Ellis Cose

The critically acclaimed journalist and bestselling author of The Rage of a Privileged Class explores one of the most essential rights in America--free speech--and reveals how it is crumbling under the combined weight of polarization, technology, money and systematized lying in this concise yet powerful and timely book. Free speech has long been one of American's most revered freedoms. Yet now, more than ever, free speech is reshaping America's social and political landscape even as it is coming under attack. Bestselling author and critically acclaimed journalist Ellis Cose wades into the debate to reveal how this Constitutional right has been coopted by the wealthy and politically corrupt. It is no coincidence that historically huge disparities in income have occurred at times when moneyed interests increasingly control political dialogue. Over the past four years, Donald Trump's accusations of "fake news," the free use of negative language against minority groups, "cancel culture," and blatant xenophobia have caused Americans to question how far First Amendment protections can--and should--go. Cose offers an eye-opening wholly original examination of the state of free speech in America today, litigating ideas that touch on every American's life. Social media meant to bring us closer, has become a widespread disseminator of false information keeping people of differing opinions and political parties at odds. The nation--and world--watches in shock as white nationalism rises, race and gender-based violence spreads, and voter suppression widens. The problem, Cose makes clear, is that ordinary individuals have virtually no voice at all. He looks at the danger of hyper-partisanship and how the discriminatory structures that determine representation in the Senate and the electoral college threaten the very concept of democracy. He argues that the safeguards built into the Constitution to protect free speech and democracy have instead become instruments of suppression by an unfairly empowered political minority. But we can take our rights back, he reminds us. Analyzing the experiences of other countries, weaving landmark court cases together with a critical look at contemporary applications, and invoking the lessons of history, including the Great Migration, Cose sheds much-needed light on this cornerstone of American culture and offers a clarion call for activism and change.

The Short Life and Curious Death of Free Speech in America

From Founding Fathers to Today's Disruptors

Race and Reckoning

A controversial and widely heralded look at the race-related pain and anger felt by the most respected, best educated, and wealthiest members of the black community.

Why Do Prosperouse Blacks Still Have the Blues?

The Rage of a Privileged Class

Published to coincide with the ACLU's centennial, a major new book by the nationally celebrated journalist and bestselling author For a century, the American Civil Liberties Union has fought to keep Americans in touch with the founding values of the Constitution. As its centennial approached, the organization invited Ellis Cose to become its first ever writer-in residence, serving as an "embedded journalist" with complete editorial independence. The result is Cose's groundbreaking Our Democracy, If We Can Keep It: The ACLU and Its 100-Year Battle for Our Rights, the most authoritative account ever of America's premier defender of civil liberties. A vivid work of history and journalism, Our Democracy, If We Can Keep It is not just the definitive story of the ACLU but also an essential account of America's rediscovery of rights it had granted but long denied. Cose's narrative begins with World War I and brings us to today, chronicling the ACLU's role through the horrors of 9/11, the saga of Edward Snowden, and the phenomenon of Donald Trump. A chronicle of America's most difficult ethical quandaries from the Red Scare, the Scottsboro Boys' trials, Japanese American internment, McCarthyism, and Vietnam, Our Democracy, If We Can Keep It weaves these accounts into a deeper story of American freedom--one that is profoundly relevant to our present moment.

The ACLU and Its 100-Year Battle for Our Rights

Our Democracy, If We Can Keep It

Spanning from the nation’s earliest years through the New Deal to the Covid pandemic, a groundbreaking work that interrogates how pivotal decisions have established and continued discriminatory practices in the United States, even as the rise of disinformation and other modern advertising techniques have plunged democracy into an ever-deepening crisis. Throughout our nation’s history, numerous racialized decisions have solidified the fates of generations of citizens of color. Some of the earliest involved race-based slavery, the removal of Indigenous peoples from their lands, and the exclusion of most Asians. More have proliferated over time. While America grew into a superpower in the twentieth century, it continued to discriminate against people of color—both soldiers who served overseas and civilians on the home front, herding Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II and denying Black citizens their right to vote. American Politicians have waxed eloquently and endlessly about bettering the nation. But bettering it for whom? journalist and cultural commentator Ellis Cose asks. From Reconstruction to the New Deal to the unceasing fight for civil rights, Cose reveals how the hopes of many Americans for a true multicultural democracy have been repeatedly frustrated by white nationalists skilled at weaponizing racial anxieties of other whites. In Race and Reckoning Cose dissects chapter-by-chapter how America’s overall narrative breeds racial resentment rooted in conjecture over fact. Through rigorous research and with astute detail, Cose uncovers how, at countless points in history, America’s leaders have upheld a narrative of American greatness rooted in racism. It is a story grounded in history, and it demolishes the myths that ultimately allowed one of the most ill-prepared, unethical, vindictive, and truth-challenged politicians in history to position himself as America’s savior by tapping into the nation’s darkest tendencies.

Published to coincide with the ACLU’s centennial, a major new book by the nationally celebrated journalist and bestselling author For a century, the American Civil Liberties Union has fought to keep Americans in touch with the founding values of the Constitution. As its centennial approached, the organization invited Ellis Cose to become its first ever writer-in-residence, with complete editorial independence. The result is Cose’s groundbreaking Democracy, If We Can Keep It: The ACLU’s 100-Year Fight for Rights in America, the most authoritative account ever of America’s premier defender of civil liberties. A vivid work of history and journalism, Democracy, If We Can Keep It is not just the definitive story of the ACLU but also an essential account of America’s rediscovery of rights it had granted but long denied. Cose’s narrative begins with World War I and brings us to today, chronicling the ACLU’s role through the horrors of 9/11, the saga of Edward Snowden, and the phenomenon of Donald Trump. A chronicle of America’s most difficult ethical quandaries from the Red Scare, the Scottsboro Boys’ trials, Japanese American internment, McCarthyism, and Vietnam, Democracy, If We Can Keep It weaves these accounts into a deeper story of American freedom—one that is profoundly relevant to our present moment.

The ACLU’s 100-Year Fight for Rights in America

Democracy, If We Can Keep It

At a time when Colin Powell is being discussed as a possible vice-presidential candidate for the Republican party, a growing segment of the population is asking whether racial prejudice has lost its power. But not so fast: In this startling, sharply insightful, and eye-opening book, Ellis Cose trains his practiced eye on the murky waters of race in America and looks at the acute differences, even hostility, in our perceptions of race exposed by the 0. J. Simpson trial, not to mention the controversial content of The Bell Curve. In doing so he addresses whether it is possible for the United States to simply wipe the racial slate clean and surmount its racist past, or if color blindness may be just another name for denial. In a world where it is often believed that lighter skin means higher status, money is the great equalizer, and education will set you free, Color-Blind brilliantly reveals why race may be a larger-and smaller-issue than many people think. With the keen observational powers of a professional journalist and the concrete solutions of a true visionary, Ellis Cose delivers his most powerful and important book to date.

Seeing Beyond Race in a Race-Obsessed World

Color-Blind

Draws on the insights of relationship experts in the fields of psychiatry and law as well as the experiences of individuals who have had to overcome or accept emotional pain, offering perspectives on the power of moving past pain and reconciling as part of ending destructive retribution cycles. Reprint. 40,000 first printing.

Of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Reparation, and Revenge

Bone to Pick

Justice Isn't Always Black and White Cutthroat defense attorney and rising celebrity Felicia Fontaine is about to tackle her biggest--and seemingly most unwinnable--case yet, defending a white businessman accused of killing an office rival, a Hispanic man promoted over him. With her reputation and confidence on the line, the ever-savvy Felicia needs to watch her every step to successfully get through this controversial case dubbed the "Affirmative Action Murder" by a salacious press. She won't get any breaks from the prosecution, though, for the DA is none other than her toughest adversary, and former flame, Mario Santiago, a smart, ethical professional who'll do what it takes--even if it means risking his new marriage--to win a conviction. Thrust into the spotlight of a critical and unrelenting media, under the wary eyes of a divided country, these two passionate lawyers will face off in a trial that will explore the deceptive difference between justice and revenge--a case where truth has no meaning against outrage, envy, ambition, and desire. A case you will never forget.

The Best Defense

In a provocative examination of male identity in today's society, a successful author discusses the confusion of men over changing gender roles and expectations, using both personal accounts and startling statistics to explain how men can cope with an increasingly confusing world. Reprint.

How Real Is Male Privilege-And How High Is Its Price?

A Man's World

Decision making about energy has come to epitomize a larger struggle taking place in U.S. society--a struggle for control over individual destiny, economic resources, and the shaping of society itself. A host of ideologies has been spawned, new federalism and new populism among them. Many activist groups argue that making decisions about resources can be a first step in helping people gain control of their lives. Focusing on the issues surrounding the control of energy and discussing the limitations and advantages of dealing with the energy problem at the local level, the author examines the proposition that granting control over decision making to cities, states, or regions rather than to the federal government can positively affect public confidence, as well as result in more efficient energy planning. Mr. Cose discusses the various interpretations of decentralization; the relationship between decentralization and small-scale technologies; the overlapping and opposing interests of governments, consumers, and corporations; and the extent to which local governments and political structures are prepared to deal with an issue that is traditionally outside of their sphere. The author supports his analysis by looking at specific municipal governments and their attempts, successes, and failures to respond to the energy crisis. He also analyzes the particular problems of community projects. Throughout the book he comments on the effect that Reagan administration policies have had on decision making about energy at all levels of government nationwide.

The Rebirth Of Community Power

Decentralizing Energy Decisions

Is a truly race-netrual society possible? Can the United States wipe the slate clean and surmount the racism of its past? Or is color blindness just another name for denial? In this penetrating and provocative book, Ellis Cose probes the depths of the American mind and exposes the contradictions, fears, hopes and illusions embedded in our complicated perceptions of race. Looking beyond the platitudes and pronouncements that tend to distort reality rather than illuminate it, Cose offers a visionary analysis of the steps we must take if we are serious about finding a true resolution to the thorny problem of race in America.

In a world riven by conflict, reconciliation is not always possible -- but it offers one of the few paths to peace for a troubled nation or a troubled soul. In Bone to Pick, bestselling author and Newsweek editor Ellis Cose offers a provocative and wide-ranging discussion of the power of reconciliation, the efficacy of revenge, and the possibility of forgiveness. People increasingly are searching for ways to put the demons of the past to rest. That search has led parents to seek out the murderers of their children and torture victims to confront their former tormentors. In a narrative drawing on the personal and dramatic stories of people from Texas to East Timor, Cose explores the limits and the promise of those encounters. Bone to Pick is not only the story of victims who have found peace through confronting the source of their pain; it is also a profound meditation on how the past shapes the present, and how history's wounds, left unattended, can fester for generations. Time does not heal all, Cose points out. Memories and anger can linger long beyond a human lifespan. The descendants of Holocaust survivors and African slaves alike feel the effects of their forebears' pain -- and in some cases are still demanding restitution. What is behind the movement for reparations? Why are truth-and-reconciliation commissions sprouting all over the world? Why are old wars being refought and old wounds being reopened? In Bone to Pick, Ellis Cose provides a moving and nuanced guide to such questions as he points the way toward a more harmonious world.

With The Rage of a Privileged Class, Ellis Cose, a venerated and bestselling voice on American life, offered an eye-opening look at the simmering anger of the black middle class. Some sixteen years later, Cose has discovered this group is much less angry and even optimistic about its future, despite a flagging economy and a deeply divided body politic. With The End of Anger, Cose examines these new attitudes as well as the decline of white guilt and the intergenerational shifts in how blacks and whites view and interact with each other. Weaving material from interviews and two large and ambitious surveys, Cose—an esteemed journalist—offers an invaluable portrait of contemporary America, one that attempts to make sense of what a people do when the American dream, for some, is finally within reach, as one historical era ends and another begins. The End of Anger is an indispensable exploration of how mores change from one generation to the next and may well be the most important book dealing with race and class to be published in recent decades.

A New Generation's Take on Race and Rage

The End of Anger

With an eloquence and compassion reminiscent of James Baldwin's Letter to My Nephew, Ellis Cose presents a frank and realistic examination of the daunting challenges facing black men in twenty-first-century America and offers a way out of the cycle of defeatism and despair that wreaks havoc on America's black communities. Black men have never had more opportunity for success than they do today. Yet, as Ellis Cose bluntly puts it, "We are watching the largest group of black males in history stumbling through life with a ball and chain wrapped around their legs. If brought together in one incorporated region, the population of black males behind bars would instantly become the twelfth largest urban area in America." Add to that the ravages of AIDS, murder, poverty, and illiteracy, the raging anger between many black men and women, and the widening gap separating the black elite from the so-called underclass, and you have a prescription for a paralyzing pessimism. But even as he acknowledges the systemic obstacles that confront black men of all social strata, Ellis Cose refuses to accept them as reasons for giving up or giving in. In powerful and stirring prose, Cose rails against the historical worldview that has categorized academic achievement as a source of shame instead of pride in many black communities; he also outlines steps black males can take to enhance their odds for success. With insightful anecdotes about a broad range of black men -- from Franklin Raines, the first black man to run a Fortune 500 company, to unlettered ex-prisoners -- Cose documents the amazing journey the black race has made, and contemplates the challenges ahead. Both a warning of the vast social tragedy that is wasted black potential and a vital call to arms that can enable black men to reclaim their destiny, The Envy of the World is an honest and important book for anyone concerned about the future of America.

Ellis Cose

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