Preliminary Material -- Teachers -- Are Schools the Assassins of Education? -- Failing Grade -- Checkmate -- Distant Relatives -- Education as Etch-A-Sketch -- Black Youth Violence, Adult Society, and the Rage of Reality -- Children in a Hostile World -- Victims and Vultures -- In Love with a Stripper -- On the Health and Happiness of Kids -- Double Major -- Words as Weapons -- Black Bodies Swinging -- Watch What You’re Watching -- Can Hip-Hop Save an Illiterate Generation? -- Hip-Hop -- The Responsibilities of Hip-Hop Artists in Times of Moral Anarchy -- When Political Ideology Morphs Into Spiritual Death -- On Citizenship, Choice, and Courage -- “This is Working Very Well for Them” -- Social Networking -- Prophets of Baal -- Hope and (Some) Change -- Age of Poverty -- The Substance of Truth.

From the book: “At risk of appearing alarmist, it’s easy to ignore all the warning signs hanging around us that suggest the clock is ticking fast—real fast!—and that time left for due action is short. But if life for the next generation should contain some semblance of sanity—where life itself means more than shopping malls and commodities, where Power stands accountable to the demands of communities—all fear of coming across hyperbolic would have to give way to the realities staring us down. The risk also extends to coming across Pollyannaish, as though all the impurities and iniquities holding hostage society can be cured with essays or lectures. But we cannot afford to let this moment slip by unattended, unengaged. The problems number endless—and so do the possibilities. And at no other moment has a generation been more fortunate, with the ease of technology, to make miracles happen amidst frightening circumstances. At no other moment has the clarion call blared this clearly and loudly.”.

Description based on print version record.