‘Blackspanic College’ a memoir with reflections on race
Barnes and Noble (Nook e-book)
Amazon.com (paperback book and Kindle e-book)
Part memoir, part history and part reflections on race, “Blackspanic College” chronicles the author’s experiences teaching journalism and overseeing the student newspaper at a community college in South-Central Los Angeles. Initially overwhelmed, he’s befriended by some of the students, especially Blackjack Loco, a “retired” gangbanger fresh out of prison, and the wall between insecure teacher and semi-feral students, and black and white, starts to crack. Against the backdrop of 9/11, he’s accused of being a racist, forcing students to choose between old and new alliances. In his last semester, he assigns his public relations class to create a P.R. campaign to bring peace to the Middle East, and tries to explain the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in terms of ethnic frictions in America.
MAIN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE BOOK AND E-BOOK VERSIONS:
– One is a paperback book, the other is an e-book that can only be read with a Nook, Kindle or other digital device.
– The paperback was published in 2009, and is about 5,000 words longer than the e-book version, which was extensively rewritten and updated in 2015.
How factual is “Blackspanic College”?
Author H.B. Koplowitz did not begin teaching at the college with the intent to write a book, and he didn’t record or take notes of conversations. It wasn’t until months after he’d left the job that he realized that therein lay a story. Read more.