As I parked, I heard a tap on my window. The tap came from a neighbor from the building next door, a 40-ish African-American man with an unfashionable, immaculately coifed Afro and John Lennon-style glasses, radiating quiet intelligence and blue-collar dignity. We had never interacted much, outside of a few occasional nods, but he seemed […]
David Ranney “Living and Dying on the Factory Floor” Upcoming NYC Book Tour
Hard Crackers is excited to co-sponsor a series of talks with David Ranney about his new book. Recently, Jarrod Shanahan caught up with David Ranney to discuss his book and the important lessons for today. Check out their interview at Jacobin. Also take a look at the trailer David made for the book, courtesy of […]
Morbid Symptoms, Part II: Attack on Rikers Island
This is the second of six reviews chronicling the pseudonymous Fred S. Kreider’s Rikers Island Series, a horror franchise set on present-day Rikers Island. In the first installment we met narrator Nicholas Billings, a rookie guard whose scrupulous recounting of guard life at Rikers is often more grim and terrifying than the book’s horror story, […]
About Uncle Toms
I was at the family home, on 92nd. I was ranting and raving, calling certain black leaders “Uncle Toms.” My dad, who was just a plain working-class carpenter, got angry and said, “Boy, what the HELL you talk’n about!! Don’t you know that the white man is the biggest Uncle Tom on earth!!??” Wow! I […]
Talking about the Green Book
Back in the day, black entertainers could not stay in hotels when they came to Chicago to perform. At our family home at 9201 S. Perry, once Dick Gregory rang the bell. WOW!! I happened to answer it, and I was overwhelmed with surprise. My grandmother wasn’t!! Why? The period of discriminating even against entertainers […]
Loss Prevention
Grey and cloudy days like today make the Bronx look uglier. The streets are strewn with garbage, the sidewalks smeared with dog shit, and some old lady is likely to poke you with her umbrella. Nonetheless my mom has asked me to walk over to the local Western Beef to exchange into paper a heavy […]