Quiet Riots
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“…..Nothing was ever anybody’s fault. Winthrop Clark had been convicted of murder, though he claimed it was self-defense, but it sounded to Victor like more of a bout of temporary insanity. With his plaid shirt, loafers, spectacles and Mr. Rogers sweater no one would have ever guessed that Winthrop would be here by looking at him. And unlike Antoine who Victor would come to find had an extensive history of alcoholism in his family that spanned five generations, or Fish who sacrificed his football scholarship at the University of Kentucky to return home and support his first child, there was nothing in Winthrop’s background that would suggest this kind of outcome. Winthrop was a devoted husband and father of three. He paid his taxes. He attended church on Sundays instead of watching football and kept his lawn in such good care that his home won several beautification awards. He had recently been promoted chairman of the Board of Directors at Northwestern Hospital three months to the day before he walked in and shot up the 12th floor offices, killing 22, wounding 8. On the news that night all his friends, family and colleagues talked about how they were totally blindsided by this and how Winthrop seemed like the nicest guy and never had an ill word for anyone. Then out of nowhere, he just snapped, though it was Winthrop’s claim throughout his trial that he was simply defending himself against a government plot to kill him. But Victor knew that nobody just snapped out of nowhere. No. These things simmer, bubbling, festering and building up over time and exploding into the atmosphere like molten lava. Anyone had the capability of being a Winthrop. There was so much pressure applied on people of all walks of life in today’s society, that the laws of nature made it where every once in a while people would be forced to push back…..”
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About the Book
Contemporary America’s news headlines are chopped full of explosions of violence that seem to emerge from out of nowhere. From Steven Kazmierczak at Northern Illinois; Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech; Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood; to Andrew Joseph Stack III’s terrorist attack on the IRS Building in Austin, more and more seemingly well-adjusted Americans appear to be releasing misplaced, pent up rage upon an unsuspecting public. However, in Quiet Riots, sociologist Dr. Kareem R. Muhammad uses his first novel to paint a vivid picture of how these events are not nearly as isolated or random as they appear. In Quiet Riots, the novel’s protagonist, Victor Armstrong, sees his perfectly normal, yuppified life turned totally upside down by forces that he can’t quite grasp. After years of suffering silently while he feels himself being slowly eaten away by a series of unforeseen tragedies that see him go from promising attorney to convict, Victor ultimately reaches his breaking point and lashes out in a way that was personally unpredictable but socially all too familiar. In Quiet Riots, Dr. Kareem R. Muhammad skillfully examines the psyche of the new, 21st-century styled silent majority who are just one fragile thread away from reaching their own breaking points. By peeling away some of the layers at the heart of this silent frustration, he leaves readers to ponder their own private, quiet riots and how we collectively go about properly extinguishing these internal fires that threaten to engulf the entire nation.
About the Author
Kareem R. Muhammad was born on March 31, 1975. After receiving his Masters in Journalism from Northwestern University, and a Bachelors in Technical Writing at Chicago State, he pursued his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois in Sociology. He has taught a wide range of courses including the first “Sociology of Hip-Hop Course” at the University of Illinois. Presently he teaches a variety of criminology, sociology and political science courses at East-West University in Chicago. Kareem is also the CEO of Illanoyze, Inc a hip-hop media, promotion and fashion company based in Chicago. He and his two partners began the company in 1998 to provide an array of services to the disenfranchised in the form of clothing, shelter, entertainment and information. In addition to the clothing line that commonly features various political messages such as ones that include police dogs attacking black protesters in 1960s Detroit, and a graphic lynching in a rural Indiana town in the 1920s, Illanoyze has also been highly involved in charity and volunteer work throughout the city. Recently Illanoyze began a talk show that hosted by Kareem entitled “Noyzemakers: The Talk Show of Hip-Hop, Politics and Entertainment.”