Dating back to the blackface minstrel performances of Bert Williams and the trickster figure of Uncle Julius in Charles Chesnutt’s Conjure Tales, black humorists have negotiated American racial ideologies as they reclaimed the ability to represent themselves in the changing landscape of the early 20th century. Marginalized communities routinely use humor, specifically satire, to subvert the political, social, and cultural realities of race and racism in America. Through contemporary examples in popular culture and politics, including the work of Kendrick Lamar, Key and Peele and the presidency of Barack Obama and many others, in Played Out: The Race Man in 21st Century Satire author Brandon J. Manning examines how Black satirists create vulnerability to highlight the inner emotional lives of Black men. In focusing on vulnerability these satirists attend to America’s most basic assumptions about Black men. Contemporary Black satire is a highly visible and celebrated site of black masculine self-expression. Black satirists leverage this visibility to trouble discourses on race and gender in the Post-Civil Rights era. More specifically, contemporary Black satire uses laughter to decenter Black men from the socio-political tradition of the Race Man.

"Human Revolution - The process by which individuals gradually expand their lives, conquer negative and destructive tendencies. Josei Toda In Lawrences, (AKA Law), efforts to remain free from the responsibilities of monogamy, he establishes his own rules of dating. Soon his misguided ideologies, surrounding courting the opposite sex propels him into an uncharacteristic lifestyle of promiscuity and the unwanted drama associated with attempting to eliminate the emotional from the physical. Consequently, threatening all he holds dear. When your reality is drunk off immaturity, raging hormones, immense popularity chased with your basic nice guy; all hell breaking loose barely scratches the surface of what Law faces. To sober him, hell need a heaping dose of harsh reality with some tough love. When seeking to do your human revolution, life sometimes taps that ass to get your attention. Some ass whippings you receive in life will do you some good. And in Laws case, hed need a few more foot-to-ass situations "

From 1940 to 1989, nearly every hotel on the Las Vegas Strip employed a full-time band or orchestra. After the late 1980s, when control of the casinos changed hands from independent owners to corporations, almost all of these musicians found themselves unemployed. Played Out on the Strip traces this major shift in the music industry through extensive interviews with former musicians. In 1989, these soon-to-be unemployed musicians went on strike. Janis McKay charts the factors behind this strike, which was precipitated by several corporate hotel owners moving to replace live musicians with synthesizers and taped music, a strategic decision made in order to save money. The results of this transitional period in Las Vegas history were both long-lasting and far-reaching for the entertainment industry. With its numerous oral history interviews and personal perspectives from the era, this book will appeal to readers interested in Las Vegas history, music history, and labor issues.

Italia '90 - Gazza cried and football changed forever. Once you could ignore football, avoid the back pages, turn the telly over, leave the pub. Now that's not possible because on 4 July 1990 in Turin's Stadium of the Alps gazza cried, England lost and football changed forever. Pete Davies witnessed all of this first hand. The players, the hooligans, the agents, the journalists, the fans - the full cast of football's rowdy circus. For nine month he had access to the England squad and their manager, Bobby Robson, talking to them freely about their hopes, their fears, their methods and their lives. So this is the real story, the unedited verdion. All Played Out - the first and last book to give the inside story of the greatest show on Earth. 'Pete Davies is incapable of writing a dull sentence...one of the most outrageously entertaining books of the year' Daily Post.

“A tour de force of reporting” (The Washington Post) from a Pulitzer–prize winning journalist that examines the often-corrupt machine producing America’s basketball stars “Indispensable.”—The Wall Street Journal “Often heart-breaking, always riveting.”—The New York Times Book Review “Tremendous.”—The Plain Dealer Winner of the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sportswriting• Winner of the Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Youth Sports Using eight years of unfettered access and a keen sense of a story’s deepest truths, journalist George Dohrmann reveals a cutthroat world where boys as young as eight or nine are subjected to a dizzying torrent of scrutiny and exploitation. At the book’s heart are the personal stories of two compelling figures: Joe Keller, an ambitious coach with a master plan to find and promote “the next LeBron,” and Demetrius Walker, a fatherless latchkey kid who falls under Keller’s sway and struggles to live up to unrealistic expectations. Complete with a new “where-are-they-now” epilogue by the author, Play Their Hearts Out is a thoroughly compelling narrative exposing the gritty reality that lies beneath so many dreams of fame and glory. One of GQ’S 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century • One of the Best Books of the Year: Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Kirkus Reviews This edition includes an exclusive conversation between George Dohrmann and bestselling author Seth Davis.

Rock star drummer Bishop Riley just needs a few months to relax and detox before his band’s next tour. But the last place he expected to do it is in Seldon, Alaska. And the last person he wants to do it with is Penny Jones. Fiery, headstrong Penny has zero in common with the cocky, too-hot-for-his-own-good Bishop, and she’d like to keep it that way. But the more Bishop gets under her skin, the more she wants to let him in. And the more Penny lets him see, the more Bishop wants to know this stubborn girl with the killer body and soulful eyes. The simmering heat between them won’t go away, no matter how hard either of them tries. Their time together in Alaska may be running out—but so is their resolve for not taking a chance on love.

2008 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title From beer ads in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to four-year-old boys and girls playing soccer; from male athletes' sexual violence against women to homophobia and racism in sport, Out of Play analyzes connections between gender and sport from the 1980s to the present. The book illuminates a wide range of contemporary issues in popular culture, children's sports, and women's and men's college and professional sports. Each chapter is preceded by a short introduction that lays out the context in which the piece was written. Drawing on his own memories as a former athlete, informal observations of his children's sports activities, and more formal research such as life-history interviews with athletes and content analyses of sports media, Michael A. Messner presents a multifaceted picture of gender constructed through an array of personalities, institutions, cultural symbols, and everyday interactions.