Uncensored: My Life and Uncomfortable Conversations at the Intersection of Black and White America

Wood, Zachary R.

ISBN 10: 1432853775 ISBN 13: 9781432853778

Publisher: THORNDIKE PR, 2018

Synopsis

Rooted in his own powerful personal story, twenty-one-year-old Zachary Wood shares his dynamic perspective on free speech, race, and dissenting opinions--in a world that sorely needs to learn to listen.

As the president of the student group Uncomfortable Learning at Williams College, Zachary Wood knows all about intellectual controversy. From John Derbyshire to Charles Murray, there's no one Zach refuses to debate or engage with simply because he disagrees with their beliefs--sometimes vehemently so--and this controversial view has given him a unique platform on college campuses and in the media.

But Zach has never shared the details of his own personal story, and how he came to be a crusader for open dialogue and free speech. In Uncensored, he reveals for the first time how he grew up poor and black in Washington, DC, in an environment where the only way to survive was to resist the urge to write people off because of their backgrounds and their perspectives.

By sharing his troubled upbringing--from a difficult early childhood filled with pain, uncertainty, and conflict to the struggles of code-switching between his home in a rough neighborhood and his elite private school--Zach makes a compelling argument for a new way of interacting with others, in a nation and a world that has never felt more polarized. In Uncensored, he hopes to foster a new outlook on society's most difficult conversations, both on campus and beyond.

About this title

Review

"Uncensored is inspired. Zachary Wood is an American hero for standing up on the front line of the fight for free speech on college campuses. This young, black man who has overcome so much in his life, tells an incredible story of crossing political lines in search of honest debate."
--Juan Williams, author of We the People

"It is difficult to know what is more amazing, the fact that a 21-year-old is publishing a memoir of his life, the fact that he indeed has a life and a complicated one to narrate, the fact that out of hardscrabble beginnings he has fashioned a present full of accomplishment and promises a future that the reader soon comes to believe in. He thinks he will be president of the United States. I wouldn't bet against him."
--Stanley Fish, New York Times bestselling author of How to Write a Sentence

"Zachary Wood's story is wrenchingly honest and compelling, a triumph of discipline and resilience, with useful lessons for us all. His willingness to confront opposing views and engage ideological adversaries is brave and important at a time when political polarization is challenging our national strength."
--Ambassador Susan E. Rice, author of Confronting Poverty

"In this remarkably honest memoir, Zachary R. Wood has written a veritable bildungsroman, tracing his journey from high school scholarship student from a poor black neighborhood in Washington, D.C., to leader of the free speech movement at Williams College. This work provides a timely view of both political life on elite college campuses and the struggles of the working poor against the backdrop of institutional racism. It also explores, with bracing candor, Wood's growth as a young writer and intellectual, whose mistakes are as formative as his successes. Wood's memoir is a must-read for anyone concerned about the American promise of social mobility."
--Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard, and author of Life Upon These Shores

"I met Zachary Wood when he was 19. After an hour of talking with him, I was volunteering for his (future) U.S. Presidential campaign. (I have my fingers crossed that he'll decide to run someday, because we need him.) Zachary Wood represents everyone, and he does so with dignity, clarity, kindness, and great courage, which comes across loud and clear in this phenomenal book, Uncensored. Zachary's story of resilience, compassion, and conviction will be read by millions, and I'll be pushing for it to be a book that's assigned in high school classrooms everywhere. He teaches - and shows - us how to resolve and heal some of our deepest conflict - with true curiosity, empathy, and openness."
--Amy J. C. Cuddy, New York Times bestselling author of Presence

"Uncensored is inspired. Zachary Wood is an American hero for standing up on the front line of the fight for free speech on college campuses. This young, black man who has overcome so much in his life, tells an incredible story of crossing political lines in search of honest debate."
--Juan Williams, author of Eyes on the Prize and political analyst for Fox News

"Zachary Wood's story is wrenchingly honest and compelling, a triumph of discipline and resilience, with useful lessons for us all. His willingness to confront opposing views and engage ideological adversaries is brave and important at a time when political polarization is challenging our national strength."
--Ambassador Susan E. Rice, author of Confronting Poverty

"It is difficult to know what is more amazing, the fact that a 21-year-old is publishing a memoir of his life, the fact that he indeed has a life and a complicated one to narrate, the fact that out of hardscrabble beginnings he has fashioned a present full of accomplishment and promises a future that the reader soon comes to believe in. He thinks he will be president of the United States. I wouldn't bet against him."
--Stanley Fish, New York Times bestselling author of How to Write a Sentence

"Candid, passionate, disturbing, and judicious, Zachary Wood's Uncensored traces a young man's odyssey through the challenges and affirmations of family life, academic institutions, and campus controversies. Ambitious and altruistic, admired and maligned, driven yet self-reflective, Wood examines and celebrates the sense of calling that informs his prodigious energy and talent. Uncensored is an honest, compelling, and unforgettable book."
--David Lionel Smith, John W. Chandler Professor of English, Williams College

About the Author

Zachary R. Wood is a Robert L. Bartley Fellow at The Wall Street Journal and a class of 2018 graduate of Williams College, where he served as president of Uncomfortable Learning, a student group that sparked national controversy for inviting provocative speakers to campus. His recent work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Nation, Times Higher Education, and SLAM magazine. A Washington, DC, native, Wood currently resides in New York City.

Edition details

• Publisher: THORNDIKE PR
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1432853775
• ISBN 13: 9781432853778
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 293