How we can win Race, history and changing the money game that's rigged

Activist and YA novelist Jones (I'm Not Dying with You Tonight) expands in this searing look at racial inequality on a 2020 viral video in which she compared the impact of slavery and white supremacy on Black Americans' socioeconomic status to a fixed Monopoly game. Jones recalls growing up on the South Side of Chicago during the height of the drug trade in the 1980s, hitting "rock bottom" as a single mother who couldn't afford to pay both the electric and the gas bills, and how protests in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray inspired her first book. Turning to her Monopoly analogy, Jones explains how redlining prevented Black people from owning real estate and building generational wealth; discusses the Tulsa massacre and other historical instances when whites destroyed Black wealth; notes that many prominent U.S. companies, including Brooks Brothers, "began and made their name during slavery"; and cites a study claiming that Black people own just 2.6 percent of the wealth in America. It's a succinct and persuasive argument, buttressed by Jones's detailed outline for "Reconstruction 2.0," which includes a "truth and reconciliation" commission and a federal agency modeled after the 19th-century Freedmen's Bureau. The result is an impassioned and actionable call for leveling the playing field in America. (Jan.)

During June 2020 demonstrations protesting the police murder of George Floyd, activist and filmmaker Jones created a YouTube video titled "How Can We Win?" that uses a Monopoly game to metaphorically describe the generational wealth disparity between white and Black Americans since the end of chattel slavery. This book expands on the video's theory and suggests policies to redress the economic imbalance. As a means to equitably distribute educational and economic resources, Jones proposes "Reconstruction 2.0," a sort of reboot of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period that was cut short by Jim Crow institutional racism. Jones contends that civil rights-era legislation provided increased access to education, housing, and employment for Black Americans but did not eliminate economic inequality. She demonstrates that generational wealth (often acquired via property ownership) has been denied to Black Americans since the end of slavery, which continues to lead to economic disadvantages. Complete with guidelines for building financial and educational skill sets, Jones's book is a call-to-action that stresses the limitations that Black Americans have historically faced and offers a road map to equality. VERDICT Readers interested in societal inequity and effecting change will find this book informative and helpful.--Jill Ortner, SUNY Buffalo Libs.

A prominent Black activist and YA author delivers a damning, resounding study of the many ways in which fiscal equality is denied to non-White people in the U.S. "We know we're equal to white people," writes Jones. "Only a person in the deepest throes of the white supremacist delusion would say we aren't. But now we're fighting for equity. And we won't get to equity until we rethink the system from the ground up." By way of a pointed, memorable example, she looks into the history of Monopoly, which, she holds, was designed to teach players not how to get rich but how the financial system is rigged in favor of would-be monopolists--and certainly against Black people, who are legally thwarted or beset with violence whenever it appears that they are making advances. Whites, Jones notes, hold 90% of all wealth in the U.S. even though they represent less than 60% of the population. One reason for this bounty is that home loans and other intergenerational wealth-building instruments, including college loans, were readily extended to Whites while being withheld from Blacks. Jones fires with both barrels, sometimes inaccurately: It's true that Black popular culture has been appropriated without proper compensation, though not in the case of Elvis Presley's hit "Hound Dog," which she attributes to Big Mama Thornton when in fact it was written by Leiber & Stoller. Still, the author's points are well taken: Black communities can close the wealth gap only with resources that pass from one generation to the next. Jones advises measures for a sort of Reconstruction 2.0 that would channel reparations to institutions and not individuals. "Structural issues are what brought us here," she writes, "and so structural changes should walk us out of here." The author also argues that self-improvement, from education to exercise to financial literacy, is "the most revolutionary thing you can do" for people within the Black community." Demanding better, Jones provides a wise, measured look at the economic and social landscape of America. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.