Two things alarmed me recently. One was hearing a Radiolab producer say that they never once aired a story that didn't have some sort of positive ending. The other was when I noticed how obsessed YouTube reviewers are with "character development". Alarming because that means people's idea of what the "golden rule" story consists of is becoming narrowed and calcified, which means a lot of stories that do not fit that idea do not get told. So it's downright shocking to read a nonfiction book full of stories that don't end well, that have no justice, where characters don't grow, where those that try to grow can't, where moral behavior is not rewarded, where immoral behavior is not punished, and where people's stories end more confused than where they started. Of all the books you hear tossed around anti-racism book clubs, I'm floored that this one never seems to come up. Because I would think that understanding how inner city people actually live their daily lives is far more valuable than understanding theories of systemic racism. Will you feel uplifted when the book ends? No, most certainly not. Because many stories worth telling aren't clean like that, and assigning quality to the satisfaction of character development is what unthinking, ignorant people do. Five stars.