Kevin Brown

When it set sail on its ill-fated maiden voyage, RMS Titanic was a marvel of modern technology and the latest in luxury, providing a gilded setting and false sense of security for its passengers to act out their imagined ideal lives in a reflection of pre-First World War society. When disaster struck in the form of an iceberg four days into its maiden voyage, that society was frozen in a moment of time, revealing class, gender and racial discrimination that pervaded contemporary social attitudes. Kevin Brown takes a fresh approach in exploring the social attitudes to class, manliness, heroism and cowardice, social redemption, the proper role of women and the social, religious and racial prejudices revealed by the sinking. He re-evaluates the code of women and children first, revealing how attitudes glorifying manliness influenced the behaviour of passengers and crew during the sinking, as well as suggesting a narrative of chivalry and self-sacrifice to create heroes from the victims and brand the surviving men as cowards; an interpretation that is challenged here. Eyewitness accounts evoke the horror of the night and reveal the underlying ideas of the day. They also show that women played a less passive role than expected of them. The responses to the sinking by politicians across the spectrum, the labour movement and suffragettes, suffragists and anti-suffragists is explored to show more critical contemporary responses to the disaster that challenge the heroic narrative. It was a world that was never so confident in modernity after the disaster but yet still held on to illusions of chivalry.

What People Are Saying"Terrific. It sparkles and snaps like some great jazz riffs, and the personal aspect is very touching." -Sir Stephen HoughLike a good jazz player, Kevin Brown riffs with verve and muscle and without wasting a note. The entwined meditations in this book-on his relationship with his great-grandmother Ida Mae Cullen-Cooper (Count e Cullen's widow) and on the Harlem literati that informed his own literary development-range widely, touching on artists from bluesman Robert Johnson to essayist James Baldwin. Astute and often daring, they offer a fresh and stimulating perspective on African American creativity in the twentieth century."-Yuval Taylor, author of Zora and Langston: A Story of Friendship and BetrayalIlluminations: A Series in American PoeticsEdited by Jon ThompsonDescriptionIn his introduction to Balzac's Lost Illusions, translator Raymond N. MacKenzie says: "Whole family stories emerge across all these works, and the history, politics, and social relations of France are explored and analyzed from what seems like an endless series of varying angles. And allowing the reader to see these numerous characters from different perspectives, sometimes in the background, sometimes in the foreground, and in different situations at different points in their lives, gives them a depth that is unrivaled in fiction." At least twenty-four characters occur and recur in this essay-cycle, many of them outrageous even by Balzac standards. Kevin Anthony Brown's published work may all seem to be about one thing: namely, history; art history; cultural history; Mexican history; or political history. Closer reading reveals that what his books and literary journalism have in common is related but distinct: namely, oral history and its transmission through the generations via elder griots at the intersection of oral and written traditions.About the AuthorAuthor, essayist, literary translator and reviewer Kevin Anthony Brown was born 3 September 1960, in Kansas City, Missouri. He earned his Bachelor's degree from the City University of New York. Kevin A. Brown is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. He currently lives in San Diego.

As a sheltered, bible-studying teen, when inside of his strict single-parent apartment, and a menacing thug when on the rugged Bronx streets, Tafari King struggles to live a double life. On one side: his overprotective mother, who is unaware that her son is the most feared young thug on the streets; his caring girlfriend, who opposes his new found life style; a devoted teacher who warns Tafari of the unseen traps in the streets; and a budding rap career that may offer a way out. On the other side: his corner boys' crew, thugs, and ghetto star-struck girls all whom Tafari has fooled with his fabricated thug persona. But someone close to Tafari figures out that he is a fraud and threatens to expose him. Just when things couldn't get any worse, an old enemy returns to reclaim dominance over Tafari while a new threat seeks to remove him from the equation entirely. With his life on the line, a gang initiation looming, and time running out, Tafari needs to make a choice before it's too late.

Have you ever felt like you wanted to serve God but you didn't know how? Have you sought guidance from your church or the people around you but weren't sure if they were giving you the best advice. You may have felt like some people were dishonest, backstabbers, self-indulged, money hungry, or possibly hypocrites. Not everyone is that way, but some people have made you wonder and perhaps doubt your faith. Occasionally, you might feel like the church is not the right place for you. Nevertheless, you still feel like there is a God and he wants you to do better and be better. If these thoughts have surfaced in your mind, then Leave Them Alone might be for you. In this book, you'll discover: -The true meaning of following God-What God requires of his churches-How to love God and how we should love in relationships-How to correctly praise and worship-How to get God to answer your prayers-When you should accept or seek a title in church-When you should judge the actions of other peopleYou only have one life and one opportunity to get it right with God. If you want to make sure you get it right, this is the book for you.

Work That Matters makes a major contribution to how we Christians think about work. We must work to sustain ourselves, but how can we gain much more from our work than simply toiling to survive? We must not live with divided hearts. Holiness is based on gratefully and constructively acknowledging the presence of God in all that we are and do.

People have used the Bible for a variety of purposes over the course of the past two thousand years; unfortunately, many of those uses have reinforced power structures and systems that oppress and dominate those without privilege. Worst of all, people have used the Bible as a means to divide humanity into those who are worthy of salvation and those who are not. However, if we look at the lectionary readings, especially the gospels, we can see that God actively seeks to undercut and subvert systems of power, and God calls Christians to do the same. Through an examination of Jesus's teachings, with support from a wide variety of other parts of the Bible, we can see that ideas of social justice and true liberation run throughout God's message to humanity. Rather than focusing on who gets into heaven and who doesn't, Jesus seeks to proclaim God's love for all humanity. By reading the Bible this way and attempting to live up to Jesus's call, we can seek to bring the kingdom to our world, as it is in heaven. ""Kevin Brown reads and reflects on Scripture in a masterful way, providing the reader a book that is both progressive and prophetic. He helps the student of Scripture make the connections between the ancient word and present-day issues, particularly those related to matters of social justice. His reflections on a year's worth of lectionary texts nourishes the inner spirit, even as he boldly challenges the reader to act justly on behalf of God's kingdom."" --Mark A. Benson, Senior Pastor, First Christian Church, Meridian, Mississippi Kevin Brown is an elder at Northminster Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He is the author of a spiritual memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. He is also the author of three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems; A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner, Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry); and Exit Lines.

"You so black..." repeated over and over in Mahogany Brown's mind like the chorus to a sad song, killing her soul, softly. "You so black..." is how the joke begins. When the joke ends, laughter, teasing and bullying follows. Not to mention getting dumped by her then boyfriend, Tafari, in favor of Malikah, the redbone goddess that all the boys worship. From that point on, Mahogany despises the dark brown skin she's in. With her self-esteem low and her self-hatred high, Mahogany meets a charming corner thug named Makai.Mahogany's attraction to Makai is more than just the idea of being the girlfriend of a thug that she often day-dreams about and immortalizes on her drawing pad. It's the freedom he offers. Freedom from feeling ugly and unwanted. Freedom from being sheltered from the street life. But with freedom, comes a price.Soon, Makai's true intentions are revealed and Mahogany has a choice to make. Will Mahogany choose Makai or her family? Her new friend, Karisma, or her morals? Will she get revenge on Malikah for stealing her man? The wrong choice can mean the end of the life as Mahogany knows it.

"You so black..." repeated over and over in Mahogany Brown's mind like the chorus to a sad song, killing her soul, softly. "You so black..." is how the joke begins. When the joke ends, laughter, teasing and bullying follows. Not to mention getting dumped by her then boyfriend, Tafari, in favor of Malikah, the redbone goddess that all the boys worship. From that point on, Mahogany despises the dark brown skin she's in. With her self-esteem low and her self-hatred high, Mahogany meets a charming corner thug named Makai.Mahogany's attraction to Makai is more than just the idea of being the girlfriend of a thug that she often day-dreams about and immortalizes on her drawing pad. It's the freedom he offers. Freedom from feeling ugly and unwanted. Freedom from being sheltered from the street life. But with freedom, comes a price.Soon, Makai's true intentions are revealed and Mahogany has a choice to make. Will Mahogany choose Makai or her family? Her new friend, Karisma, or her morals? Will she get revenge on Malikah for stealing her man? The wrong choice can mean the end of the life as Mahogany knows it.

After a legendary career, Hip Hop Icon 'Coach Coach' shockingly went into seclusion after the death of his Wife and Son. For nearly Ten years just about every Media Outlet tried relentlessly to get an one on one interview. Although he'd bared his soul on some of Hip Hop's most notable tracks, he'd left much to the imagination in regards to his upbringing and personal life. That's only until reporter 'Sharly Green' got a hold of him. Granting her a front row seat inside of his mind he verbally takes her on an adventure of a lifetime. Vividly detailing the heartbreaking yet hilarious events that shaped him into becoming an 'American Rap Star'

Rod is everything any young girl could dream of. Smart, handsome, caring, still with qualities as rich as those he still finds himself belittled and unappreciated by the love of his life, Candy. But with the looks of an African Beauty Queen along with her humorously hypnotizing personality it's practically impossible for him to remain angry for too long. Besides, he's from the suburbs, while Candy on the other end is from the Hood, the allure of her ghetto fabulous lifestyle is far too appealing to him. He's hooked and Candy knows. But while on a weekend vacation to Atlanta Rod shows Candy that while he may appear softer than the thugs she's grown up around he is undoubtedly the only real Man she's ever known.

Most ethnographers don’t achieve what Kevin Brown did while conducting their research: in his two years spent at a karaoke bar near Denver, Colorado, he went from barely able to carry a tune to someone whom other karaoke patrons requested to sing. Along the way, he learned everything you might ever want to know about karaoke and the people who enjoy it. The result is Karaoke Idols, a close ethnography of life at a karaoke bar that reveals just what we are doing when we take up the mic – and how we shape our identities, especially in terms of gender, ethnicity, and class, through performances in everyday life. Marrying a comprehensive introduction to the history of public singing and karaoke with a rich analysis of karaoke performers and the community that their shared performances generate, Karaoke Idols is a book for both the casual reader and the scholar: a fascinating exploration of our urge to perform and the intersection of technology and culture that makes it so seductively easy to do so.

American Boy is told in first person through the innocent eyes of an African American teenager, Samuel 'Pete' Turner. At the tender age of five, Pete witnesses the tragic death of his Father. Naturally this has a profound effect on Pete's entire life. Despite the fact that he is raised in a middle class enviroment by his loving Mother, Mary, Pete continually seeks love and guidance from basically any man who shows the slightest bit of interest in him. Unfortunately, he is surrounded by Men who do not fully know the meaning of being a man or even worse, Men that do not feel the need to lend a helping hand to insure that the young Men in their presence grow to be strong productive citizens.Contact info: Facebook: Kevin BrownInstagram: __KevinBrownE-mail: [email protected]