) A "man in the Grey Flannel Suit" type, by all outward appearances very dull and normal, actually has a dangerous secret in his past, and this dangerous secret is now out to come and bite him.

This is an interesting framework for a story, although neither book mentioned above really handles it that well. In both instances the bad guys are much more interesting than the good guy, and they don't shine any refracted light (ie, the good guy is not made more interesting by the fact that these bad guys want to kill him.) CAPTAIN also suffers from Colby's typical deaf-ear to psychology, with various characters turning around on a dime to act as the plot demands it. One might plead formula, but there were plenty of pb original writers who did much better with this.

Worst of all, the bad guys have something of a point, and the "good guy" is somewhat at fault here. While his position is certainly defensible, it's not simply defensible. Yet Colby never really gets into the psychology of all this, never really complicates his case in interesting ways. Again, you can plead formula, or the times, but there were certainly writers out there who were unashamedly writing out rather aberrant psychology, so it's not a position I really buy. It feels to me instead rather like Wouk's THE CAINE MUTINY, ie Colby saw where his story was truly headed and got chicken about it.

Not awful, and certain passages, particulary a sequence in which the bad guys are entertaining local whores, work very well. But a deeply overrated book, certainly second-tier.
2074424
I'd like books out there to discuss the dangers of anti-white predjucie. I'd like books out there that show it is just as racist to stereotype whites as it is to stereotype blacks or jews.  As for the 'white power' reviewer-he is obviously a racist, a self hating white person.  As well, calling Hispanics a 'race' is nonsense.  There are hispanics who are white, and there are hispanics who are black.  There are Italians who are white, and there are Italians who are black.
This typical 'white men are all racist' book reminds me of a quote from the movie, Lean on Me.  Morgan Freeman is standing in front of a group of inner city kids, to which he says, "If you do not suceed in life, I don't want you to blame the white man.  I don't want you to blame your parents.  I want you to blame yourselves.  The responsibility is yours."  That line alone should already mean something for all of us.
3099088
"The Spare Wife" is a chronicle of NYC A-listers.  All the women are rich, mostly beautiful and generally bored and bitchy.  Their men are also well-heeled, often idle and generally without virtue and honor.  The novel's heroine is socialite Ponce Morris, who is portrayed as an exception to the women's stereotype.  She is rich and beautiful, to be sure, but the lady is a tramp.  She doesn't have time for people and things that she hates.

This formula is familiar and would have worked a whole lot better for me in this book if author Alex Witchel had given the story a much sharper edge.  But this isn't "Bonfire of the Vanities" with its whipsaw extremes of character and behavior and nasty consequences.  In "The Spare Wife,"  the characters seem pushed toward the mushy center of behavior and the concept of "fierceness" is not present.  Even the author's heroine, Ponce, who is presented as the paragon of independent spirit and unfailing kindness through most of the story, becomes less unique and kind in her theoretical triumph in one of the last chapters of the book.  At the other end of the character spectrum, the story's villainess--young, beautiful and sneaky, Babette, is punished in the end by "having" to marry a handsome, megarich "older" man.  This is punishment that is hard to see as justice.
Author Witchel is a decent writer and delivers some witty zingers in the book's dialogue, but on the whole,  "The Spare Wife" is froth without the guilty pleasure of whipped cream, from beginning to end.
4102584
There is much in there that's worth reading and Cleaver does a good job of exposing racism and injustice.  But be prepared for two faults: Cleaver must have been an early post-modernist and you get a lot of meaningless psychobabble.  Worse, he apparently considered rape an revolutionary or insurrectionary act rather than a crime.  Ideally, a black man would rape a white woman.  But starting out by practicing on black women was all right too.  This is hardly a minor flaw.  The book is filled with hatred and as study of hatred it's fairly interesting.  But if a movie presented a black man as Cleaver presents himself, it would ( and probably rightfully so ) be considered horribly racist.  The funny thing is, Cleaver went on to later condemn his book and support Ronald Reagan.
318440
Unless you can get tolerate repeated racist language, don't bother with this book.  It was written in the 60's and it shows.  The N-word is used more times here than in most rap songs and it is used exclusively by the white characters.  It makes it a little rough to read but definitely worthwhile.

The liberation referred to in the title is a divorce case that is taken by a white lawyer.  Generally though this book is about a small Tennessee town and its racism.
4365316
This movie is in black and white (better still, in black and red!) and I don't mean colorwise. It's your standard politically-correct hagiography where good guys ooze beatitude, bad guys reek evil, and if you don't root for the former, you belong with the latter. Like history told this way? If  so, then you're gonna love it; if not, at least you'll get some  laughs.
Mind you, it's not that I object the fake look, dubbed dialogue,  hammy overacting or holier-than-thou attitude of everyone concerned in this  dated political flick from the sixties; I mean, we were all pretty much  ridiculous ourselves back then. But Joan Baez's awful lyrics and worst  wailing tear apart the movie's only redeeming asset: Ennio Morricone's  beautiful music score. Now that's a true crime!
So you've been warned!
1974283
As a voyueristic peek into the minds and lives of the ethically challenged throughout history, the 48 Laws of Power is as entertaining as it gets. However, beyond that, it's only real value, is as a means of categorizing,  recognizing, and hopefully thwarting, the tactics of the sleazebags among  us. It seems to me that what the authors have given us is an updated and  expanded Baltasar Gracian (The Art of Worldly Wisdom), without the charm.  It's still a fun read, but one senses a certain shallowness that is not  entirely compensated for by the wealth of historical allusions. Enjoy it  for what it's worth, but certainly, take it with a (large) grain of salt!
2958215
I lived in Switzerland during the 1980s, so it was good to read this book and catch up with what has been going on since that time, ie the 35km hiking trail that has been built for the 700th anniversary. The book reads like a TV documentary that you might see on the BBC.

The reason I gave this book 4 stars is because the author presents as deriding and scoffing at anything even remotely "right wing". He also mixes up "religion" with "race", with the superficial suggestion that anti-minaret sentiment is to do with 'zenophobia', rather explore the idea that it might be more to do with a rejection of a certain ideology, as well as changing the archetypal Swiss scenery that so many people love.
4289202
A traditional bodice ripper - I enjoyed the novel, but it was definitely dated and there is the frustration factor of the constant misunderstandings.
1803915
The story for this book was good, but it contains some words and situations that might have been more acceptable in the 90's but are actually quite offensive and made me uncomfortable.  In my opinion, when the hero in the book spews homophobic or racial slurs, he is no longer a hero.