Synopses & Reviews
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When high school basketball player LeBron James was selected as the top pick in the National Basketball Association draft of 2003, the hopes of a half-million high school basketball players soared. If LeBron could go straight from high school to the NBA, why couldnt they? Such is the allure of basketball for so many young African American men. Unfortunately, the reality is that their chances of ever playing basketball at the professional, or even college, level are infinitesimal. In Living Through the Hoop, Reuben A. Buford May tells the absorbing story of the hopes and struggles of one high school basketball team.
With a clear passion for the game, May grabs readers with both hands and pulls them onto the hardwood, going under the hoop and inside the locker room. May spent seven seasons as an assistant coach of the Northeast High School Knights in Northeast, Georgia. We meet players like Larique and Pooty Cat, hard-working and energetic young men, willing to play and practice basketball seven days a week and banking on the unlimited promise of the game. And we meet Coach Benson, their unorthodox, out-spoken, and fierce leader, who regularly coached them to winning seasons, twice going to the state tournaments Elite Eight championships.
Beyond the wins and losses, May provides a portrait of the players hopes and aspirations, their home lives, and the difficulties they face in living in a poor and urban area — namely, the temptations of drugs and alcohol, violence in their communities, run-ins with the police, and unstable family lives. We learn what it means to become a man when you live in places that define manhood by how tough you can be, how many women you can have, and how much money you can hustle.
May shows the powerful role that the basketball team can play in keeping these kids straight, away from street-life, focused on completing high school, and possibly even attending college. Their stories, and the double-edged sword of hoop dreams, is at the heart of this compelling story about young African American mens struggle to find their way in an often grim world.
Review
"This collection of 17 essays examines poverty and its causes from a variety of angles. The common thread is a concern for the structural causes of poverty; the book therefore offers a welcome alternative to the dominant ideological views that portray poverty as a result of individuals' decisions, attributes and/or moral failings...The authors show the connections between capitalism, slavery and the development of state policies and ideologies that maintained the oppressed and exploited status of African Americans after the Civil War and constituted the basis for the emergence of white identity and privilege to the detriment of working class identities based on a recognition of the common plight of workers, regardless of skin color...this is an outstanding collection, useful for courses in social stratification, the sociology of work, and race and ethnic relations." -Science and Society,
Review
“Mays commitment to these boys is clear, as he becomes convinced that even though their fantasies of living the American dream are for the most part a dirty trick, it still remains about the best thing going in their sadly limited lives.”
-Publishers Weekly,
Review
“Much of whats recounted here will surprise few; what leaps out is Living [through the Hoop]s stark, confessional observations, its lengthy ruminations and the apparent lack of a fairy-tale postscript.”
-Detroit Metro Times,
Review
“A powerful and sober analysis of the lives of poor young people and coaches who sustain themselves with meaningful relationships and impossible dreams. May is an outstanding participant observer and interviewer who takes his reader into a social world, unpacks its meaning, and shows off the power of a vivid sociological imagination.”
-Mitchell Duneier,author of Sidewalk and Slims Table
Review
“;Moving and memorable, Living Through the Hoop offers an unflinching account of black male ballplayers lives. Immersing himself in the lives of players on a high school basketball team, leading ethnographer May eloquently describes the impact of their hoop dreams. May's profound analysis shows basketball playing can often lead to success in not so flamboyant ways, as young men learn to avoid lures of mean streets, develop teamwork and fairness values, and counter omnipresent barriers of a racist society.”
-Joe R. Feagin,author of Systemic Racism
Review
“Mays description of the experiences of these boys is readable and poignant; he describes the impact of drugs, alcohol, and violence on his players and also explores issues of masculinity and sportsmanship.”
-Choice,
Synopsis
Since the end of the Second World War, poverty in the United States has been a persistent focus of social anxiety, public debate, and federal policy. This volume argues convincingly that we will not be able to reduce or eliminate poverty until we take the political factors that contribute to its continuation into account.
Ideal for course use, A New Introduction to Poverty opens with a historical overview of the major intellectual and political debates surrounding poverty in the United States. Several factors have received inadequate attention: the impact of poverty on women; the synergy of racism and poverty; race and gender stratification of the workplace; and, crucially, the ways in which the powerful use their resources to maintain the economic status quo.
Contributors include Mimi Abramovitz, Peter Alcock, Bonnie Thornton Dill, Raymond Franklin, Herman George Jr., Michael B. Katz, Marlene Kim, Rebecca Morales, Sandra Patton, Valerie Polakow, Jackie Pope, Jill Quadagno, David C. Ranney, Barbara Ransby, Bette Woody, and Maxine Baca Zinn.
Synopsis
Since the end of the Second World War, poverty in the United States has been a persistent focus of social anxiety, public debate, and federal policy. This volume argues convincingly that we will not be able to reduce or eliminate poverty until we take the political factors that contribute to its continuation into account.
Ideal for course use, A New Introduction to Poverty opens with a historical overview of the major intellectual and political debates surrounding poverty in the United States. Several factors have received inadequate attention: the impact of poverty on women; the synergy of racism and poverty; race and gender stratification of the workplace; and, crucially, the ways in which the powerful use their resources to maintain the economic status quo.
Contributors include Mimi Abramovitz, Peter Alcock, Bonnie Thornton Dill, Raymond Franklin, Herman George Jr., Michael B. Katz, Marlene Kim, Rebecca Morales, Sandra Patton, Valerie Polakow, Jackie Pope, Jill Quadagno, David C. Ranney, Barbara Ransby, Bette Woody, and Maxine Baca Zinn.
About the Author
Louis Kushnick is Director of the Centre for the Study of Globalisation, Eurocentrism, and Marginality in the Department of Sociology in Manchester, where he is a Senior Lecturer. Author of
Race, Class, and Struggle: Essays on Racism and Inequality in Britain and the United States and Western Europe, he is currently Vice Chair of the Institute of Race Relations and has been the editor of Sage Race Relations Abstracts since 1980.
James Jennings is Professor of Political Science and Africana Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Director of the Trotter Institute, he is the author of numerous books, including The Politics of Black Empowerment, Understanding the Nature of Poverty in Urban America, Race and Politics, and Blacks, Latinos, and Asians: Status and Prospects for Activism.