“And if you’re broke and have limited experience in the world, you probably have no idea of the sheer scale of the awesome criminal capers that the poweful and politically connected can get away with, right under the noses of the rich-people police.” If you grew up well off, you probably don’t know how easy it is for poor people to end up in jail, often for the same dumb things you yourself did as a kid. “Most people understand this on some level, but they don’t really know how bad it has gotten, because they live entirely on one side of the equation. Taibbi describes a “new despotism” hidden in the “thousands of arbitrary decisions that surround our otherwise transparent system of real jury trials and carefully enumerated suspects’ rights.” And, he says, not one of the new prisoners is among the rich whose fraud wiped out 40 percent of the world’s wealth.

In The Divide, published in 2014, Taibbi ponders a “bizarre statistical mystery” two decades in the making: Poverty goes up. And, in a place as diverse as UC Davis, the book project especially promotes listening to other people’s views. 11, 2001, the annual book project is meant to draw people together for discussion, in and out of classrooms, in special lectures and presentations, in casual conversations. Labor Market Inequality Before “Occupy” and “Structural Inequality in our Nation’s Schools.”īegun in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. Other “Divide” topics have included “If You Cannot Afford One,” referring to access to legal representation “Health Inqeuities and the Homeless” “The Human Impact of Criminal and Immigration Detention” “Understanding Differences in STEM Undergraduate Students, the Outcomes that Result and Hopeful Interventions” “I Didn’t Even Get an Interview: Inequality in Job Searches” “The Long Decline: U.S. Monday through Saturday, and one hour before all ticketed events. Tickets are available online or by visiting or calling the box office.

Book signing to follow in the Yocha Dehe Grand Lobby.

Scott Syphax (moderator), president and chief executive officer, Nehemiah Companies and host and co-executive producer, KVIE Public Television’s Studio SacramentoĪuthor’s talk - Same title as the book, The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap.

3, Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. (free) - “Movement of the Moment or an Old Battle Cry: Black Lives Matter,” panel discussion, 4-5 p.m.

The divide matt taibbi review