Nice/Nasty

This book is based on my experiences as an indelible American and 40+ years of teaching in the Chicago Public School system-specifically the neighborhood ghetto school. It addresses the plight of millions of so-called cursed Americans who are engorged, flailing, floundering, in the "belly of the tiger," searching, groping and hoping to find some way or ways of maneuvering through the labyrinth of intestines, to find a more suitable environment. Further an attempt is made to critically examine the deceptions, myths, bigotries, racial intolerances and hypocrisies entrenched in our not-so-equal society-vis-a-vis the school. The school is charged, as other American institutions, to instilling, imparting, protecting, reinforcing and ensuring those behaviors remain intact and permanent. I borrowed the term nice/nasty, the title of the book, from my grandmother. She used the term to describe people who were two-faced-talking out of both sides of their mouths; people who were religious hypocrites and people in general who were Delphic. Nice/nasty, then, is all of the hypocrisies, debaucheries, chicaneries, contradictions, mendacious and bigotries practices entrenched in U.S. society. They are so pervasive, so natural; they have been accepted as a "correct" way of life