An engaging reexamination of 21st century philanthropy.
Mitzen discusses the implications of racial privilege and the importance of giving back in this nonfiction work.
With more than $250 million in annual revenue, The Fingerpaint Group, a marketing firm founded by the author, made him and his wife, Lisa, “wealthier than we ever dreamed.” Indeed, when he sold the company in his early 50s, he declared that they would “never have to work again.” Inspired by the example of Andrew Carnegie, who invested vast sums of his wealth into communities across the nation in the early 20th century, the Mitzens soon thereafter founded the nonprofit Business for Good (BFG) to use their “business-building skills to help others.” This book, the author’s second work centered on the intersection of business and charity, is written “for wealthy white people” and includes anecdotes from BFG as a guide for other would-be philanthropists. Openly admitting that he and his wife “had no idea” what they were getting into, a central theme of the book is the author’s coming to terms with his own racial privilege. While careful not to “shame or guilt” successful white readers (“You worked hard for your wealth; enjoy it”), Mitzen acknowledges that white men have “a leg up on everyone.” The same “laws and customs” that created an environment for white entrepreneurs to thrive, he notes, are part of the very same system that closes doors to others. With a keen sense of the history and legacy of racism in America, the book also contextualizes economic inequalities, describing, for example, how Black wealth in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was stolen in the 1921 massacre. Written in an authentic, conversational style that leans heavily into four-letter swear words, this is a solid introduction to systemic racism for skeptical, affluent white readers. The book provides ample examples (accompanied by photographs) of how BFG combined business acumen with solution–driven approaches that extended well beyond simply “writing checks to worthy nonprofits and watching passively.”
An engaging reexamination of 21st century philanthropy.Pub Date: May 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781544540993
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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