This book, The State of Nebraska and "The Good Life: The Racial, Cultural and Socio-Economic Realities of the Cornhusker State, contains the views and extensive research of someone who grew tired of watching people of color in the state of Nebraska suffer while at the same time the state was spending tens of millions of dollars on various forms of promotion, marketing and tourism-related publicity. While the state's slogan is "The Good Life," the application of that slogan has been slow in reaching the state's lone black community in Omaha, any of the six (6) Indian reservations or the Hispanic-laden rural communities that dot the state. In this book I address some background on the state and its racial entanglements with First Nation people. I document the brutality waged against Native Americans as the area now known as Nebraska was given form and function. I briefly address some of the major conflicts on this "battlefield" and how the concept of "The Good Life" was being formed in the name of white nationalism. After an introduction to the "Good Life" motif, I then address the issues of how the state "eats its young." Example after example is provided about how Nebraska has sacrificed programs that would protect low-income people and children in the name of expending money on stadiums, structures on college campuses and over-paid administrators. In the section on "Nebraska and the Marijuana Pipeline" I document how money is generated by arrests and profiling in the name of "the drug war." Education is another area I address and how that education tends to favor the majority. From expensive "cultural proficiency manuals" to continuing hiring of high priced administrators only for them to leave with huge severance checks, this section has a second section that documents Nebraska's "low rankings" in terms of high school education. A section titled, "Nebraska Tourism: An African-American Planner's Analysis" is a continuation of the "good life motif" that I outlined earlier. In this section I show how money has been abused by tourism administrators, and I share an article I wrote in 1991 regarding the "Good Morning America" tour and what that national program had to say about Nebraska in general and Omaha in particular. In a section titled, "Invasion of the Booty Snatchers" I again document Nebraska's on-going leeching for Federal dollars and the "steering" of those dollars away from the poor and minority. I show the role that a lax and morally bankrupt Legislature plays in all this, and how the rise in a plethora of social problems are the direct result of legislative ineptitude. The health care industry and the abuse of urban planning grants are also explored.
About the Author: Matthew C. Stelly is a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee working on a degree in Urban Education and Community Policy. He holds three Master's degrees: Urban Studies (1982), Urban Education (1983) and Political Science (2000). He is working toward his doctorate in Community Policy/Urban Education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the former editor of the Milwaukee Courier newspaper, former director of the Great Plains Black Museum and the Plano (TX) African American Museum, and lead archivist for The Black Academy of Arts and Letters (TBAAL) in Dallas, Texas. Stelly has more than 2,500 articles in print and has won two national essay competitions. He is the founding director of the largest African-American neighborhood group in Nebraska, the Triple One Neighborhood Association and Parents Union. He is publisher and editor of the Triple One News, a two-time nationally recognized newsletter. He is the father of five children - Mandla, Malik, Clariece, Charisse and Shannon -- and remains actively involved in community organizing and neighborhood development in several cities, including Milwaukee and Omaha.