Please Don't Bomb the Suburbs: A Midterm Report on My Generation and the Future of Our Super Movement by William Upski Wimsatt

Please Don't Bomb the Suburbs: A Midterm Report on My Generation and the Future of Our Super Movement Reviews

• 
  William Upski

  Wow, I just stumbled upon Good Reads and found you all here. I feel like I walked in on a conversation and I'd love to eavesdrop. I am dying to hear people's thoughts on the ideas in this book. Field 3.0 and Supermovements. Good people getting Power. The history of our generation. Adulthood. The artist trap. Management for the Movement. Emotional intelligence scales. The most progressive generation in history. The Obama sections. The top 100 activists. the provocative race sections. Winning strategies for the future... Let the games begin. You can also discuss on my blog
  www.billywimsatt.com
• 
  Mare

  Way better the 2nd time just because of where I am in life/career/organizing.
  It was also strangely comforting in a post-11/9 world to relive the modern history of youth organizing and the rise of Obama. I'm feeling hyped for the midterms.
• 
  Cherie

  I read William Upski Wimsatt back in the day, and when I found out he had a book I hadn't read, I had to pick it up, obviously. Is this book outdated? Yes. Is it still worth reading? Absolutely. Inpsiring. I love the motivation Wimsatt provides for youth to become politically engaged. Wish this was required reading for all high school and college students. Colloquial style, YES, get motivated and politically involved.
• 
  Erhardt Graeff

  Like much of Billy's writing this book is written like a polished set of diary entries and calls to action. His style is casual, impassioned, and engaging, though at times borders on frenetic and cheerlead-y. Hard to blame him as he is trying to convey a sense of urgency to motivate readers to take action on impending catastrophes in our environment and the economy.
  
  The larger arc of the book is about movement building, but it is also a very personal book—in some ways more personal than Billy's earlier books Bomb the Suburbs and No More Prisons. In those earlier works, he collects his thoughts and experiences on hip-hop culture and youth organizing around issues like the prison-industrial complex. In Please Don't Bomb the Suburbs, Billy reflects on his life to that point. He tries to put in perspective everything he's done, everyone he's met, and the series of transformations his identity and character has gone through during twenty years of engagement in youth culture and politics. In his own words the book is about "growing up"—for him as a member of the hip-hop generation and for progressive politics as a movement.
  
  His goal is nothing less than to save the world: the pillars of his envisioned progressive super movement are love, survival, and prosperity. And the book is an invitation to reflect on yourself, to think about what you could or should be doing, and to join the movement.
  
  The book has four major threads, in Billy's words: my stories, movement stories, life strategies, and movement strategies. I really appreciate that he pauses to reflect on the last two. He emphasizes how personal well-being is itself a radical political act in that it serves to strengthen and rejuvenate us to do the important work he outlines. If we expect everyone to work til we drop and we compare ourselves against that ideal we are undermining the movement. He then goes into some straightforward advice on how to run nonprofit and social justice organizations. From the executive director perspective he questions the assumption that the most effective managerial styles are collective, and argues that hierarchy is how you stay truly accountable to your mission and goals, especially when you are managing large organizations. He also encourages EDs to take leadership training and coaching seriously and to form support groups with other EDs in order to collectively vent and share best practices.
  
  Lastly, Billy addresses race and diversity throughout the book. And particularly apropos of the 2014 Michael Brown and Eric Garner protests going on while I read this book, he offers great advice on how to be an advocate and ally in a way that respects race without making everything about race.
  
  Please Don't Bomb the Suburbs would make a great gift for on-the-fence college students that need a sense of what's possible to spur them into action. And I'm really curious about how successful Billy thinks the book has been since publication in 2010.
• 
  Jamie

  By far the best part of this book for me was toward the end where Wimsatt describes why running an organization by collective doesn't work, and why hierarchy shouldn't make people cringe. I wanted to photocopy this segment (maybe 6 pages) and give it to my current boss. He's not interested in running things via collective, but it describes all the things he does wrong to a tee, and explains why our organization is at a standstill with him as the leader. Total vindication. Thanks, Billy.
  
  This book is the natural progression from Wimsatt's previous books. Each one is clearly the work of an older, more mature man. Now, the once rebellious kid has become even more humble, even more reflective, and even more tolerant of people. I think his take on why all of us do-gooders need to demand and accept power is so true, and is (hopefully) a wake up call. I've always felt that we can only be effective and create change by engaging with the people and organizations we disagree with. We can't hope to make change if we're on the outside looking in. Be on the inside and help others look in and out. A powerful message.
  
  Lastly, as I myself have become an older, more mature woman, I was particuarly struck by Wimsatt granting me "permission" to move to the suburbs! This is a personal thing, but as a mother of a 13 month old daughter, my husband and I are obsessed with trying to figure out a way to live in the city (Chicago) AND send our girl to a good school AND be able to afford it. The numbers just don't add up. As much as we don't want to leave our beloved City, our options are limited. I'm glad to see that other people also agree that the suburbs are not the anti-Christ, and that maybe my husband and I can transplant our urban mindset somewhere else that needs us more than the City does. How many more liberal folks does the City really need? Maybe we can do more to influence change in the suburbs anyway.
  
  So thanks for another thought provoking book. Looking forward to more.
• 
  Matt

  I read Upski's first two books at a time when I was first becoming involved in activism and the movement. Being a fan of hip-hop the books really spoke to me as Wimsatt came from that perspective as well. Please Don't Bomb the Suburbs continues with that same formula but also brings the added insight that Wimsatt has gained through his experiences since he wrote Bomb the Suburbs and No More Prisons. This book does a great job of speaking on where we've been and where we're going (and how to get there). I've often been guilty of not having much hope in the political process but reading this actually gave me some reassurance that real change can come through electoral processes. We just have to be diligent in our work and not expect overnight results. As a soon-to-be college graduate, I also enjoyed the sections on growing up and adulthood.
  
  I recommend this book for anyone involved in work for social change, especially organization leaders.
• 
  Meredith

  Van Williams on the green collar economy (parallels a new campaign that ACE was taking on when i left)
  zines zines zines and [online] voter guides
  "politics and pancakes" / "politics and pizza" etc.
  New Mouth From the Dirty South Press
  The Future 500 : cataloging youth activist groups
  [bio]regional alliances
  moveon.org
  
  "Building partnerships is hard and takes years of practice. You have to be self-aware. you have to be aware of others. You have to keep things in perspective. You have to be mature enough to communicate and to hear, to see and to be seen, to give and to receive, to respect and expect respect, to ask for support and to support without being asked, to lead and be led, to love and be loved, to change and be changed. Partnership is a learning process with few road signs."
• 
  Klelly

  I like his account of his long process in analyzing "holy shit, everything we were taught or assumed growing up is a lie and product of the most destructive system of control and oppression, our teachers and parents are in on it, who can you trust?" shock.
  what is white culture? home depot, lite beer, subdivisions, the cia are mentioned. Billy finds out more about his roots. He learned the welsh are fierce anti-colonialists, and is empowered. The section closes with him talking about being an executive director and needing to know that people of color have agency, white people are not fundamentally oppressive. I'm not sure how I feel on the rest of the book which I didn't read all of. He discusses management, progressive organizations, the obama campaign, rich people, and personal things.
• 
  Troy

  This is one of those books i'll probably continue to pick up, read a few pages, put it down, and come back to. I am long an Upski fan, and it's good to see him grow up and figure some things out. A man of his history and experience is really inspiring, and his actions and opinions never come off as crazy or pscho, but reasoned and logical.
• 
  Sidik Fofana

  SIX WORD REVIEW: A personal progressive revolutionary self-help text
• 
  anne

  some useful and inspiring stuff in here, but gets repetitive and self-centered at points.
• 
  Jon

  may finish some day
• 
  Lirpa

  some of it's not as great as "No More Prisons" but it still gave me lots of food for thought!
• 
  Caelie

  I loved to hate this book because I disagree w/him but it was an entertaining read the entire way!
• 
  Corey

  next.