Banding Together: How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music

Colin Flaherty received numerous accolades for his work in mainstream journalism, and now conducts a weekly radio program with his brother in which they view politics from a left-right divide. In addition, Colin just wrote a book that is not about its seeming topic. From first glance, this book would appear to be about race riots, and while it documents them well, the real purpose of this book is to ask Americans what’s wrong with us. Why can’t we talk honestly about this situation, why can’t we talk honestly about race, and why does our media avoid mention of necessary facts? Flaherty works his magic by creating a fact pattern out of many disparate news articles, which he then compares to YouTube footage of the event, showing us what actually happened. As this is an e-book, you can follow the links yourself, which is what this book challenges you to do. He does not ever stray into racism — at all. He does not blame African-Americans, or anyone else, for this spate of black on women, homosexuals, Asians and whites. He simply points out that it is occurring and that it upsets all Americans and weakens our faith in our media, who are brushing it under the rug. Writing in clear and sometimes sarcastic prose, Flaherty speaks from his strength, which is understanding media. He links together abundant citations, all from mainstream media and many from African-American media, in order to illustrate his point.