heavy alcoholism among the Grassy Narrows people. Some children are so erratic in their educational records that they cannot be included in any class level during a given year. As Shkilnyk (1985, 37) writes, “Of the 107 children who fall into this category, only 11 achieved partial grade progression. Almost all of these children came from the heaviest drinking families in the community...This extraordinary waste of human potential brings no cries of protest, no voices of alarm, from the larger society.”
Kelley’s book offers six essays on everything from labor organization to hip-hop music. His main theme tying the essays together is the fact that identity politics do not have to be set against class politics. He argues that the mainstream scientific community is obsessed with putting political blame on black family dysfunction. He argues these scientists blame the African American culture of poverty on a dysfunctional culture where fathers are absent, mothers are lazy, and children grow up uneducated and violent. Kelley attacks ethnographers and social scientists whose field work involves hanging out on ghetto street corners where gang violence and drug sales are the norm. Using the “worst” of the African American community as the basis for its studies and conclusions, Kelley argues that these researchers b
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