Ray is reading Tom Brokaw's "Boom!", a book about the key events of the '60s. Ray had read a recommendation about the book somewhere and thought it would be a great read! "If you grew up in the '60s like I did then you will be able to recognize the references and make connections between the these events and how they affected the political structure."
Ray is very interested in books about politics and loves to analyze his reads and relate it to the times we live in now. He is also currently reading a biography on Obama. "I am a conservative and I'm reading this to get a feel for what kind of person Obama is, see if he will be a decent president. I'm still trying to figure him out."
Growing up he didn't really have a favourite book, just read whatever was assigned to him in school. Nothing in particular really stuck out. He even admits that he really isn't even that big of a reader and that I happened to catch him on a rare moment.
He did chuckle a but and said, "My daughter (who is a law student...or works in government now) jokes that I continue to reference a book that I read 40 years ago and that still tie everything back to it because I love the principles." The book is "Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton" by Bobby Seale, a book recommended to him in college. It's about the Black Panther movement and although he is conservative Ray still manages to find a few points interesting and still applicable today. He starts to talk about how media persuades people on behalf of the government. "Media just breeds fear and controversy, just what the government wants."
He then begins to talk about his children and their college application process. "The minority application process is pretty messed up. Schools talk about how they want to get more diversity in schools however when it comes to be admissions time us minorities still manage to get overlooked. I went to a meeting when my son was applying to the University of Chicago and asked the admissions panel if minorities on the board read the applications of minoroties and they fail to answer me because they don't! It's all very hypocritical. They preach about this yet they don't practice it."
Ray goes on to talk about how his youngest son ended up attending UC Santa Barbara. "The UC system is not great. You're nothing but a number. And the classes are taught by TA's, not professors. TA's have no idea what they are doing. My son wrote a decent paper that should've gotten a B but he got a C-. We decided to do a social experiment and had my eldest daughther, who has written papers for Congress, to write his next poli sci paper and lo and behold, the paper came back with another C-! The system is messed up!" And he continues to explain his frustration with his issues on how minorities won't be able to advance to high government positions if they can't get into decent top schools.
Quite the passionate man! Then he starts to talk to me about how they want to rebuild the inner cities of Los Angeles however rather than giving these rebuilding/construction jobs to the people of those communities to better their livlihood they go to others instead. "These jobs should stay within the communities! They want to improve these neighbourhoods but they are only making the surface look better when they should also bring these obvious opportunities back into the communities they want to better! It just all doesn't make sense. Just keeping people down..." And all these are priniciples talked about in "Seize the Time".
Lunchtime was over and we both had to make our way back to our respective offices.
What movement/political issues/etc. are you passionate and love to read about?
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