Myths Made in America Series

“Readers will come away infuriated, with a greater understanding of the systemic causes of homelessness, and with more compassion for their homeless neighbors. Essential reading for any community affected by homelessness (which is all of them).”
—Booklist, Starred Review

For readers of Andrea Elliott and Matthew Desmond, the former CEO of the Coalition for the Homeless breaks through the highly destructive misinformation surrounding our homeless neighbors

As the COVID-19 crisis put millions of Americans in danger of eviction, the nation’s affordable housing crisis has reached new heights. Yet Conservative think tanks like the Manhattan Institute continue to disseminate anti-homeless myths in the media, legislatures, and the larger culture:

“These people just need to learn to save money.”“Most homeless people are mentally ill and dangerous.”“Runaways aren’t really homeless.”
Drawing on her deep legal knowledge, policy expertise, and decades of frontline service, Mary Brosnahan cuts through the misinformation to deliver two important messages: that homelessness ultimately stems from a lack of investment in affordable housing; and that the greatest myth of all is that we should have no hope. In fact, the proven solutions are well documented, and the ability to enact them depends on us all.

Brosnahan takes a nationwide look from New York to Detroit to rural areas such as Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, to debunk 15 widespread misconceptions, including:

that the problem is inevitable (in fact, Housing First approaches have shown great success)that “handouts” cause homelessness (in fact, the primary causes are flat wages and high rent)that homeless people need to prove that they’re “ready” to receive aid (in fact, enforcing hurdles is far more expensive and less effective than Housing First).
With brilliant insight, Brosnahan showcases how by dispelling these pervasive myths rooted in fear, we can embrace the affordable, housing-based solutions that will bring our impoverished neighbors home.

An accessible guide for activists, educators, and all who are interested in understanding how the prison system oppresses communities and harms individuals.

The United States incarcerates more of its residents than any other nation. Though home to 5% of the global population, the United States has nearly 25% of the world’s prisoners—a total of over 2 million people. This number continues to steadily rise. Over the past 40 years, the number of people behind bars in the United States has increased by 500%.

Journalist Victoria Law explains how racism and social control were the catalysts for mass incarceration and have continued to be its driving force: from the post-Civil War laws that states passed to imprison former slaves, to the laws passed under the “War Against Drugs” campaign that disproportionately imprison Black people. She breaks down these complicated issues into four main parts:

   1. The rise and cause of mass incarceration
   2. Myths about prison
   3. Misconceptions about incarcerated people
   4. How to end mass incarceration

Through carefully conducted research and interviews with incarcerated people, Law identifies the 21 key myths that propel and maintain mass incarceration, including:

   • The system is broken and we simply need some reforms to fix it
   • Incarceration is necessary to keep our society safe
   • Prison is an effective way to get people into drug treatment
   • Private prison corporations drive mass incarceration

“Prisons Make Us Safer” is a necessary guide for all who are interested in learning about the cause and rise of mass incarceration and how we can dismantle it.

Why social, racial, and economic justice are just as crucial as science in determining how humans can reverse climate catastrophe

We are facing a climate catastrophe. A plethora of studies describe the damage we’ve already done, the droughts, the wildfires, the super-storms, the melting glaciers, the heat waves, and the displaced people fleeing lands that are becoming uninhabitable. Many people understand that we are facing a climate emergency, but may be fuzzy on technical, policy, and social justice aspects. In Is Science Enough?, Aviva Chomsky breaks down the concepts, terminology, and debates for activists, students, and anyone concerned about climate change. She argues that science is not enough to change course: we need put social, racial, and economic justice front and center and overhaul the global growth economy.

Chomsky’s accessible primer focuses on 5 key issues:

1.) Technical questions: What exactly are “clean,” “renewable,” and “zero-emission” energy sources? How much do different sectors (power generation, transportation, agriculture, industry, etc.) contribute to climate change? Can forests serve as a carbon sink?

2.) Policy questions: What is the Green New Deal? How does a cap-and-trade system work? How does the United States subsidize the fossil fuel industry?

3.) What can I do as an individual?: Do we need to consume less? What kinds of individual actions can make the most difference? Should we all be vegetarians?

4.) Social, racial, and economic justice: What’s the relationship of inequality to climate change? What do race and racism have to do with climate change? How are pandemics related to climate change?

5.) Broadening the lens: What is economic growth? How important is it, and how does it affect the environment? What is degrowth?

Revised and expanded edition of the groundbreaking book which demystifies twenty-one of the most widespread myths and beliefs about immigrants and immigrations.

Aviva Chomsky dismantles twenty-one of the most widespread and pernicious myths and beliefs about immigrants and immigration in this incisive book. “They Take Our Jobs!” challenges the underlying assumptions that fuel misinformed claims about immigrants, radically altering our notions of citizenship, discrimination, and US history. With fresh material including a new introduction, revised timeline, and updated terminology section, this expanded edition is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how these myths are used to promote aggressive anti-immigrant policies.

An accessible guide that breaks down the complex issues around mass surveillance and data privacy and explores the negative consequences it can have on individual citizens and their communities.

No one is exempt from data mining: by owning a smartphone, or using social media or a credit card, we hand over private data to corporations and the government. We need to understand how surveillance and data collection operates in order to regain control over our digital freedoms—and our lives.

Attorney and data privacy expert Heidi Boghosian unpacks widespread myths around the seemingly innocuous nature of surveillance, sets the record straight about what government agencies and corporations do with our personal data, and offers solutions to take back our information. “I Have Nothing to Hide” is both a necessary mass surveillance overview and a reference book. It addresses the misconceptions around tradeoffs between privacy and security, citizen spying, and the ability to design products with privacy protections. Boghosian breaks down misinformation surrounding 21 core myths about data privacy, including:

   • “Surveillance makes the nation safer.”
   • “No one wants to spy on kids.”
   • “Police don’t monitor social media.”
   • “Metadata doesn’t reveal much about me.”
   • “Congress and the courts protect us from surveillance.”
   • “There’s nothing I can do to stop surveillance.”

By dispelling myths related to surveillance, this book helps readers better understand what data is being collected, who is gathering it, how they’re doing it, and why it matters.

Overturns common misconceptions about charter schools, school “choice,” standardized tests, common core curriculum, and teacher evaluations.

Three distinguished educators, scholars, and activists flip the script on many enduring and popular myths about teachers, teachers’ unions, and education that permeate our culture. By unpacking these myths, and underscoring the necessity of strong and vital public schools as a common good, the authors challenge readers–whether parents, community members, policy makers, union activists, or educators themselves–to rethink their assumptions.

This “insightful and instructive primer” debunks the twenty-one most common myths and misconceptions about transgender issues—“buy this book and share it with [your] whole family” (Bust)

From Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner to Thomas Beatie (“the pregnant man”) and transgender youth, coverage of trans lives has been exploding—yet so much misinformation persists. Bringing together the medical, social, psychological, and political aspects of being trans in the United States today, “You’re in the Wrong Bathroom!” unpacks the twenty-one most common myths and misconceptions about transgender and gender-nonconforming people. Authors Laura Erickson-Schroth, MD, a psychiatrist, and Laura A. Jacobs, LCSW-R, a psychotherapist, address a range of fallacies:

• Trans People Are “Trapped in the Wrong Body”
• You’re Not Really Trans If You Haven’t Had “the Surgery”
• Trans People Are a Danger to Others, Especially Children
• Trans People Are Mentally Ill and Therapy Can Change Them
• Trans People and Feminists Don’t Get Along

Unpacks the twenty-one most common myths and misconceptions about Native Americans

In this enlightening book, scholars and activists Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker tackle a wide range of myths about Native American culture and history that have misinformed generations. Tracing how these ideas evolved, and drawing from history, the authors disrupt long-held and enduring myths such as:

“Columbus Discovered America”
“Thanksgiving Proves the Indians Welcomed Pilgrims”
“Indians Were Savage and Warlike”
“Europeans Brought Civilization to Backward Indians”
“The United States Did Not Have a Policy of Genocide”
“Sports Mascots Honor Native Americans”
“Most Indians Are on Government Welfare”
“Indian Casinos Make Them All Rich”
“Indians Are Naturally Predisposed to Alcohol”

Each chapter deftly shows how these myths are rooted in the fears and prejudice of European settlers and in the larger political agendas of a settler state aimed at acquiring Indigenous land and tied to narratives of erasure and disappearance. Accessibly written and revelatory, “All the Real Indians Died Off” challenges readers to rethink what they have been taught about Native Americans and history.

“A must-read for every American who longs to bring sanity to our nation’s gun laws,” this book debunks the lethal logic behind the myths that have framed the gun control debate (Ariana Huffington, co-founder of HuffingtonPost)

The gun lobby’s remarkable success in using engaging slogans to frame the gun control debate has allowed it to block lifesaving gun legislation for decades. But is there any truth to this bumper-sticker logic? Dennis Henigan exposes the mythology and misguided thinking at the core of these pro-gun catchphrases, which continue to have an outsized influence on public attitudes toward guns and gun control. He counters the gun lobby’s messages by weaving together the most compelling current research and insights drawn from the grim reality of deadly gunfire in our homes and communities. Henigan charts a new path toward ending the American nightmare of gun violence.

Pro-Gun Myths Include:
“When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”
“An armed society is a polite society.”
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
“Gun control doesn’t work because criminals don’t follow the law.”
“Gun manufacturers shouldn’t be responsible for gun crime, any more than Budweiser is responsible for drunk driving.”
“We don’t need new gun laws. We just need to enforce the ones we have.”
“Gun control is a slippery slope to complete gun bans.”

2014 Lambda Literary Award Finalist: LGBT Nonfiction

Breaks down the most commonly held misconceptions about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their lives
 
In “You Can Tell Just by Looking” three scholars and activists come together to unpack enduring, popular, and deeply held myths about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, culture, and life in America. Myths, such as “All Religions Condemn Homosexuality” and “Transgender People Are Mentally Ill,” have been used to justify discrimination and oppression of LGBT people. Others, such as “Homosexuals Are Born That Way,” have been embraced by LGBT communities and their allies. In discussing and dispelling these myths—including gay-positive ones—the authors challenge readers to question their own beliefs and to grapple with the complexities of what it means to be queer in the broadest social, political, and cultural sense.

From Wisconsin to Washington, DC, the claims are made: unions are responsible for budget deficits, and their members are overpaid and enjoy cushy benefits. The only way to save the American economy, pundits claim, is to weaken the labor movement, strip workers of collective bargaining rights, and champion private industry. In ”They’re Bankrupting Us!”: And 20 Other Myths about Unions, labor leader Bill Fletcher Jr. makes sense of this debate as he unpacks the twenty-one myths most often cited by anti-union propagandists. Drawing on his experiences as a longtime labor activist and organizer, Fletcher traces the historical roots of these myths and provides an honest assessment of the missteps of the labor movement. He reveals many of labor’s significant contributions, such as establishing the forty-hour work week and minimum wage, guaranteeing safe workplaces, and fighting for equity within the workforce. This timely, accessible, “warts and all” book argues, ultimately, that unions are necessary for democracy and ensure economic and social justice for all people.

Claims that immigrants take Americans’ jobs, are a drain on the American economy, contribute to poverty and inequality, destroy the social fabric, challenge American identity, and contribute to a host of social ills by their very existence are openly discussed and debated at all levels of society. Chomsky dismantles twenty of the most common assumptions and beliefs underlying statements like “I’m not against immigration, only illegal immigration” and challenges the misinformation in clear, straightforward prose.

In exposing the myths that underlie today’s debate, Chomsky illustrates how the parameters and presumptions of the debate distort how we think—and have been thinking—about immigration. She observes that race, ethnicity, and gender were historically used as reasons to exclude portions of the population from access to rights. Today, Chomsky argues, the dividing line is citizenship. Although resentment against immigrants and attempts to further marginalize them are still apparent today, the notion that non-citizens, too, are created equal is virtually absent from the public sphere. Engaging and fresh, this book will challenge common assumptions about immigrants, immigration, and U.S. history.