The book I chose to talk about is "Who's Gonna Take the Weight" by Kevin Powell. This book breaks down African Americans in today's society into three different but very essential categories which are explained through essays about his life and what he experienced. My reactions to each category were distinct as I continued to read each section. For example, in the section called "The Breakdown" he talks about how, after The Real World, he went to work for Quincy Jones' Vibe magazine and was surprised at the lack of African-American editors or those in a position. management position. Reading this, I wasn't too surprised that a black-owned magazine company was actually run by white people. In the 1990s and still today, many black-owned businesses are actually operated predominantly by white people. Although this is less common now because African Americans now enjoy better education, better living, better job opportunities, etc., they are now seen as peers in the business and have no longer even have a say in what happens within the company. When Powell was employed at Vibe and he pointed out the fact that even though the company was owned by a black man, white people still ran the company. He also said there weren't many black people there who had the qualifications to be in a management position or one of the editors. These factors made me look around and wonder how many black people are deans of a certain school, how many black professors that school has, and how many black students that school has. By doing this, I completely understand what he experienced and felt while working at Vibe. I feel like we have the opportunity to achieve a lot and many are taking advantage of these opportunities. Then I also wonder why there aren't as many black people who have some influence here as professors, deans, or students, compared to other schools that have the same number of students or fewer than our school. Kevin Powell is qualified to write on this topic because a) he is an African American man living in the United States, b) he has experienced numerous oppressions against gender, race, and power, and c) he was raised as a product of hip-hop. Hop generation.