We had a lovely small group to discuss Invisible Child by Andrea Elliott today. Jo, Carol, Margo, Carole and I found the book to be very engaging though at times the situations described were very hard. The author created a captivating narrative and certainly the personalities of Deasni and her family made them very engaging. There was a lot to cover and to lay the groundwork for understanding how they got to the point where we meet Desani and her siblings, parents, and extended family, from the historical perspective of the family origins and the post war opportunities to the lack of affordable housing in the city in which they lived. Often we found ourselves thinking, "No, don't do that!" or being appalled at the time and energy the family had to spend just to get back into the shelter system if they arrived after curfew. Having to spend a whole day, waiting, with kids out of school to get back in seemed so wasteful as was the fact that the kids cost over $400,000 per year in the foster system. For want of a nail... Of course, none of us had an answer as to how to fix it.
We also talked about how incredibly difficult, time consuming and expensive being poor is as Barbara Ehrenrich reveals in her book Nickel and Dimed and social inequalities illustrated by a race for $100: https://youtu.be/4K5fbQ1-zps
We also talked about language and how the words or the structure of language can wire our brains to see the world differently (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-s...), from the people who have no left or right in their language, instead using cardinal directions (https://www.ted.com/talks/lera_borodi...) to the lack of the subjunctive in Vietnamese (https://youtu.be/zeSVMG4GkeQ), and that English is a language of blame (which begs the question of who is being protected by using the passive voice) and certainly as one put it, the greatest illness in this country is the lack of empathy.
Carol also recommended the Thursday Murder Club books which had been previously recommended in this group as she really enjoyed the first one.
The conversation veered all around from Houston's attempts to fix its homeless problem on the podcast The Daily: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/he... to the recent Houston Chronicle coverage of the dismantling of a tent city: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news...
We also talked about how incredibly difficult, time consuming and expensive being poor is as Barbara Ehrenrich reveals in her book Nickel and Dimed and social inequalities illustrated by a race for $100: https://youtu.be/4K5fbQ1-zps
We also talked about language and how the words or the structure of language can wire our brains to see the world differently (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-s...), from the people who have no left or right in their language, instead using cardinal directions (https://www.ted.com/talks/lera_borodi...) to the lack of the subjunctive in Vietnamese (https://youtu.be/zeSVMG4GkeQ), and that English is a language of blame (which begs the question of who is being protected by using the passive voice) and certainly as one put it, the greatest illness in this country is the lack of empathy.
Carol also recommended the Thursday Murder Club books which had been previously recommended in this group as she really enjoyed the first one.