Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book, I was captivated.
Review: As someone who studies poverty and race relations, as well as the devastating effect of drugs on urban America, I found this book to be just enthralling. I could not put it down once I started, and although I found myself shocked at many of the things I discovered about this mother and her relationship with her children, I felt a bond with them. In the end it was hard to be disgusted, just saddened by what had happened to Rosa Lee and her family. Leon Dash did a fantastic job with this story.
Rating:
Summary: The Urban City Family (on drugs)
Review: I thought Mr. Dash did an excellent job of writing about Rosa Lee and her family, because he created a bond with Rosa and even some of her family. I have read many books similar to this one and always am interested in the choices that others make in their lives. The fact that two of Rosa's sons made different choices certainly proves that it can be done. But I do think that the general population has little sympathy or compassion for the Rosa's of the world. I have both and sorry that Rosa and her children lived as theyy have. Rosa did have some regrets at the end, that she had not been an example for her children and that she had not valued education. Education is the answer, it enables all of us to change our lives by having a means. One thing that the book did not show is what it cost the the people of DC in welfare etc. to raise Rosa and her children and is still costing them because Rosa lives on in children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and all with poor examples of how to take care of themselves.
Rating:
Summary: The Urban City Family (on drugs)
Review: I thought Mr. Dash did an excellent job of writing about Rosa Lee and her family, because he created a bond with Rosa and even some of her family. I have read many books similar to this one and always am interested in the choices that others make in their lives. The fact that two of Rosa's sons made different choices certainly proves that it can be done. But I do think that the general population has little sympathy or compassion for the Rosa's of the world. I have both and sorry that Rosa and her children lived as theyy have. Rosa did have some regrets at the end, that she had not been an example for her children and that she had not valued education. Education is the answer, it enables all of us to change our lives by having a means. One thing that the book did not show is what it cost the the people of DC in welfare etc. to raise Rosa and her children and is still costing them because Rosa lives on in children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and all with poor examples of how to take care of themselves.
Rating:
Summary: Mr. Dash, "Rosa Lee" encouraged me to become a writer!
Review: I've possessed the ability to write since childhood, but I hid a painful rip in the fiber of my soul which hindered me from venting creative literary energy. The insecurity of being black, female and the product of a poor single family environment had long been stifled with my determination to succeed or die trying. As an entrepreneur, I realized personal and business accomplishments which, by most standards, were unusual. People constantly asked how I survived one traumatic situation after another. I knew, but never shared my secret. One night in 1995, I "heard" a story on TV (PBS) about a black woman in Washington, D.C. who reared two generations of socially maligned offsprings except for two sons. "Heard" because I was engrossed in a project which demanded most of my visual attention. By the time I focused solely on the program, it ended. I caught enough to shake my head in sheer disbelief. The realism was overwhelming.....drugs, prostitution, penal institutions, shoplifting.... thoroughly depressing. Yet, I couldn't help but wonder how this happened to Rosa Lee. I searched for and bought the book the following year. I could hardly finish reading it because it was inevitable that the children had very little chance to escape the pattern of crime established by their elders. Light bulb flashed overhead. How in the world did I escape? In the introduction to my book, Mr. Browne's Roses, which is distributed through Amazon.com, I explain a painful fourth grade discriminatory experience. Why tell the world? Because I suppressed the truth for too long and writing for others would be meaningless without honesty. I could have easily become another Rosa Lee, but my mother gave me confidence to rise above my environment. When Rosa Lee had problems, there was no one to "band aid" her emotions. I doubt if anyone truly understands the importance of nurturing. Society continues to pay a hefty price via welfare, incarcerations, counseling, legislation, etc. when a simple act of love and compassion given in the formative years would ward off or at least, lessen the consequences. I decided to face my demons and write fiction for children. Hopefully, my success will somehow encourage others to maintain a positive attitude when challenged with unfathomable situations of social, racial and or religious discrimination. Mr. Dash, I sincerely thank you!
Rating:
Summary: Mr. Dash, "Rosa Lee" encouraged me to become a writer!
Review: I've possessed the ability to write since childhood, but I hid a painful rip in the fiber of my soul which hindered me from venting creative literary energy. The insecurity of being black, female and the product of a poor single family environment had long been stifled with my determination to succeed or die trying. As an entrepreneur, I realized personal and business accomplishments which, by most standards, were unusual. People constantly asked how I survived one traumatic situation after another. I knew, but never shared my secret. One night in 1995, I "heard" a story on TV (PBS) about a black woman in Washington, D.C. who reared two generations of socially maligned offsprings except for two sons. "Heard" because I was engrossed in a project which demanded most of my visual attention. By the time I focused solely on the program, it ended. I caught enough to shake my head in sheer disbelief. The realism was overwhelming.....drugs, prostitution, penal institutions, shoplifting.... thoroughly depressing. Yet, I couldn't help but wonder how this happened to Rosa Lee. I searched for and bought the book the following year. I could hardly finish reading it because it was inevitable that the children had very little chance to escape the pattern of crime established by their elders. Light bulb flashed overhead. How in the world did I escape? In the introduction to my book, Mr. Browne's Roses, which is distributed through Amazon.com, I explain a painful fourth grade discriminatory experience. Why tell the world? Because I suppressed the truth for too long and writing for others would be meaningless without honesty. I could have easily become another Rosa Lee, but my mother gave me confidence to rise above my environment. When Rosa Lee had problems, there was no one to "band aid" her emotions. I doubt if anyone truly understands the importance of nurturing. Society continues to pay a hefty price via welfare, incarcerations, counseling, legislation, etc. when a simple act of love and compassion given in the formative years would ward off or at least, lessen the consequences. I decided to face my demons and write fiction for children. Hopefully, my success will somehow encourage others to maintain a positive attitude when challenged with unfathomable situations of social, racial and or religious discrimination. Mr. Dash, I sincerely thank you!
Rating: 
Summary: Thought provoking
Review: If the measure of a good book is that it exposes you to new information and makes you think, then this a great book! I enjoyed Mr Dash's even-handed writing style, it wasn't overly critical or sympathetic. Rosa Lee has made some very poor decisions in her lifetime, ones that will have far-reaching effects on the generations that come after her. The book gives you the insight as to why she made those decisions without excusing her actions. I came away from this book with more questions than I had when I started reading. It's almost a "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" scenario...it makes you wonder if Rosa Lee created her own problems or if her problems created her? As a Sociologist I have always been interested in urban blight and deviant behavior and try to read as much on the topic as possible, and I must say that this is one of the better books that I have read. I would also highly recommend "The Corner" as another book that explores the issues facing the urban underclass. Thank you Mr. Dash for daring to uncover an ugly part of America that some people wish would stay hidden!
Rating:
Summary: A nuanced, essential look at life on the edge in D.C.
Review: In recent years, welfare and the underclass have become a prominent part of the national conversation. But pundits' portrayals of the urban poor are often distressingly simplistic, usually presenting the underclass as a mass of indistinguishable brown and black people inhabiting a murky, foreign land. In 1988, Washington Post reporter Leon Dash began a seven-year project that he hoped might dispel reductionist thinking, trying to make this unfamiliar world complex and real by focusing on a single case, one that shows many of the facets of underclass life. He tells the story of a single Washington, D.C., woman and her family-four generations of poverty, pathology and crippling dysfunction. Rosa Lee Cunningham "is fifty-two years old, a longtime heroin addict, with a long record of arrests for everything from petty theft to drug trafficking," Dash writes. "Her eight children-the oldest of whom she bore at age fourteen-were fathered by six different men, and six of the children have followed her into a life of teenage parenthood, drugs, and crime." Rosa Lee's story is hardly inspirational-and yet in it there are glimmers of brightness. Amid the sadness and squalor, Dash leaves room for hope. "Rosa Lee" grew out of a controversial Washington Post newspaper series that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994; about half the book is fresh material. Dash paints detailed portraits of Rosa Lee and her children; presented nonjudgmentally, his depictions are founded on ambiguity. He makes it clear that-in the name of "survival"-she condemned at least two succeeding generations to follow her example, alienated from broader, productive society. "Rosa Lee exposed all of her children to her criminal lifestyle, the underworld path she argues was her avenue to survival," he writes, "and four of her six sons followed her onto the same path, with ruinous outcomes for each of them." One chilling example: Early in the book, Rosa Lee describes a shoplifting trip with an 11-year-old grandson and how a 5-year-old granddaughter had once helped her sell heroin. "Rosa Lee has introduced her granddaughter to the drug trade," Dash writes, "as something to do to earn enough money to eat." Despite her behavior and legacy, though, Rosa Lee remains somehow likable and sympathetic throughout the book. "I can't help but think that if circumstances had been different, if she hadn't faced so many obstacles in her life, her drive and her charisma might have caused her to create a different life for herself, her children, and grandchildren," Dash writes. Facing poverty, dysfunction and ruined lives, Americans weaned on tabloid TV tend to look to assign quick blame. Who's at fault for Rosa Lee and her children? "There is something in her life story to confirm any political viewpoint," Dash writes. "Some may see her as a victim of hopeless circumstances, a woman born to a life of deprivation because of America's long history of discrimination and racism. Others may give her the benefit of the doubt in some cases but hold her personally acountable for much of what she did to herself, her children, and her grandchildren. A third group might say that Rosa Lee is a thief, a drug addict, a failed parent, a broken woman paying for her sins, and a woman who seemingly was so set on placing her children on the path to failure that it is amazing that even two of them manage to live conventional lives." If Rosa Lee is invisible to lawmakers who-only a mile or two away-see her as only a nebulous parasite, they are equally intangible to her. She "has no interest in politics or government. She has never voted," Dash writes. "There is almost no connection between Rosa Lee's world and the world of Washington's policy-makers and politicians." She is unaware, he notes, that elections even take place. Though wards of the state, entirely dependent on government subsidies and handouts, the family is completely alienated from civil society: They don't seem to recognize that their drug abuse and shoplifting have larger societal costs-indeed, that their actions affect others at all. Dash shows us the most troubled of Rosa Lee's family: "Bobby, Ronnie, Richard, Patty, and Ducky live a kind of nomadic existence, bouncing from friends' apartments to jail, to the street, to Rosa Lee's. All five are addicted to heroin or cocaine, or abuse both drugs," he writes. "Their lives and choices provide an intricate blueprint of just how bad guidance and bad decisions so easily ensnared them in lives of drug addiction and criminal recidivism." But he also focuses on Alvin and Eric, the two of Rosa Lee's sons who "found a different path and moved up out of poverty into conventional middle-class and working-class respectability." Somehow, "they rejected the lures, avoided the pitfalls, and got around the obstacles that they faced in their home and in their neighborhoods from the day they were born." Dash attributes much of the family's continuing poverty to its lack of education and frequent teenage parenthood. Rosa Lee had her first child at 14; so did her daughter Patty. Rosa Lee's mother Rosetta gave birth three days after her 13th birthday. All dropped out of school still illiterate. Dash's writing is nonjudgmental, enviably clean and straightforward, without pseudonyms or euphemisms. He never pretties up his language with gratuitous adjectives or unnecessary color; he never clumsily writes around a cliché if the cliché is clearer. The only stylistic flaw is his confusingly frequent tense shifts to accomodate his jumping back and forth in the chronology. As a black, middle-class journalist, he is an inextricable part of his own tale, and it's fascinating to see him run up against his own journalist-subject boundaries. "I lay down ground rules that I will buy them meals and even cigarettes, but I will pay for the purchases. I explain I will never give or loan any of them any amount of cash. I know from past experience that drug users go to considerable lengths to collect small amounts of money from many people until they gather enough to buy drugs. The drug-users among Rosa Lee's children boast to her that they will eventually get some money out of me. They are sorely disappointed." Dash fights not to show feelings, to remain scrupulously impartial, all the way through his realistic and informed book's-end discussion of remedial action. "Viable solutions to poverty will never be simple," he writes. "As Rosa Lee's story shows, immense difficulties await any effort to bring an end to poverty, illiteracy, drug abuse, and criminal activity. In the poorest neighborhoods, these problems are knitted together into whole cloth. . . . Reforming welfare doesn't stop drug trafficking; better policing doesn't end illiteracy; providing job training doesn't teach a young man or woman why it's wrong to steal.
Rating: 
Summary: Your Tax Dollars At Work
Review: Mr. Dashs treatment of Rosa Lees life course achieves a highly deserving goal by apparently paradoxical means: it exposes the traps of initial and subsequent living conditions by showing an individual's life shaped by it's decisions and choices. He never allows the reader to wallow in simple compassion or anger, and he never resorts to the true but useless explanation that the system is responsible for Rosa Lees miserable life. He always keeps your mind active and attentive.
A good example is his report on Rosa Lees trial for shoplifting: while the defence insists that Rosa Lee might be a thief but is a very unfortunate woman and had to steal in order to support her family and her addiction, Dash points out that Rosa Lee has been shoplifting already in her early childhood while none of her siblings did shoplift. This suggest that her behavior might have had a functionality within her relationship with her mother, not only in her relationship with the system. By never letting individual dynamics and decisions, however constraining their contexts and however dismal their consequences, be covered up by the overwhelming explanatory power of economic deprivation, he manages to show in a touching and revealing way how a person's place within a system translates into his or her behavior and behavior outcomes. Especially by never denying the individual Rosa Lee or any of her children their agency in shaping their lives, by never reducing them to inevitable victims unfortunate-but-now-beyond-redemption, by describing extensively how two of teh children escaped addiction and poverty, he exposes the systems' crushing cruelty.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent, well-reported, and captivating story.
Review: The story of Rosa Lee Cunningham and her family is heartbreaking and alarming. In the heart of Washington D.C., Rosa Lee's life is mired in poverty, crime, drugs, and disease. Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning series which ran in the Washington Post in 1994, reporter Leon Dash does a superb job of reporting and analyzing intergenerational poverty. I suggest that everyone, especially politicians, read this important book
Rating:
Summary: INNER CITY DRUG LIFE
Review: The subject is depressing, but the research and writing are superb. ROSA LEE is a lengthy and well-chronicled look into the daily lives of one multi-generational family in an environment of poverty and drug-infestation, where routine crime and imprisonment are accepted as normal, and where escape is possible, but extremely rare. I'd recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand the mentality and hopelessness of drug addition. This story couldn't have been written any clearer than Leon Dash did in ROSA LEE.
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