Category Archives: Books

SoLit Award Acceptance Speech – by Deborah Levine

SoLitLocal Distinguished Author Award 2022

I’m deeply honored by this award from the prestigious SoLit Alliance. Literature is my passion and growing up in Bermuda’s 24 square miles, I explored the vast world through reading. You should have seen me with a pad of paper and a number 2 pencil while still in diapers. I published my first story at age 16 and wrote grants and newsletters for decades. But not until coming to Chattanooga did I blossom as a writer, and thought of myself as one.  

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WINDHAM-CAMPBELL PRIZES REVEAL 10TH ANNIVERSARY RECIPIENTS

WINDHAM-CAMPBELL

“I am receiving this award with wide open arms, humbling crumbling with gratitude – calling the names of those on whose shoulders I stand, those that have loved and guided me, those known and unknown who are my champions.”

(l-r: Sharon Bridgforth, Emmanuel Iduma, Margo Jefferson, Wong May, Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, Tsitsi Dangaremba, Winsome Pinnock and Zaffar Kunial)

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MODERN VIEWS OF MASCULINITY AND MANHOOD – by David B. Grinberg

BOOK REVIEW:
“TALKIN’ TO YOU, BRO!” 

James Baldwin, a leading voice of Black America in the 20th century, once observed: “The American idea of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American idea of masculinity.”

This truism raises complex questions at the dawn of a new millennium. For instance:

  • What is the appropriate archetype to define masculinity in today’s increasingly diverse demographic construct? 
  • What characteristics most resemble the proverbial modern man according to today’s conventional wisdom?

These questions are posed and answered in a compelling new book by  Elwood David Watson, PhD: “Talkin’ To You, Bro! Liberate Yourself from the Confusing, Ambiguous Messages of Contemporary Masculinity” (Lasting Impact Press).

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Books for Peace International Award Ambassador 2022

Deborah Levine:
Books for peaceSilver Ambassador for Culture

Editor-in-Chief Deborah Levine of the American Diversity Report has now been named Silver Ambassador as a  humanitarian supporter for promoting culture of the Books for Peace International Award.

Dear Noblewoman Ms. Levine,
I feel embarrassed to write to you because our small prize can never be as great as your culture, as your immense soul, as your immense heart, as your wonderful and immense literary capacity.

You enclose the essence of the Woman, the Friend, the Artist, the Poetess, the Woman of today with the ethical and moral values of other times.  You are a unique woman.

THANK YOU FOR EXISTING, thank you for accepting our recognition.

With affection, esteem and gratitude,

Prof. Antonio Imeneo
DIRECTOR UNIFUNVIC EU- (BFUCA UNESCO BRASIL) CEO International Research Center Sport Prevention / Founder BOOKS for PEACE International Award
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Un-Bias Guide for Leaders

Un-Bias GuideThe Un-Bias Guide for Leaders is based on  Matrix Model Management System which involves the storytelling principles of cultural anthropology, the planning methodology of urban planning, and the team leadership of facilitation. The Un-Bias Guide is combination text / workbook customized for the workplace. The guide is an innovative tool for addressing unconscious bias and conscious choices.

Designed for team training in the workplace: business leaders, nonprofit administrators, and innovative entrepreneurs. CLICK at the bottom of the following short video to hear Deborah Levine share why the Un-Bias Guide is what today’s workplace needs.

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Black History Month: Keepin’ It Real on Race – by David B. Grinberg

James Baldwin, the 20th century black intellectual, renaissance author and cultural critic, once observed: “History is the present. We carry our history with us. To think otherwise is criminal.”

In addition to recognizing African American trailblazers of centuries past during Black History Month, it’s also instructive to consider more recent history. That’s why a compelling new book by historian Elwood David Watson, Ph.D. is recommended reading:
Keepin’ It Real: Essays on Race in Contemporary America (University of Chicago Press).

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Book Review: When Hate Groups March Down Main Street – By David B. Grinberg

Hate groupsFBI Director Christopher Wray recently told Congress the following about hate groups: “A majority of the racially motivated violent extremist domestic terrorism is at the hands of white supremacists.”

Hate crimes increased by nearly 20% in 2017, according to the latest FBI data. The actual numbers are likely larger because many hate crimes go unreported or are misclassified for various reasons.

Another study on hate crimes among 30 big cities nationwide, by The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, states the following: “Hate crimes rose 9 percent in major U.S. cities in 2018, for a fifth consecutive increase, to decade highs, as cities with increases outnumbered those with declines two to one. In contrast, crime overall in major cities has declined in both of the last two years.”

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Come Back for Me: Holocaust Novel – by Sharon Hart-Green

Come Back for Me A Novel by Sharon Hart-GreenLoss, trauma, memory, and the impenetrable ties of family are the elements that weave together Sharon Hart-Green’s panoramic debut novel Come Back for Me (New Jewish Press). Set in the aftermath of World War II, it is a gripping story about the redemptive power of love and self-understanding.

Come Back for Me tells the story of two young Jewish characters; one is a Hungarian Holocaust survivor Artur Mandelkorn who is on a desperate quest to find his beloved sister, Manya, after they become separated during the war. Artur’s journey takes him to Israel where he falls in love with Fanny, a young woman who still bears the scars of her own tragic past in Germany.

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‘Violence Against Black Bodies’ is About More Than Black Deaths – Book Review by Elwood Watson

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, not now at least. America is firmly within the twenty first century, yet we are struggling to deal with the problem that W.E.B. Dubois so aptly identified in 1903 as the problem of the twentieth century. That problem was the color line, which refers to institutional racism, discrimination and segregation. Looking ahead over a century later, it seems little has changed. While that assertion is unfair to a point—after all, we had a black president and legal segregation is prohibited –certainly the dynamics of racism are still as vibrant, conspicuous and ubiquitous in American life as ever—there is a problem throughout U.S. history that never subsides, and, as if to operate in cyclical fashion, sometimes gains momentum.

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