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Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison
A haunting and powerfully moving book that gives voice to the poorest among us and lays bare the cruelty of a penal system that too often defines their lives.
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Chris Hedges has taught courses in drama, literature, philosophy, and history since 2013 in the college degree program offered by Rutgers University at East Jersey State Prison and other New Jersey prisons. In his first class at East Jersey State Prison, where students read and discussed plays by Amiri Baraka and August Wilson, among others, his class set out to write a play of their own. In writing the play, Caged, which would run for a month in 2018 to sold-out audiences at The Passage Theatre in Trenton, New Jersey, and later be published, students gave words to the grief and suffering they and their families have endured, as well as to their hopes and dreams. The class’s artistic and personal discovery, as well as transformation, is chronicled in heart-breaking detail in Our Class. This book gives a human face and a voice to those our society too often demonizes and abandons. It exposes the terrible crucible and injustice of America’s penal system and the struggle by those trapped within its embrace to live lives of dignity, meaning, and purpose.
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Chris Hedges has taught courses in drama, literature, philosophy, and history since 2013 in the college degree program offered by Rutgers University at East Jersey State Prison and other New Jersey prisons. In his first class at East Jersey State Prison, where students read and discussed plays by Amiri Baraka and August Wilson, among others, his class set out to write a play of their own. In writing the play, Caged, which would run for a month in 2018 to sold-out audiences at The Passage Theatre in Trenton, New Jersey, and later be published, students gave words to the grief and suffering they and their families have endured, as well as to their hopes and dreams. The class’s artistic and personal discovery, as well as transformation, is chronicled in heart-breaking detail in Our Class. This book gives a human face and a voice to those our society too often demonizes and abandons. It exposes the terrible crucible and injustice of America’s penal system and the struggle by those trapped within its embrace to live lives of dignity, meaning, and purpose.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 19, 2021
42 people are currently reading
1233 people want to read
About the author
Chris Hedges
59 books1,923 followersChristopher Lynn Hedges is an American journalist, author, and war correspondent, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies.
Hedges is known as the best-selling author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
Chris Hedges is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City.
Hedges is known as the best-selling author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
Chris Hedges is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews
September 5, 2021
Chris Hedges has been teaching in prisons in New Jersey since 2013. This book is mostly about a drama class where he gets his students to write a play about their experience in the prison system. It’s not an easy book to read, the dehumanisation and degradations that these men suffer is appalling. Prison conditions, the individual stories of his various students, the plays they study and discuss, made this an emotional read for me (yes, I cried quite a few times). Hedges is always worth reading.
July 24, 2021
I received this book from my local, locally owned, bookstore as a bonus for spending so much on books, as the copy I received is a promotional copy.
Do we need another book that lays out the injustice of our carceral state, in which we go over pages and pages of data that show the rise of poverty that tracks the rise of the Chicago School of macroeconomic shock doctrine championed by Milton Friedman that dislocated labor productivity gains from wage growth and instead transferred those gains to the asset owning class through policy tools like the Phillips Curve, which created a permanent unemployable class of Americans that were, and still are, sacrificed to maintain a consistent YoY increase in asset prices whereby this degrading, spiritually crushing policy impels people to find any means necessary to survive, who are then caught in a system that criminalizes their rational behavior, and turns them into a permanent slave-labor class in the carceral state?
No we don't need more data, what we need is more humanizing of this state of things.
This book does that and I applaud Chris Hedges for being the instrument through which the humanization of these fellow subjugated citizens is transmitted.
I want to share two sections from the book that resonated with me. The first is from Chris the second from Dr. Cornel West.
"The role of art is transcendence, creating the capacity for empathy, especially for those who appear strange, foreign, or different. Art is not about entertainment, or at least not solely about entertainment. It goes deeper than that.
It's about dealing with what we call the nonrational forces in human life. These forces are not irrational. They are nonrational. They are absolutely essential to being whole as a human being. They are not quantifiable. They cannot be measured empirically. Yet they are real-maybe more real than those things we can see and touch and count. Grief, beauty, truth, justice, a life of meaning, the struggle with our own mortality, love. Sigmund Freud said he could write about sex, but he could never write about love.
These nonrational forces are honored by the artist. The origins of all religions are fused with art, poetry, music. This is because religion, like art, deals with transcendence, with empathy, with justice, with love- realities we experience viscerally but that are often beyond articulation. Religion, like art, allows us to hear” -Chris Hedges
"August Wilson said that Black people authorize an alternative reality from the nightmarish present reality by performance- performance in a communal context. There is a call and a response. This creates agency. It creates self-confidence and self-respect. You saw this in churches under slavery. You saw this in communal music and art under Jim and Jane Crow. Ma Rainey. Bessie Smith. Sarah Vaughan. Mary Lou Williams. Miles Davis. Duke Ellington. Count Basie. I decided long ago to stay on the love train Curtis Mayfield talked about when he sang 'People get ready,' the love train of the Isley Brothers, the love train of the O'Jays. Those are not just songs. They are existential declarations of a certain way of being in the world. I come from a people who've been Jim and Jane Crowed, enslaved and despised and devalued, who dished out to the world the love supreme of John Coltrane, dished out to the world the love and essays of a James Baldwin. How is it that these particular people, so hated, had the courage and the imagination to dish out love-figures like Martin King and Toni Morrison, and a whole host of others?” -Dr. Cornel West.
Do we need another book that lays out the injustice of our carceral state, in which we go over pages and pages of data that show the rise of poverty that tracks the rise of the Chicago School of macroeconomic shock doctrine championed by Milton Friedman that dislocated labor productivity gains from wage growth and instead transferred those gains to the asset owning class through policy tools like the Phillips Curve, which created a permanent unemployable class of Americans that were, and still are, sacrificed to maintain a consistent YoY increase in asset prices whereby this degrading, spiritually crushing policy impels people to find any means necessary to survive, who are then caught in a system that criminalizes their rational behavior, and turns them into a permanent slave-labor class in the carceral state?
No we don't need more data, what we need is more humanizing of this state of things.
This book does that and I applaud Chris Hedges for being the instrument through which the humanization of these fellow subjugated citizens is transmitted.
I want to share two sections from the book that resonated with me. The first is from Chris the second from Dr. Cornel West.
"The role of art is transcendence, creating the capacity for empathy, especially for those who appear strange, foreign, or different. Art is not about entertainment, or at least not solely about entertainment. It goes deeper than that.
It's about dealing with what we call the nonrational forces in human life. These forces are not irrational. They are nonrational. They are absolutely essential to being whole as a human being. They are not quantifiable. They cannot be measured empirically. Yet they are real-maybe more real than those things we can see and touch and count. Grief, beauty, truth, justice, a life of meaning, the struggle with our own mortality, love. Sigmund Freud said he could write about sex, but he could never write about love.
These nonrational forces are honored by the artist. The origins of all religions are fused with art, poetry, music. This is because religion, like art, deals with transcendence, with empathy, with justice, with love- realities we experience viscerally but that are often beyond articulation. Religion, like art, allows us to hear” -Chris Hedges
"August Wilson said that Black people authorize an alternative reality from the nightmarish present reality by performance- performance in a communal context. There is a call and a response. This creates agency. It creates self-confidence and self-respect. You saw this in churches under slavery. You saw this in communal music and art under Jim and Jane Crow. Ma Rainey. Bessie Smith. Sarah Vaughan. Mary Lou Williams. Miles Davis. Duke Ellington. Count Basie. I decided long ago to stay on the love train Curtis Mayfield talked about when he sang 'People get ready,' the love train of the Isley Brothers, the love train of the O'Jays. Those are not just songs. They are existential declarations of a certain way of being in the world. I come from a people who've been Jim and Jane Crowed, enslaved and despised and devalued, who dished out to the world the love supreme of John Coltrane, dished out to the world the love and essays of a James Baldwin. How is it that these particular people, so hated, had the courage and the imagination to dish out love-figures like Martin King and Toni Morrison, and a whole host of others?” -Dr. Cornel West.
June 13, 2021
incisive as always, chris hedges' new book confronts america's sadistic, racist, exploitative, counterproductive, and broken carceral state. our class: trauma and transformation in an american prison focuses on the pulitzer prize-winning journalist (and ordained minister)'s time spent teaching inmates at east jersey state prison.
in exposing his students to the works of james baldwin, august wilson, amira baraka, miguel piñero, michele alexander (and others), hedges found a classroom of engaged, bright, and vulnerable individuals eager to learn and express themselves. with his guidance, the class sets out to write a play, a candid, often brutal account of their childhoods, their early lives, their experiences with the justice system, etc. the play would eventually be staged at the passage theatre in trenton (in 2018) and was released last year in hardcover by haymarket books: caged.
our class is a personal tale, of both hedges's time in the prison classroom and of the trials and triumphs of his students. when writing about the penal system more generally, hedges indicts a cruel, inhuman system that has no place in a civilized society. as he seems to do in nearly every one of his books, hedges offers a cogent, moving, and infuriating look at the decline and failure of american empire.
in exposing his students to the works of james baldwin, august wilson, amira baraka, miguel piñero, michele alexander (and others), hedges found a classroom of engaged, bright, and vulnerable individuals eager to learn and express themselves. with his guidance, the class sets out to write a play, a candid, often brutal account of their childhoods, their early lives, their experiences with the justice system, etc. the play would eventually be staged at the passage theatre in trenton (in 2018) and was released last year in hardcover by haymarket books: caged.
our class is a personal tale, of both hedges's time in the prison classroom and of the trials and triumphs of his students. when writing about the penal system more generally, hedges indicts a cruel, inhuman system that has no place in a civilized society. as he seems to do in nearly every one of his books, hedges offers a cogent, moving, and infuriating look at the decline and failure of american empire.
there are people in this room who committed crimes, but there are no criminals here today. not that criminals do not exist. is it not criminal to allow more than twelve million in the united states to go to bed hungry every night while amazon, which earned $11 billion in profits last year, paid no federal taxes? in fact, in our system of corporate welfare, amazon received a $129 million tax rebate from the federal government. is it not criminal that half of all americans live in poverty, or near poverty, while the three richest men in america, including the founder of amazon, jeff bezos, have combined fortunes worth more than the total wealth of the poorest half of americans? is it not criminal that millions of factory jobs, which once allowed families to earn a living wage with health and retirement benefits, have been shipped to places like monterrey, mexico, where mexican workers in gm plants earn three dollars an hour without benefits? is it not criminal that our families have been sacrificed to feed the mania for corporate profit, left to rot in violent and postindustrial wastelands such as newark and camden? is it not criminal to harass and terrorize the poor on the streets of our cities for petty activities such as selling loose cigarettes or "obstructing pedestrian traffic," which means standing too long on a sidewalk, while bank of america, citibank, and goldman sachs have never been held accountable for trashing the global economy, wiping out forty percent of u.s. wealth through fraud? is not criminal that, as poverty has gone up and crime has actually gone down, our prison population has more than doubled?
January 4, 2022
Go down, Moses,
way down in Egypt land,
tell old Pharao
to let my people go!
way down in Egypt land,
tell old Pharao
to let my people go!
October 16, 2024
Chris Hedges might be an author whose books I will always give good ratings.
February 28, 2022
Fantastic. Absolutely worth the time to read.
February 21, 2023
Having already read Caged, it was a surprise to hear that this is the backstory to how the play came about. We need to change our prison system now; it truly is tragic and heartbreaking situation that affects generations of families, mainly black and brown ones.
February 1, 2022
Last year I was having a conversation with a "work associate" (I'm a substitute teacher). I wanted to talk about what I was currently reading, and we dove into White Fragility. I spoke on some of the simple revelations--America was most defiantly built by white people for white people. How the system is like a race... white men got a big head start and everybody else has been at a disadvantage ever since. I thought this was a safe approach. I am super entrenched in white America here in Nebraska but knew this individual to be a God fearing, master's degree carrying, army experienced dude.
He wanted to enlighten me to the fact that poverty is due to a lack of trying. Hard work, education, and effort can free anyone from their circumstances. He shared his life experiences with me in a shallow attempt to appropriate poverty. Mr. Asleep swore that his poorly paid police pensioned father and stay at home nurse educated mother raised him and his brother in poverty. I told him that my experiences with destitution looked more like one parent homes (who are never around), drug use, sexual abuse, and no food in the house/starvation. We all use our lives and knowledge to shape our perceptions. . .
Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison is an in-depth look into the lives of inmates...they just happen to write a play. If you want to listen to criminals' personal stories; if you want an inside look at prison; if you desire some enlightenment about Black Life Matter without ever hearing that phrase; if you'd like a cliff notes like approach to African American literature and playwrights--this book is for you!
Chris Hedges stares the penial system in the eyes and uses his vast knowledge of institutionalized individuals to frame his believes. Yes, this book will make you uncomfortable. No one likes to hear stories of victimization, children being abused, or preachy "we gotta fix this rhetoric." Hedges flows from the literature his prison class is exploring, to their personal tales, to the play they create in a masterful way that makes this difficult subject more palpable.
I'm half awake and needed to put this book down for a bit cause it was too heavy on my mind and heart. I explored my masculinity, the prison system, these heartbreaking true stories, and am better and more rounded for it. I'd never read/seen preformed Fences, Pipeline, A Raisin in the Sun and was honored to be educated on these works. My teacher bro in the beginning referenced a sociologist named Ruby Pain to help further explain his viewpoints on race and poverty. I loved watching her YouTube presentation and she had poignant, well thought out things to say. Yet, at the end of the day, she's a white woman speaking on a lot of theory and philosophy, and not life exp.
I hope you enjoy this review, and it helps you decide if this book might be for you. If it's not I still implore you to seek out lived in literature and disparate opinions to wholistically educate yourself. Much love.
He wanted to enlighten me to the fact that poverty is due to a lack of trying. Hard work, education, and effort can free anyone from their circumstances. He shared his life experiences with me in a shallow attempt to appropriate poverty. Mr. Asleep swore that his poorly paid police pensioned father and stay at home nurse educated mother raised him and his brother in poverty. I told him that my experiences with destitution looked more like one parent homes (who are never around), drug use, sexual abuse, and no food in the house/starvation. We all use our lives and knowledge to shape our perceptions. . .
Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison is an in-depth look into the lives of inmates...they just happen to write a play. If you want to listen to criminals' personal stories; if you want an inside look at prison; if you desire some enlightenment about Black Life Matter without ever hearing that phrase; if you'd like a cliff notes like approach to African American literature and playwrights--this book is for you!
Chris Hedges stares the penial system in the eyes and uses his vast knowledge of institutionalized individuals to frame his believes. Yes, this book will make you uncomfortable. No one likes to hear stories of victimization, children being abused, or preachy "we gotta fix this rhetoric." Hedges flows from the literature his prison class is exploring, to their personal tales, to the play they create in a masterful way that makes this difficult subject more palpable.
I'm half awake and needed to put this book down for a bit cause it was too heavy on my mind and heart. I explored my masculinity, the prison system, these heartbreaking true stories, and am better and more rounded for it. I'd never read/seen preformed Fences, Pipeline, A Raisin in the Sun and was honored to be educated on these works. My teacher bro in the beginning referenced a sociologist named Ruby Pain to help further explain his viewpoints on race and poverty. I loved watching her YouTube presentation and she had poignant, well thought out things to say. Yet, at the end of the day, she's a white woman speaking on a lot of theory and philosophy, and not life exp.
I hope you enjoy this review, and it helps you decide if this book might be for you. If it's not I still implore you to seek out lived in literature and disparate opinions to wholistically educate yourself. Much love.
November 1, 2021
Those convicted of homicide
Are not worthy of earthly animation
Condemned prisoner
Displays time and space disaffect
Executioner as God Complex
It's all done with mirrors, yes, smoky mirrors
The murderer executed in false-real-time
The electrocuted prisoner elevates world oxygen stores.
#poem
Chris Roberts, Patron Saint to Billy Alcatraz
Are not worthy of earthly animation
Condemned prisoner
Displays time and space disaffect
Executioner as God Complex
It's all done with mirrors, yes, smoky mirrors
The murderer executed in false-real-time
The electrocuted prisoner elevates world oxygen stores.
#poem
Chris Roberts, Patron Saint to Billy Alcatraz
December 3, 2021
Journalist Chris Hedges writes about the first class he taught in a prison and while the contents of this book remain very important, the badly executed delivery makes it so hard to get through. He suffers from what I call listing, where he fixates on adding unnecessary details that end up creating fluff.
For example, on page 5, he states that "numerous films shot scenes in the prison." That sentence is perfectly credible and doesn't really necessitate supporting evidence. Who hasn't seen a movie set in prison? However, Hedges spends the whole paragraph not only providing names of the movies but also of each director and actor involved in them.
On page 7, he writes: "his books and essays are prophetic sermons," when talking about the son of a preacher. Then, he goes on and writes the names of the books, the names of the essays, the name of his novel, and the name of the chapters that go with them.
After a while it starts getting repetitive. On page 17, in the second paragraph he talks about what they studied saying "genocide of the Native Americans. We examined slavery, the Mexican-American War..." and he continues listing topics. In the next paragraph, he mentions that they looked at the issues through the eyes" of Native Americans, immigrants, those who were enslaved..." and he continues to list issues. As you can see, he is not only listing the same things, he is also following the same sentence structure.
Last example of his writing: "The great theologians, the great philosophers, the great artists, the great novelists, the great musicians, the great playwrights, the great dancers, the great painters, and the great sculptors struggle to honor, to sustain, to impart to us the sacred, not only within ourselves but within others."
But like I said, the contents are important. Part of the purpose of the book is to show the disparity between the treatment of the races by the justice system. While the 13th amendment stated that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude ... shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction," it did leave an exception: "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."
Taking into account that it leaves punishment as an exception of slavery, it seems a bit unsurprising that even though the United States represented 4.4% of the world's population in 2015, it held the same year 21% of the world's prisoners. Additionally, the United Stated Sentencing Comission has consistently found in their "Demographic differences in sentencing" report that:
1. Black male offenders continued to receive longer sentences than similarly situated White male offenders.
2. Non-government sponsored departures and variances appear to contribute significantly to the difference in sentence length between Black male and White male offenders.
3. Violence in an offender’s criminal history does not appear to account for any of the demographic differences in sentencing.
So who benefits from imprisoning so many people? Weirdly, but unexpectedly, in the US some prisons are for-profit corporations, which benefit from having more people imprisoned and from having them imprisoned for longer. However, private enterprises are not the only ones benefiting from this, the government is as well since prisoners are being used for unpaid or underpaid labor. For example, the University of Florida logged 156,000 unpaid prison labor supplied by the Florida Department of Corrections’ (FDC) workcamp prisoners.
An important point that might go unnoticed is that Hedges has a bipartisan critique of who contributes to this system. Signaling that not only Republicans, but also Democrats (special shoutout to Biden) continue these dynamics. For example, when Kamala Harris was California's attorney general she kept nonviolent prisoners and fought to keep nonviolent prisoners longer than their sentences for their unpaid labor.
Finally, some people might argue that this is ok since these prisoners have been found guilty for their crimes. However, detainees, which are people that haven't been to court yet so they haven't been found guilty or innocent, are also being used for their unpair or underpaid labor. Recently, a judge found private prison operator GEO Group LLC guilty and now owing $17.28 million in back wages to immigrant detainees who received $1 per day for work done while in detention centers since it violated Washington’s Minimum Wage Act.
So while this is an ok first book to introduce racial factors in the justice system to someone who isn't familiar with them, it shouldn't be their last. 3 starts. I liked it.
For example, on page 5, he states that "numerous films shot scenes in the prison." That sentence is perfectly credible and doesn't really necessitate supporting evidence. Who hasn't seen a movie set in prison? However, Hedges spends the whole paragraph not only providing names of the movies but also of each director and actor involved in them.
On page 7, he writes: "his books and essays are prophetic sermons," when talking about the son of a preacher. Then, he goes on and writes the names of the books, the names of the essays, the name of his novel, and the name of the chapters that go with them.
After a while it starts getting repetitive. On page 17, in the second paragraph he talks about what they studied saying "genocide of the Native Americans. We examined slavery, the Mexican-American War..." and he continues listing topics. In the next paragraph, he mentions that they looked at the issues through the eyes" of Native Americans, immigrants, those who were enslaved..." and he continues to list issues. As you can see, he is not only listing the same things, he is also following the same sentence structure.
Last example of his writing: "The great theologians, the great philosophers, the great artists, the great novelists, the great musicians, the great playwrights, the great dancers, the great painters, and the great sculptors struggle to honor, to sustain, to impart to us the sacred, not only within ourselves but within others."
But like I said, the contents are important. Part of the purpose of the book is to show the disparity between the treatment of the races by the justice system. While the 13th amendment stated that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude ... shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction," it did leave an exception: "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."
Taking into account that it leaves punishment as an exception of slavery, it seems a bit unsurprising that even though the United States represented 4.4% of the world's population in 2015, it held the same year 21% of the world's prisoners. Additionally, the United Stated Sentencing Comission has consistently found in their "Demographic differences in sentencing" report that:
1. Black male offenders continued to receive longer sentences than similarly situated White male offenders.
2. Non-government sponsored departures and variances appear to contribute significantly to the difference in sentence length between Black male and White male offenders.
3. Violence in an offender’s criminal history does not appear to account for any of the demographic differences in sentencing.
So who benefits from imprisoning so many people? Weirdly, but unexpectedly, in the US some prisons are for-profit corporations, which benefit from having more people imprisoned and from having them imprisoned for longer. However, private enterprises are not the only ones benefiting from this, the government is as well since prisoners are being used for unpaid or underpaid labor. For example, the University of Florida logged 156,000 unpaid prison labor supplied by the Florida Department of Corrections’ (FDC) workcamp prisoners.
An important point that might go unnoticed is that Hedges has a bipartisan critique of who contributes to this system. Signaling that not only Republicans, but also Democrats (special shoutout to Biden) continue these dynamics. For example, when Kamala Harris was California's attorney general she kept nonviolent prisoners and fought to keep nonviolent prisoners longer than their sentences for their unpaid labor.
Finally, some people might argue that this is ok since these prisoners have been found guilty for their crimes. However, detainees, which are people that haven't been to court yet so they haven't been found guilty or innocent, are also being used for their unpair or underpaid labor. Recently, a judge found private prison operator GEO Group LLC guilty and now owing $17.28 million in back wages to immigrant detainees who received $1 per day for work done while in detention centers since it violated Washington’s Minimum Wage Act.
So while this is an ok first book to introduce racial factors in the justice system to someone who isn't familiar with them, it shouldn't be their last. 3 starts. I liked it.
November 16, 2021
Our Class by Chris Hedges is a powerful, moving nonfiction book. The author a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist delivers classes in literature, drama, philosophy and history in a college degree course for East Jersey State Prison and other New Jersey Prisons. This book chronicles his experience with a class where they read and share books, thoughts, experiences and respect. Throughout the classes they decide to write a play titled Caged, that encapsulates their own stories. It is these moments of revelation and bravery that are both haunting and healing that give the book such a powerful impact on the reader. It not only highlights their grief, trauma and pain but also the injustice, racism, discrimination and poverty they have endured. The American penal system is put under the spotlight in this book highlighting how often it persecutes rather than protects. It is in this environment that the class undergoes a life changing transformation. A moving, fascinating book for fans of nonfiction about contemporary social issues that everyone should read. 4 Stars ⭐️
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy of this book in exchange for honest feedback.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy of this book in exchange for honest feedback.
November 14, 2022
Chris Hedges is a former reporter for the New York Times and a seminary graduate. He decided not to enter 'traditional' minister (pastor of a church), but wanted to be (and was) ordained to be a minister of 'the word'. It is the world's gain. His tour de force is "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning", and this book does not disappoint. Hedges teaches a class in writing in a New Jersey prison. It's worth reading for the insights into prison life, and the hopes and dreams of those sent away to be forgotten. Cornel West makes an appearance and the class produces a play. A book that humanizes our brothers.
September 26, 2022
This is tied for the best book that I’ve read this year. The weaving of lived experience, sociology, psychology, and theology offered a fresh way of engaging mass incarceration and the trauma associated with it. This is my first encounter with Chris Hedges and it certainly won’t be my last. A particular highlight is the analysis that Hedges offers in regard to the impact that incarceration has on the family system; another is his understanding written word as an invitation to transcendence. I cannot recommend this book enough.
July 19, 2025
I initially picked this up for research, but as I kept reading, it quickly turned into an engaging and eye-opening experience. The book offers raw, unflinching descriptions of the inmates and their backgrounds. It was fascinating to learn that while some aspects of prison life are exaggerated or mythologized, others are surprisingly accurate. What stood out most was how the book revealed the real, often sensitive sides of people society tends to dismiss or ignore or totally write off. This proved they are not all animals locked in a cage.
February 5, 2022
Hedges writes with passion and conviction. You can feel this on every page of the book. I laughed and cried. I hoped and I despaired. I was brought joy yet anger at the system. This book will forever change my life. Marvelously written. Must read!
December 8, 2022
If the USA truly understood the subject of this book, we could save ourselves.
December 4, 2024
I loved this book. It had so much to say about the systemic effect of poverty and racism in our society. It shows the importance of creativity and second chances.
November 4, 2025
Extremely profound and meaningful 3.5 stars, I just wish it was slightly less repetitive.
December 19, 2021
Great books are illuminating...they extend, or challenge, our understanding. This is one such book.
April 15, 2023
A moving portrait of prisoners and the life-giving power of the creation of art
While the centerpiece is (rightfully) the stories of the inmates, this paragraph from Hedges floored me:
"The love that informs the long struggle for justice, that directs us to stand with the crucified, the love that defines the lives and words of James Baldwin, George Orwell, James Cone, and Cornel West, is the most powerful force on earth. It does not mean we will be spared pain or suffering. It does not mean we will achieve justice. It does not mean we as distinct individuals will survive. It does not mean we will escape death. But it gives us the strength to confront evil, even when it seems certain that evil will triumph. That love is not a means to an end. It is the end itself. That is the secret of its omnipotence. That is why it will never be conquered"
While the centerpiece is (rightfully) the stories of the inmates, this paragraph from Hedges floored me:
"The love that informs the long struggle for justice, that directs us to stand with the crucified, the love that defines the lives and words of James Baldwin, George Orwell, James Cone, and Cornel West, is the most powerful force on earth. It does not mean we will be spared pain or suffering. It does not mean we will achieve justice. It does not mean we as distinct individuals will survive. It does not mean we will escape death. But it gives us the strength to confront evil, even when it seems certain that evil will triumph. That love is not a means to an end. It is the end itself. That is the secret of its omnipotence. That is why it will never be conquered"
April 6, 2025
Please read 🖤
June 2, 2021
Hedges speaks of prison with great detail, such as the size of the cells, the day-to-day living conditions, and schedules of the inmates, whom he refers to as his students. He talks about his interactions with them as though they are his friends. This is a reminder that those incarcerated are indeed human beings, just like the rest of us.
Although he had his choosing of where he could have taught, having worked at NYU, Columbia, Princeton, and The University of Toronto, he had found his calling by working in the prison system.
As he mentions in the book, he was inspired by James Baldwin, also the son of a preacher, and George Orwell, and wanted to use his writing as a weapon. He had decided early on that he would amplify their voice, document their suffering. He would name the many injustices being done to them.
This is felt in the book, Hedges campaigning for those incarcerated, at first using this book as a platform to, using his voice for those who are voiceless and living in cages, and secondly, by offering forth a second lease on life, educating those kept behind the walls and bars of a maximum security prison.
A rare, incredible, but devastating glimpse into the justice system in the United States. I was utterly blown away by this book, and the work that Chris Hedges continues to do, despite all that seems to go against him and his work.
At parts of this book, I found myself with chills. One moment in particular stays with me. Students are handing in various assignments and papers, “One of the most gifted students in the class, and who I could sense was a talented writer, handed in dramatic passes that read like bad television scripts. Subsequently, I learned that he had been framed for his crime, had little experience on the streets, and based his portrayal of violent thugs on popular culture and prison lore, which invariably romanticizes gangsters. He wrote, in all capital letters at the bottom of each of his papers, “I AM INNOCENT.”
I cried many times reading the essays, poems, plays, and course assignments worked on by these incarcerated individuals, as they discussed their histories, deep, raw, and unspeakable traumas, it wounded me greatly as a reader. They did not speak of their crimes, murders, rapes, and other unspeakable felonies, so I didn’t see that side of them. What I saw was a side that was deeply affected and impacted, and a side that was still human, with a heart that beats just like mine.
Full review coming soon to: www.avocadodiaries.com
Although he had his choosing of where he could have taught, having worked at NYU, Columbia, Princeton, and The University of Toronto, he had found his calling by working in the prison system.
As he mentions in the book, he was inspired by James Baldwin, also the son of a preacher, and George Orwell, and wanted to use his writing as a weapon. He had decided early on that he would amplify their voice, document their suffering. He would name the many injustices being done to them.
This is felt in the book, Hedges campaigning for those incarcerated, at first using this book as a platform to, using his voice for those who are voiceless and living in cages, and secondly, by offering forth a second lease on life, educating those kept behind the walls and bars of a maximum security prison.
A rare, incredible, but devastating glimpse into the justice system in the United States. I was utterly blown away by this book, and the work that Chris Hedges continues to do, despite all that seems to go against him and his work.
At parts of this book, I found myself with chills. One moment in particular stays with me. Students are handing in various assignments and papers, “One of the most gifted students in the class, and who I could sense was a talented writer, handed in dramatic passes that read like bad television scripts. Subsequently, I learned that he had been framed for his crime, had little experience on the streets, and based his portrayal of violent thugs on popular culture and prison lore, which invariably romanticizes gangsters. He wrote, in all capital letters at the bottom of each of his papers, “I AM INNOCENT.”
I cried many times reading the essays, poems, plays, and course assignments worked on by these incarcerated individuals, as they discussed their histories, deep, raw, and unspeakable traumas, it wounded me greatly as a reader. They did not speak of their crimes, murders, rapes, and other unspeakable felonies, so I didn’t see that side of them. What I saw was a side that was deeply affected and impacted, and a side that was still human, with a heart that beats just like mine.
Full review coming soon to: www.avocadodiaries.com
October 29, 2021
I thought I was going to be reading a whole book about the author’s experience teaching a class of prisoners. Instead, the entire first half seemed more like a dissertation, with little included about the prisoners themselves. I almost stopped reading several times, but stuck with it, though, because I read another review that said about halfway through, he started actually writing about the prisoners. Sure enough, that’s what happened. That’s also when the book got interesting. Reading about what these men went through as children and young men before and after their convictions was fascinating and heartbreaking.
The very end of the book became about the author again, as he lectured some more, which was a disappointment. This book would have been much better served with more of the men and a lot less of the writer.
Thanks to #netgalley and #simonschuster for this ARC of #ourclass in exchange for an honest review.
The very end of the book became about the author again, as he lectured some more, which was a disappointment. This book would have been much better served with more of the men and a lot less of the writer.
Thanks to #netgalley and #simonschuster for this ARC of #ourclass in exchange for an honest review.
July 9, 2021
The author Chris Hedges writes about teaching a literature class for prisoners at the East Jersey State Prison. He begins with explanations about his personal background in religious studies and his writing experience, with detailed information about the physical prison building. The first half of the book seemed more like the author’s essay about the inequities of society, heavy with his personal opinion.
Midway through the book, his essay takes a turn toward the actual class assignment for his class. They are asked to write a dramatic dialogue to ultimately create their own class drama or play. At this point, it was more interesting to me because of my background as a teacher. This book was provided by Net Galley as an advanced reading copy.
Midway through the book, his essay takes a turn toward the actual class assignment for his class. They are asked to write a dramatic dialogue to ultimately create their own class drama or play. At this point, it was more interesting to me because of my background as a teacher. This book was provided by Net Galley as an advanced reading copy.
December 28, 2021
This book was one of the most powerful and haunting books I have read. The author has been teaching in prisons since 2013 and this book talks about a NJ-STEP college class offered by Rutgers University he taught at East Jersey State Prison. He exposes his students, whom he finds very articulate and bright, to the works of James Baldwin, August Wilson, Michele Alexander and others. Although not originally intended, he works with the students to write a candid play, using their own life experiences both on the streets and in prison. The play, Caged, was eventually staged at the Passage Theater in Trenton, NJ to sold out crowds, only after they had a reading in the prison which the students had to abridge due to the attendance at the last minute of the warden and correction officers.
The book puts a human face on these men, some of whom are innocent and were framed, that society and the criminal justice system has abandoned. It was heartbreaking to read about their treatment at the hands of the correction officers and lays open the injustices of our current penal system. Yet those in his class are avid readers, even building libraries in their cells with their meager earnings, and they try to live their lives with dignity and purpose.
Chris Hedges’ speech at the end of the book at the college graduation of some of his formerly incarcerated students is one that has stuck with me. “There are people in this room who committed crimes, but there are no criminals here today. Not that criminals do not exist. Is it not criminal to allow more than twelve million in the United States to go to bed hungry every night while Amazon, which earned $11 billion in profits last year, paid no federal taxes? …Is it not criminal that half of all Americans live in poverty, or near poverty, while the three richest men in America, including the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, have combined fortunes worth more than the total wealth of the poorest half of Americans? …Is it not criminal that our families have been sacrificed to feed the mania for corporate profit, left to rot in violent and postindustrial wastelands such as Newark or Camden? Is it not criminal to harass and terrorize the poor on the streets of our cities for petty activities such as selling loose cigarettes or ‘obstructing pedestrian traffic,’ which means standing too long on a sidewalk while Bank of America, Citibank, and Goldman Sachs have never been held accountable for trashing the global economy, wiping out forty percent of US wealth through fraud?…Rabbi Abraham Joshua Herschel said of society that ‘few are guilty, but all are responsible.’ The crime of poverty is a communal crime. Our failure, as the richest nation on earth, to provide safe and healthy communities, ones where all children have enough to eat and a future, is a communal crime. Our failure to provide everyone, and especially the poor, with a good education is a communal crime. Our failure to make health care a human right and our forcing parents, burdened with astronomical medical bills, to bankrupt themselves to save their sick sons or daughters are communal crimes.”
Despite everything, Chris Hedges said that he feels blessed to have met his students and that they gave him something precious, friendship. We are fortunate that he was able to put his experiences into this book and enlighten us all.
The book puts a human face on these men, some of whom are innocent and were framed, that society and the criminal justice system has abandoned. It was heartbreaking to read about their treatment at the hands of the correction officers and lays open the injustices of our current penal system. Yet those in his class are avid readers, even building libraries in their cells with their meager earnings, and they try to live their lives with dignity and purpose.
Chris Hedges’ speech at the end of the book at the college graduation of some of his formerly incarcerated students is one that has stuck with me. “There are people in this room who committed crimes, but there are no criminals here today. Not that criminals do not exist. Is it not criminal to allow more than twelve million in the United States to go to bed hungry every night while Amazon, which earned $11 billion in profits last year, paid no federal taxes? …Is it not criminal that half of all Americans live in poverty, or near poverty, while the three richest men in America, including the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, have combined fortunes worth more than the total wealth of the poorest half of Americans? …Is it not criminal that our families have been sacrificed to feed the mania for corporate profit, left to rot in violent and postindustrial wastelands such as Newark or Camden? Is it not criminal to harass and terrorize the poor on the streets of our cities for petty activities such as selling loose cigarettes or ‘obstructing pedestrian traffic,’ which means standing too long on a sidewalk while Bank of America, Citibank, and Goldman Sachs have never been held accountable for trashing the global economy, wiping out forty percent of US wealth through fraud?…Rabbi Abraham Joshua Herschel said of society that ‘few are guilty, but all are responsible.’ The crime of poverty is a communal crime. Our failure, as the richest nation on earth, to provide safe and healthy communities, ones where all children have enough to eat and a future, is a communal crime. Our failure to provide everyone, and especially the poor, with a good education is a communal crime. Our failure to make health care a human right and our forcing parents, burdened with astronomical medical bills, to bankrupt themselves to save their sick sons or daughters are communal crimes.”
Despite everything, Chris Hedges said that he feels blessed to have met his students and that they gave him something precious, friendship. We are fortunate that he was able to put his experiences into this book and enlighten us all.
October 18, 2021
Fiction is my favorite genre - it's a great escape to get lost in a book. That being said, I do also like to read non-fiction titles that challenge my beliefs, expose me to lives outside of my own perspective and have an impact on society. It is books about people that draw me in the most. Chris Hedges' new book, Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison is my latest listen - and its powerful.
Hedges is a Presbyterian minister, a former war correspondent and a Pulitzer prize winning author. In 2013 he started teaching in the college degree program offered by Rutgers University at the East Jersey State Prison. In that first class at the prison, the students started reading Black American playwrights, poets and leaders, with the goal being to write and stage their own play.
The students share their own histories, hopes, dreams and disappointments and these experiences form the basis of the play. Their recounting of life in the prison system are hard to listen to. The treatment inside the prison walls is degrading, cruel, racist, appalling and dehumanizing. The writing of the play, the learning, the discussion, the interior soul searching and being part of a dynamic group with the same goal, and the continued success of those who took part is a testament to the program and the ideology behind it. And cathartic for the participants.
I enjoyed hearing each man's story - they are raw and powerful. Hedges weaves other articles, history and other leader's lives into the book. "It exposes the terrible crucible and injustice of America’s penal system and the struggle by those trapped within its embrace to live lives of dignity, meaning, and purpose."
I've said it before and I'll say it again - there are times when listening draws me deeper into a book, rather than reading a physical copy. Our Class is one of those cases. Prentice Onayemi was the reader and his performance was excellent. Onayemi has a rich, full, resonant tone to his voice that is so pleasant to listen to. His speaking is modulated and his pacing is perfect. There are many emotional elements to this audiobook and Onayemi captures them without losing that resonance or becoming strident. Instead, that low tone seems to underline and emphasize the work with quiet power. He was the perfect choice for the narrator.
Hedges is a Presbyterian minister, a former war correspondent and a Pulitzer prize winning author. In 2013 he started teaching in the college degree program offered by Rutgers University at the East Jersey State Prison. In that first class at the prison, the students started reading Black American playwrights, poets and leaders, with the goal being to write and stage their own play.
The students share their own histories, hopes, dreams and disappointments and these experiences form the basis of the play. Their recounting of life in the prison system are hard to listen to. The treatment inside the prison walls is degrading, cruel, racist, appalling and dehumanizing. The writing of the play, the learning, the discussion, the interior soul searching and being part of a dynamic group with the same goal, and the continued success of those who took part is a testament to the program and the ideology behind it. And cathartic for the participants.
I enjoyed hearing each man's story - they are raw and powerful. Hedges weaves other articles, history and other leader's lives into the book. "It exposes the terrible crucible and injustice of America’s penal system and the struggle by those trapped within its embrace to live lives of dignity, meaning, and purpose."
I've said it before and I'll say it again - there are times when listening draws me deeper into a book, rather than reading a physical copy. Our Class is one of those cases. Prentice Onayemi was the reader and his performance was excellent. Onayemi has a rich, full, resonant tone to his voice that is so pleasant to listen to. His speaking is modulated and his pacing is perfect. There are many emotional elements to this audiobook and Onayemi captures them without losing that resonance or becoming strident. Instead, that low tone seems to underline and emphasize the work with quiet power. He was the perfect choice for the narrator.
February 7, 2022
Quotes from the last pages. I suggest you start reading from the front. We need to read reality, and make the necessary changes to a pitiful and corrupt situation.
“Is it not criminal to allow more than twelve million in the United States to go to bed hungry every night while Amazon, which earned $11 billion in profits last year, paid no federal taxes? In fact, in our system of corporate welfare, Amazon received a $129 million tax rebate from the federal government. Is it not criminal that half of all Americans live in poverty, or near poverty, while the three richest men in America, including the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, have combined fortunes worth more than the total wealth of the poorest half of Americans? Is it not criminal that millions of factory jobs, which once allowed families to earn a living wage with health and retirement benefits, have been shipped to places like Monterrey, Mexico, where Mexican workers in GM plants earn three dollars an hour without benefits? Is it not criminal that our families have been sacrificed to feed the mania for corporate profit, left to rot in violent and post industrial wastelands such as Newark or Camden?”
“Bank of America, Citibank, and Goldman Sachs have never been held accountable for trashing the global economy, wiping out forty percent of US wealth through fraud. Is it not criminal that, as poverty has gone up and crime has actually gone down, our prison population has more than doubled?”
““Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said of society that ‘few are guilty, but all are responsible.’ Our failure, as the richest nation on earth, to provide safe and healthy communities, ones where all children have enough to eat and a future, is a communal crime. Our failure to provide everyone, and especially the poor, with a good education is a communal crime. Our failure to make health care a human right and our forcing parents, burdened with astronomical medical bills, to bankrupt themselves to save their sick sons or daughters are communal crimes. Our failure to provide meaningful work—in short, the possibility of hope—is a communal crime. Our decision to militarize police forces and build prisons, rather than invest in people, is a communal crime. Our misguided belief in charity and philanthropy rather than justice is a communal crime.”
“Is it not criminal to allow more than twelve million in the United States to go to bed hungry every night while Amazon, which earned $11 billion in profits last year, paid no federal taxes? In fact, in our system of corporate welfare, Amazon received a $129 million tax rebate from the federal government. Is it not criminal that half of all Americans live in poverty, or near poverty, while the three richest men in America, including the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, have combined fortunes worth more than the total wealth of the poorest half of Americans? Is it not criminal that millions of factory jobs, which once allowed families to earn a living wage with health and retirement benefits, have been shipped to places like Monterrey, Mexico, where Mexican workers in GM plants earn three dollars an hour without benefits? Is it not criminal that our families have been sacrificed to feed the mania for corporate profit, left to rot in violent and post industrial wastelands such as Newark or Camden?”
“Bank of America, Citibank, and Goldman Sachs have never been held accountable for trashing the global economy, wiping out forty percent of US wealth through fraud. Is it not criminal that, as poverty has gone up and crime has actually gone down, our prison population has more than doubled?”
““Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said of society that ‘few are guilty, but all are responsible.’ Our failure, as the richest nation on earth, to provide safe and healthy communities, ones where all children have enough to eat and a future, is a communal crime. Our failure to provide everyone, and especially the poor, with a good education is a communal crime. Our failure to make health care a human right and our forcing parents, burdened with astronomical medical bills, to bankrupt themselves to save their sick sons or daughters are communal crimes. Our failure to provide meaningful work—in short, the possibility of hope—is a communal crime. Our decision to militarize police forces and build prisons, rather than invest in people, is a communal crime. Our misguided belief in charity and philanthropy rather than justice is a communal crime.”
February 19, 2023
The first bit of this is a rehashing of what we’ve all learned about the prison system from reading The New Jim Crow or adjacent books. Nothing new there. Personally, I’m tired of reading the same points about this and wonder how much good each new author’s reiteration is doing. Hedges again comes across as very self important, although doing work that is very important. Why does he rub me the wrong way so much?
Maybe some clarity comes from the second half, which is the best part of this. We get to see into the writing of the prisoners he teaches. The work here is heartbreaking and honest. I learned a lot more about prison relationships and familial expectations among the communities plagued by incarceration. You learn about systems of communication and respect. Hierarchies and economies in jail. There is one really interesting chapter about communicating through plunged toilet pipes to carry out romantic relationships with incarcerated women.
I wish Hedges had spent more time talking about how he taught these students to write rather than these stilted passages of call and response “discussions” about oppression, which I’m sure the students in jail were keenly aware of. Not many questions from students transcribed here. Lots of Hedges telling them about how the white man is keeping them down. Something was odd about it to me. It would have been a real gift to get a retelling of the editing process he used when working on a class play. Disagreements between students? Discomfort with subject matter? There is a lot more that could be explored.
Overall this was a good book, but it only achieves something great when Hedges allows someone else to be in the spotlight.
Maybe some clarity comes from the second half, which is the best part of this. We get to see into the writing of the prisoners he teaches. The work here is heartbreaking and honest. I learned a lot more about prison relationships and familial expectations among the communities plagued by incarceration. You learn about systems of communication and respect. Hierarchies and economies in jail. There is one really interesting chapter about communicating through plunged toilet pipes to carry out romantic relationships with incarcerated women.
I wish Hedges had spent more time talking about how he taught these students to write rather than these stilted passages of call and response “discussions” about oppression, which I’m sure the students in jail were keenly aware of. Not many questions from students transcribed here. Lots of Hedges telling them about how the white man is keeping them down. Something was odd about it to me. It would have been a real gift to get a retelling of the editing process he used when working on a class play. Disagreements between students? Discomfort with subject matter? There is a lot more that could be explored.
Overall this was a good book, but it only achieves something great when Hedges allows someone else to be in the spotlight.
October 19, 2021
Chris Hedges, an acclaimed journalist, went into a New Jersey prison to teach drama and English Literature through a Rutgers University program. He did not know he would walk out with a play written by his students. This book details one class in which the prisoners write a play in reflection of their lived experiences, and it eventually ends up on the stage in New Jersey.
As with any social justice book this one was incredibly eye-opening. I have read from several prisoner perspectives and heard their stories but not all are the same. Not all have the same outcome. And in this book we got to see prisoners feel important, heard, understood, and taught. It was a side of prison most don't get to see.
Reading this book felt like I was attending the class. Hedges had many excerpts and asked questions through out the book provoking thoughts for his students but also for the reader. My only complaint was that it was too many excerpts, especially in the beginning, it was hard to connect with this classes story when we kept getting into the plays subject matter.
However what I truly loved about this book was hearing from the students and how they used real life experiences to create scenes in their play. It was beautiful, heart wrenching, and very vulnerable.
Thanks to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
As with any social justice book this one was incredibly eye-opening. I have read from several prisoner perspectives and heard their stories but not all are the same. Not all have the same outcome. And in this book we got to see prisoners feel important, heard, understood, and taught. It was a side of prison most don't get to see.
Reading this book felt like I was attending the class. Hedges had many excerpts and asked questions through out the book provoking thoughts for his students but also for the reader. My only complaint was that it was too many excerpts, especially in the beginning, it was hard to connect with this classes story when we kept getting into the plays subject matter.
However what I truly loved about this book was hearing from the students and how they used real life experiences to create scenes in their play. It was beautiful, heart wrenching, and very vulnerable.
Thanks to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
February 20, 2022
Chris Hedges has written an amazing account exposing America’s penal system for what it is and how it not only affects those who are incarcerated but the family and extended circles of those dealing with that heartache.
“There is an unbridgeable divide between those who have been incarcerated and those who have not. Prison is its own culture. The stereotypes of prison life, as well as stereotypes of prisoners, are not easily dispelled.”
The author is a journalist who has taught drama, literature, and philosophy within the penal college degree courses offered through Rutgers University. The works the students study in class leads them to create their own play recounting some personal experiences from their lives before lockup and after.
"it never read to me in any way like a plea or a demand for social change. This is a play about people, about human beings. People make mistakes, and this play does not try to excuse or gloss over those mistakes. If you see this merely as a show about prisoners, then, like much of society, you will have forgotten about them as people. Omar is a man. A person. Once a man has been inside, that man may face obstacles he didn't even dream existed. He may feel stripped of his own humanity.”
“There is an unbridgeable divide between those who have been incarcerated and those who have not. Prison is its own culture. The stereotypes of prison life, as well as stereotypes of prisoners, are not easily dispelled.”
The author is a journalist who has taught drama, literature, and philosophy within the penal college degree courses offered through Rutgers University. The works the students study in class leads them to create their own play recounting some personal experiences from their lives before lockup and after.
"it never read to me in any way like a plea or a demand for social change. This is a play about people, about human beings. People make mistakes, and this play does not try to excuse or gloss over those mistakes. If you see this merely as a show about prisoners, then, like much of society, you will have forgotten about them as people. Omar is a man. A person. Once a man has been inside, that man may face obstacles he didn't even dream existed. He may feel stripped of his own humanity.”
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