Children of a Troubled Time by Margaret A. Hagerman

CHILDREN OF A TROUBLED TIME by Margaret A. Hagerman is about “Growing Up with Racism in Trump's America.” Hagerman, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Mississippi State University, set out to interview students aged 10 to 13 “across race and class groups and geographically split between Mississippi and Massachusetts. She explores the attitudes and statements of these young people after the 2016 Trump election and the “regular anti-Black words and actions of the Trump White House.” Her research centered around key questions she identifies as: (1) How did children make sense of racism in the Trump era? What can we learn about whether and how dominant racial ideology shifts? (2) How do the political times in which kids experience their childhoods shape how they develop ideas about race and racism? And (3) Looking at the emotional component, what role do racialized, group-level emotions play in a racial learning process? Hagerman is clearly a scholar – she has won awards for previous writing (White Kids) and this latest text is full of footnotes with roughly a fourth of the text devoted to appendices, notes, bibliography, and index. However, she is not neutral, saying “As soon as Donald Trump took office, experts predicted that his presidency would negatively impact kids in the United States. They were right.” Her analysis is sometimes difficult to read because of the painful quotes she incorporates from students of all races, but it is worthwhile to do so, particularly since she was able to speak with students and include their reactions to the events of January 6th. As Hagerman says, “Listening to kids express dehumanizing racist ideas and think they’re normal really concerns me.” For more background, please see this review and interview posted by NYU (publishing press) or the article “Did kids become more racist under Trump?” published recently in New York magazine.  

The Weight of Nature by Clayton Page Aldern

Since it is Earth Day it seemed appropriate to look at a couple of new climate related texts:

THE WEIGHT OF NATURE by Clayton Page Aldern is subtitled “How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains.” Aldern, a neuroscientist turned award-winning environmental journalist, looks at both the emotional and physical impacts on people from changes in nature. For example, he discusses PTSD triggered by more wildfires or the increased range for bats and mosquitoes (and the diseases they spread like rabies or Zika) due to higher temperatures. In addition to infection or trauma, the text explores memory, cognition, and behavior. Aldern stresses that hotter temperatures lead to more aggressiveness and make it harder to concentrate and focus. Other chapters which look at pain, sensing, and language are where he notes that “a changing climate also threatens our ability to notice some of the signals most relevant to our survival.” He describes examples of how water temperature and ocean acidification can impact crustacean olfactory systems or how pesticides “impair the homing abilities of honeybees.” Just reflect on the trees and plants in your neighborhood and how they seemed “confused” about when to bud or when to drop leaves, especially after periods of unusual cold or warmth or record-setting precipitation. Aldern documents his years of research in a section titled Notes and Further Reading which comprises roughly twenty percent of the text. Somewhat rambling in places, THE WEIGHT OF NATURE received a starred review from Kirkus (“a unique—and uniquely disturbing—addition to the literature”). 

BEFORE IT’S GONE by Jonathan Vigliotti, national correspondent for CBS News, is subtitled “Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change in Small-Town America.” And Vigliotti does indeed write movingly about the devastation due to wildfire (and human errors) at Lahaina, Hawaii. In another section, he writes rather humorously about the “kamikaze iguanas” who in cold temperatures fall out of trees in South Florida. In short, this book is geographically and thematically all over the place. His preface (about Hawaii) and prologue (about climate change in Syria) raise some of his concerns but don’t really provide any guideposts for his readers. Then, BEFORE IT’S GONE is divided into four sections: Fire, Water, Air and Earth, although Vigliotti readily admits that “most if not all environmental disasters are fueled by more than just one element.” Yes, he introduces readers to local activists – one especially poignant section is about the increased suicide rate for farmers in Minnesota – but he does not clearly lay out a coherent argument, seemingly presenting more sensationalized (including some unnecessarily vulgar language) tales. His statistics are supported in a Notes section that is about fifteen pages. This is a widespread (“in 2021, 14.5 million American homes were affected by environmental disasters that figure works out to one in 10 homes in the country”) and expensive (“according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), between 2020 and 2023 the United States was hammered by more than eighty billion-dollar environmental disasters that destabilized highly developed communities”) issue. Perhaps attempting to personalize these trends will prompt action, but this text felt too disjointed and not focused enough on the small-town America referenced in its subtitle.

Holding Together and The Power of Crisis

We are at day two of the Hearings by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Here are a couple of recent non-fiction texts which deal with the contention and conflict facing Americans and global citizens:  

THIS WILL NOT PASS: TRUMP, BIDEN, AND THE BATTLE FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, both reporters for The New York Times, is highly relevant since it deals directly with the 2020 election. That text, which also describes President Biden’s first year in office, received starred reviews from both Kirkus (“Red meat for politics watchers, unsparing in its depiction of a time of torment”) and Publishers Weekly (“Politics junkies should consider this required reading”).

The cover image for HOLDING TOGETHER by John Shattuck, Sushma Raman and Mathias Risse is clever and memorable. The subtitle, “The Hijacking of Rights in America and How to Reclaim Them for Everyone,” reflects the perspective of these authors, all of whom are affiliated with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. Across several sections, dealing with the Democratic Process, Equal Protection of Law, Due Process of Law, Speech, Media and Belief, and Privacy, these professors delve into specifics on numerous issues like voting rights, LGBTQ rights, and gun control. They strive to outline the relevant legal positions, including summarizing state and federal regulation. They also provide a series of policy recommendations like “Reframe the Issue: …the concept of gun control is simplistic and unnecessarily contentious and should be replaced by gun safety laws and gun violence prevention laws.” However, these proposals (e.g., “develop media literacy education to assist media consumers to evaluate information and navigate the rapidly changing marketplace of ideas”) are rather general and often lack a specific call to action or focal point for the average reader. HOLDING TOGETHER does provide a well-documented overview of threats to individual rights. The tone is a bit academic and certainly left leaning, although supported by extensive research with roughly thirty percent of the text devoted to notes and an index. These authors highlight connections between today and past actions which will be of particular interest to History and Civics teachers.

THE POWER OF CRISIS by Ian Bremmer is intended to note “How Three Threats – and Our Response – Will Change the World.” Bremmer, president and founder of global consulting firm Eurasia Group, spends the first chapter looking at “Two Collisions – us vs them, at home and abroad.” He explores our domestic conflict, including widening wealth gaps and increasing income inequality, and also calls China “a police state,” noting that its rise offers both opportunity and dangers. Subsequent chapters deal with “Pandemic Politics,” “Climate Emergency,” and "Disruptive Technologies." Unfortunately, it is rather easy to point to the critical issues which Bremmer has seemingly ignored. He only mentions Ukraine in a passing comment about a malware attack and references forced abortions in China – not the increasing restrictions in the United States or on women’s rights in general. He does provide extensive notes and an index to aid researchers. To learn more, view this recent interview with Bremmer from PBS NewsHour: