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WHAT IS THE GET MAD CRUSADE?

The #GetMad Crusade was a six month educational conversation hosted by Mad Priest Coffee Roasters in mid-2022. Each month we focused on a current topic to Get Mad about surrounding injustice in our world. Our goal was, and still is, to cultivate curiosity and understanding by exploring these difficult, nuanced issues with experts in each field. Journey with us as we learn to walk in empathy, pursue justice, and play a small part in creating a better, more curious world.

Coffeeland, One Man's Dark Empire and the Making of Our Favorite Drug by Augustine Sedgewick
“Wonderful, energizing . . . Coffeeland is a data-rich piece of original research that shows in compelling detail how coffee capitalism has delivered both profit and pain, comfort and terror to different people at different times over the past 200 years . . . Sedgwick's great achievement is to clothe macroeconomics in warm, breathing flesh.” —Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian

Cheap Coffee: Behind the Curtain of the Global Coffee Trade by Karl Wienhold
“The supply chain for coffee is broken. Cheap Coffee provides a broad explanation of the economics, mechanics and power structures that define the industry today….Change, restructuring and conscientious participation from all stakeholders are needed if coffee farming is to be a viable livelihood for the next generation and part of the solution to the climate crisis that is upon us.” –Daily Coffee News

The Triumph: Black Brazilians in Coffee by Phyllis Johnson
“The book addresses the centuries-old history of slavery in the Brazilian coffee sector that has shaped modern-day dynamics in the coffee trade. It also follows the experiences of Black, first-generation landowners who are currently producing specialty coffee.” –Nick Brown

Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability And Survival by Daniel Jaffee
"Brewing Justice hones in on the global coffee industry and the issue of Fair Trade. Fair Trade tends to be a term that is regularly thrown around but seldom fully understood by coffee enthusiasts….what does [fair trade] mean, and how much as coffee consumers should we care? This book reads well, has been carefully researched, and sheds light on a vital ethical issue that is integrally tied to your morning cup of joe.” — James Hyslop

This Is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan
“Blending artful exposition of the evolution and neurochemistry of botanical drugs, erudite history, and (usually) precise and evocative prose, this is an insightful take on plants’ beguiling sway over the human psyche.” — Publishers Weekly

Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World by Michael Pollan
“Caffeine, it turns out, has changed the course of human history: Pollan’s reporting explores how caffeine has won and lost wars, changed politics, and dominated economies. He asserts, with the support of voluminous research, that the Industrial Revolution would have been impossible without it.” – Audible Originals

Coffee: A Global History by Jonathan Morris
"This is for the coffee nerd in your life. . . . It's jam-packed with information. I don't think I have read a book this information dense and yet still incredibly readable possibly ever. A great little book that I recommend highly. If you want a ton of history, a ton of information, a ton of background on coffee, this is a great gift." –- James Hoffmann

Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World by Mark Pendergrast
"An exhaustive, admirably ambitious examination of coffee's global impact, from its roots in 15th-century Ethiopia to its critical role in shaping the nations of Central and Latin America....Should be read by anyone curious about what goes into their daily cup of Java." ―Kirkus

Also, not about coffee inequality but the names are amazing…

The Devil's Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee: A History of the World According to Coffee by Stewart Lee Allen
“Who knew that the story of coffee was such a fascinating saga of cruelty, madness, obsession, and death? The Devil’s Cup is absolutely riveting, alternating between the informative and the hilarious. Essential reading for foodies, java-junkies, anthropologists, and anyone else interested in funny, sardonically told adventure stories.” —Anthony Bourdain, author of Kitchen Confidential

God in a Cup: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee by Michaele Weissman
“Weissman illustrates how the origin, flavor compounds and socioeconomic impact of a cup of coffee are relevant now more than ever. . . . Tagging along behind the main characters in today’s specialty coffee scene, [she] travels from the exotic to the expected to artfully deconstruct the connoisseur’s cup of coffee.” —Publishers Weekly

The Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power over Christian Values by Ben Howe
"This is a fascinating look inside a world that's a mystery to non-evangelicals like me. But it's also something I didn't expect: Funny and moving. This book will be read for years as an explanation of… the political rise and spiritual fall of an entire movement in 21st century America." - Tom Nichols

The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby
"With the incision of a prophet, the rigor of a professor, and the heart of a pastor, Jemar Tisby offers a defining examination of the history of race and the church in America.” — Soong Chan Rah

Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Du Mez
[An] engaging history of the shifting ideal of Christian masculinity. . . . Persuasively arguing that the evangelical dismissal of Trump’s flaws is the culmination of believing that ‘God-given testosterone came with certain side effects,’ Du Mez closes with a bruising chapter on recent evangelical leaders’ abuses and sex scandals . . . This lucid, potent history adds a much needed religious dimension to understanding the current American right and the rise of Trump.”– Publishers Weekly

Pure by Linda Kay Klein
“A revelation… Part memoir and part journalism, Pure is a horrendous, granular, relentless, emotionally true account.” – New York Magazine’s The Cut

Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States by Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry
"Whitehead and Perry present a powerful case that, in understanding contemporary American politics, what matters most is not whether individuals affirm a particular religious, party or even ethnic affiliation; what matters most is whether they support Christian nationalism." - Journal of Contemporary Religion

One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin M. Kruse
“Provocative and authoritative, One Nation Under God reveals how the comingling of money, religion, and politics created a false origin story that continues to define and divide American politics today.”

Red State Christians by Angela Denker
"What we call 'red states' are an optical illusion--places where religion has been used to pit neighbors against one another so a minority can maintain political control. But what Denker calls 'Red State Christians' are real. They've been cultivated for forty years by the Religious Right, and they've led the charge toward extremism in American public life…." --Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why by Phyllis Tickle
With understated humility, The Great Emergence unpacks the chaos of contemporary cultural upheaval and the religious consequences of the changes we now face. After reading these pages, neither the church nor the world looks the same."--Diana Butler Bass, author

Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence by Sara Moslener
This book historicizes the contemporary purity movement by examining how earlier movements established the rhetorical and moral frameworks utilized by the leading purity organizations, True Loves Waits and Silver Ring Thing. This historical investigation reveals that purity work over the last two centuries has developed in concert with widespread fears of changing traditional gender roles and sexual norms, national decline, and global apocalypse. The book contends that the idea of sexual purity is most compelling at points in history when evangelical beliefs and values appear the most viable explanation for and solution to widespread cultural crises. As historian Angela Lahr has shown, the cultural and political influence of evangelicals is directly related to their ability to effectively address widespread fears. For nineteenth-century purity advocates, it was the ability to address the fear of declining Anglo-Saxon privilege; for twentieth-century fundamentalists, threats of nuclear destruction and communist invasion; and for later evangelicals: the excesses of the sexual revolution coupled with lingering Cold War fears. In each case, sexual purity rhetoric proved an asset to evangelicals seeking to maintain political and cultural influence. By asserting a causal relationship between sexual immorality, national decline, and apocalyptic anticipation, leaders shaped a purity rhetoric that positions Protestant evangelicalism as the salvation of American civilization.
The evangelical purity culture is firmly situated at the intersection of evangelical political activism, nationalism, and millennialist theology. This convergence occurs at points in US history when evangelical Christians have sought to restore or maintain their political influence and have been able to map theological frameworks onto widespread cultural crises. In response to the threat of moral and national decline, the movement provides ethical regulations derived from religious values and nationalist ideologies. At this intersection of nation and religion, purity reformers, now and then, employ theories of rise and decline in order to position sexual purity, and the adolescents who embody it, as the greatest hope for restoring America’s lost innocence.

Pure by Linda Kay Klein
“A revelation… Part memoir and part journalism, Pure is a horrendous, granular, relentless, emotionally true account.” – New York Magazine’s The Cut

White Christian Privilege by Khyati Y. Joshi
“Her argument is simple: Christianity (particularly the European Protestant strain) has been established as the unacknowledged common culture, not simply religion, of the United States, leading to a situation where anything not white, Western, and Christian is seen as abnormal…This brisk overview is a must-read for those interested in America’s Christian foundation.” - Publishers Weekly

The Myth of Colorblind Christians by Jesse Curtis
"Religious history at its best. An immensely clarifying book, it should be required reading for all who seek to understand white evangelicals’ fraught engagement with race over the past half century." -- Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Shoutin’ in the Fire: An American Epistle by Danté Stewart
“Danté Stewart's voice rising is one of the reasons I believe in our common future. It is an honor to be invited into the intimacy, honesty, and inborn wisdom that he offers up in his experiences and insights, his prayers and his theology, his grief and his rage, his exuberance and his love. This book is a kind of map in stories and truths to how we might, as a people, become more whole.”—Krista Tippett

The Bible Told Them So: How Southern Evangelicals Fought to Preserve White Supremacy by J. Russell Hawkins
"Hawkins convincingly demonstrates how religion framed, informed, and bolstered South Carolina whites' resistance to racial equality. He further shows how, once the raw biblical justification of segregation acquired a bad reputation, the rhetoric of color-blindness and anti-identity politics carriedthis resistance forward under a more respectable but deceptive guise." -- Carolyn Renée Dupont
Myth of the American Dream: Reflections on Affluence, Autonomy, Safety, and Power by DL Mayfield
"This trenchant Christian critique of American exceptionalism provides an essential, passionate interpretation of the ideals of egalitarianism." - Publishers Weekly

The New Odyssey, by Patrick Kingsley
"[A] a deeply reported account… Kingsley gives a sympathetic and often damning portrayal of the extraordinary risks and efforts that so many refugees have taken to find a new life. He puts a human face on the hyper-politicized refugee crisis while conveying the magnitude of the crisis."― The Washington Post"An essential account of a crisis we’ve hardly begun to grapple with."― O, The Oprah Magazine

We are displaced: My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World by Malala Yousafza
“A stirring and timely book that strips the political baggage from the words 'migrant' and 'refugee,' telling the deeply personal stories of displacement and disruption that were lived by Yousafzai and nine other girls. ... [In] all these accounts, hope emerges as a kind of belligerent reaction to pain and loss."―The New York Times Book Review

What Is The What by Dave Eggers
“A testament to the triumph of hope over experience, human resilience over tragedy and disaster.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times"An absolute classic. . . . Compelling, important, and vital to the understanding of the politics and emotional consequences of oppression." —People

City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp by Ben Rawlence
“In City of Thorns, Rawlence interweaves the stories of nine individuals to show what life is like in the camp, sketching the wider political forces that keep the refugees trapped. Lucid, vivid, and illuminating, City of Thorns is an urgent human story with deep international repercussions, brought to life through the people who call Dabaab home.” – Publisher

The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
"Stories about people poised between their devastated homeland and their affluent adopted country . . . Viet Thanh Nguyen [is] one of our great chroniclers of displacement . . . beautiful and heartrending . . . Nguyen's narrative style--restrained, spare, avoiding metaphor or the syntactical virtuosity on display in every paragraph of The Sympathizer--is well suited for portraying tentative states . . . all Nguyen's fiction is pervaded by a shared intensity of vision, by stinging perceptions that drift like windblown ashes." --Joyce Carol Oates, New Yorker

Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina by Michaela DePrince
“In this engaging, moving, and unforgettable memoir, Michaela shares her dramatic journey from an orphan in West Africa to becoming one of ballet’s most exciting rising stars.” –Publisher

A Hope More Powerful Than The Sea by Melissa Fleming
"Urgently required reading." ―People"Deeply affecting... Fleming brings a moral urgency to the narrative." ―The New Yorker
"Fleming deftly illustrates the pain of those who choose to leave Syria...and her book is ultimately a story of hope." ―Newsweek

The Crossing: My journey to the shattered heart of Syria by Samar Yazbek
“Journalist Samar Yazbek was forced into exile by Assad's regime. When the uprising in Syria turned to bloodshed, she was determined to take action and secretly returned several times. The Crossing is her rare, powerful and courageous testament to what she found inside the borders of her homeland.” – Publisher

The Lightless Sky: A Twelve-Year-Old Refugee's Harrowing Escape from Afghanistan and His Extraordinary Journey Across Half the World by Gulwali Passarlay
“A heart-rending read that illuminates the plight of unaccompanied minors forced to leave their homes and loved ones. It is beautifully written in simple, accessible prose. Rarely does Passarlay display self-pity and his fierce intelligence is apparent throughout. He also sheds light on the nefarious world of the smugglers who treat their human cargo with so little compassion....A testament to the courage of all those fleeing conflict in search of safety.”—The Independent

A Long Petal of the Sea: A Novel by Isabel Allende
“Majestic . . . both timeless and perfectly timed for today . . . Allende’s assured prose vividly evokes her fictional characters [and] historical figures . . . seamlessly juxtaposing exile with homecoming, otherness with belonging, and tyranny with freedom.”—Publishers Weekly

The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After by Clemantine Wamariya
“Sharp, moving . . . Wamariya and her co-author, Elizabeth Weil . . . describe Wamariya’s idyllic early childhood in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, and the madness that followed with an analytic eye and, at times, a lyrical honesty. . . . Wamariya is piercing about her alienation in America and her effort to combat the perception that she is an exotic figure, to be pitied or dismissed. . . . Wamariya tells her own story with feeling, in vivid prose. She has remade herself, as she explains was necessary to do, on her own terms.”—Alexis Okeowo, New York Times Book Review

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire
“Poems of migration, womanhood, trauma, and resilience from the celebrated collaborator on Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Black Is King, award-winning Somali British poet Warsan Shire.” – Publisher“The beautifully crafted poems in this collection are fiercely tender gifts.”— Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist“Shire is the real thing—fresh, cutting, indisputably alive.”— Dwight Garner, The New York Times

Books about refugees for Kids
Books about refugees for Young Adults
MORE books & novels about refugees from UNHCR

The Drug Wars in America by Kathleen J. Frydl
"… a sweeping, complex, and searching history of America’s drug wars. Kathleen J. Frydl’s sophisticated, 'state-centered' analysis helps us to understand in new ways the causes of the nation’s greatest social policy failure. A brave and provocative work." – Gary Gerstle, James G. Stahlman Professor of American History, Vanderbilt University

The War on Drugs: A Failed Experiment by Paula Mallea
“A criminal prosecutor discusses the illegal drug trade and the failure of the so-called “War on Drugs” to stop it. Mallea approaches this issue from a variety of points of view, offering insight into the history of drug use and abuse in the twentieth century; the pharmacology of illegal drugs; the economy of the illegal drug trade; and the complete lack of success that the war on drugs has had on drug cartels and the drug supply. She also looks ahead and discusses what can and is being done in Canada, the U.S., and the rest of the world to move on from the “war” and find better ways to address the issue of illegal drugs and their distribution, use, and abuse.” – from the Publisher

High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society, by Dr. Carl L. Hart
“In this provocative and eye-opening memoir, Dr. Carl Hart recalls his journey of self-discovery, how he escaped a life of crime and drugs and avoided becoming one of the crack addicts he now studies. Interweaving past and present, Hart goes beyond the hype as he examines the relationship between drugs and pleasure, choice, and motivation, both in the brain and in society. His findings shed new light on common ideas about race, poverty, and drugs, and explain why current policies are failing.” – from the publisher

Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, by Dr. Carl L. Hart
“Hart’s argument that we need to drastically revise our current view of illegal drugs is both powerful and timely . . . when it comes to the legacy of this country’s war on drugs, we should all share his outrage.” —The New York Times Book Review

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan
“Pollan’s deeply researched chronicle will enlighten those who think of psychedelics chiefly as a kind of punchline to a joke about the Woodstock generation and hearten the growing number who view them as a potential antidote to our often stubbornly narrow minds. . . . Engaging and informative.” —The Boston Globe

This Is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan
“In his latest exploration of the enduring relationship between the human and natural worlds, Michael Pollan dives deep into how psychoactive plants—specifically opium, caffeine and mescaline—impact our brains and our cultures. Pollan is a master of breaking down complex science into an engaging story and challenging long-held societal beliefs. His newest offering, which follows his examination of the science of psychedelics in 2018’s How to Change Your Mind, aims to unpack our ideas about what constitutes a “drug” and, fundamentally, why we seek them.” — Time Magazine

Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari
What if everything you think you know about addiction is wrong? Johann Hari’s journey into the heart of the war on drugs led him to ask this question--and to write the book that gave rise to his viral TED talk, viewed more than 62 million times, and inspired the feature film The United States vs. Billie Holiday and the documentary series The Fix. – from the Publisher

Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure by Dan Baum
In a blistering expose based on interviews with policy makers and a catalog of damning statistics, journalist Dan Baum shows how America's war on drugs went from a politically potent campaign ploy (courtesy of Richard Nixon) to today's multibillion-dollar government boondoggle -- a war that's run roughshod over Constitutional rights and put a quarter of young black men behind bars without so much as denting the demand for drugs.” – from the Publisher

Manifesting Minds: A Review of Psychedelics in Science, Medicine, Sex, and Spirituality Kindle Edition by Rick Doblin Phd. (founder of MAPS)
"During the decades when society has generally been barred from the careful and legal use of pure psychedelics, MAPS has supported research in the U.S. and elsewhere on the use of mindful molecules in the treatment for example, of post traumatic stress disorder and anxiety about dying from a disease such as cancer." --Craig Comstock, co-author of Sanctions for Evil: Sources of Social Destructiveness

Breaking the Taboo
“Narrated by Morgan Freeman, this groundbreaking new documentary uncovers the UN sanctioned war on drugs, charting its origins and its devastating impact on countries like the USA, Colombia and Russia. Featuring prominent statesmen including Presidents Clinton and Carter, the film follows The Global Commission on Drug Policy on a mission to break the political taboo and expose the biggest failure of global policy in the last 50 years.”

American Drug War: Last White Hope
“With commentary from soldiers on both sides of the conflict, filmmaker Kevin Booth's incisive documentary wades into the murky waters of the American war on drugs, the longest and costliest war in U.S. history.”

The Business of Drugs
"Former CIA analyst Amaryllis Fox investigates the economics of six illegal substances, show how drugs push people into risky behaviours."

The House I Live In
“From the dealer to the narcotics officer, the inmate to the federal judge, a penetrating look inside America's criminal justice system, revealing the profound human rights implications of U.S. drug policy.”

The Coca Trap
“A country wants to fight the War on Drugs. Who does it put at the forefront of the war? Hapless peasants! In Colombia, the government has asked farmers to swap coca with alternative plants in exchange for incentives. But when they do that, they face threats from the cartel, & even the military & the police! Why are farmers paying this hefty price to keep drugs at bay?”

Apocalypse Now
"My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam." This is how Francis Ford Coppola described his masterpiece, Apocalypse Now, to the press covering the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, where the film made its debut. It may seem like a grandiose statement, but the war in Vietnam was a conflict that dragged on longer than anyone expected, saw insane amounts of drug abuse and brutality, and forced everyone involved to examine their very souls in ways that none before it had.”

Code of the West
At a time when the country is rethinking its drug policies large and small, one state raises to the forefront of national attention. Once a pioneer in legalizing medical marijuana, the state of Montana is poised to become the first in the nation to repeal its medical marijuana law. Set against the sweeping vistas of the Rockies, the steamy lamplight of marijuana grow houses, and the bustling halls of the State Capitol, CODE OF THE WEST follows the 2011 Montana State Legislature as it debates the fate of medical marijuana. This is the story of the many lives and fraught emotions tied to one of the most heated policy questions facing the country today. —Racing Horse Productions

How to Make Money Selling Drugs
“A shockingly candid examination of how a street dealer can rise to cartel lord with relative ease, How to Make Money Selling Drugs is an insider's guide to the violent but extremely lucrative drug industry. Told from the perspective of former drug dealers, and featuring interviews with rights advocates Russell Simmons, Susan Sarandon, and David Simon, the film gives you the lessons you need to start your own drug empire while exposing the corruption behind the ‘war on drugs.’”

[Psychedelics]

The Battle Over Psychedelic Therapy’s Future
From Vice News…”Psilocybin therapy is on the brink of becoming legally available in the US. But access isn’t guaranteed. There’s a struggle playing out right now between pharmaceutical companies, nonprofits, and other entities over who gets to control and profit off the treatment. The outcome will determine whether the people most likely to benefit from psilocybin therapy will even be able to afford it.“

How to Change your Mind
“Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney and New York Times best-selling author Michael Pollan present this documentary series event in four parts, each focused on a different mind-altering substance: LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, and mescaline. With Pollan as our guide, we journey to the frontiers of the new psychedelic renaissance – and look back at almost-forgotten historical context – to explore the potential of these substances to heal and change minds as well as culture.”

Dosed
After many years of prescription medications failed her, a suicidal woman turns to underground healers to try and overcome her depression, anxiety, and opioid addiction with illegal psychedelic medicine such as magic mushrooms and iboga. Adrianne’s first dose of psilocybin mushrooms catapulted her into an unexpected world of healing where plant medicines are redefining our understanding of mental health and addiction.

From Shock to Awe
From Shock to Awe, an intimate and raw look at the transformational journey of two combat veterans suffering from severe trauma as they abandon pharmaceuticals to seek relief through the mind-expanding world of psychedelics.

Trip of Compassion
“I first watched “Trip of Compassion” about six months ago, when I was sent a link to a private video. The film had been broadcast once on Israeli television, but it wasn’t distributed or available anywhere else. This documentary affected me so deeply (and immediately) that I flew to Tel Aviv, met the filmmakers, and offered to help launch the film digitally worldwide for free. Everything I am doing for this film is 100% pro bono, and all proceeds go to the filmmakers.” - Tim Ferriss

Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research - They are leading the way in exploring innovative treatments using psilocybin. The molecular structure of psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in 'magic mushrooms,' allows it to penetrate the central nervous system and the scientific and medical experts are just beginning to understand its effects on the brain and mind and its potential as therapeutics for mental illnesses.

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) - MAPS are “Researchers of Psychedelics, Leaders of Change.” Founded in 1986, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization specializing in research and education that develops medical, legal, and cultural shifts so people can benefit from the careful use of psychedelics and marijuana for mental health, well being, and connection. In other words, they’ve dedicated the last 35 years to changing the way people think of, talk about, and consume psychedelics through research, education, and advocacy.

The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) - At DPA, they fight for people. They believe that every person should be able to work, parent, be housed, have a community, experience joy, and live freely regardless of drug use.

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR ADDITIONAL RESOURCES IN YOUR JOURNEY FOR RECOVERY & HEALING IN ANY AREA OF LIFE, CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING…

Terry Real - Therapist, specializing in relationships Please check out his course “Fierce Intimacy” for relationships and marriages.

Dr. Gabor Mate - Addiction, ADD, Trauma, Ayahuasca

Byron Katie - Author, known for “The Work’ - “To question what you believe is an amazing gift to give yourself…The answers are always inside you, just waiting to be heard.” Free questions, resources, worksheets, articles and more about “The Work” here.

Esther Perel - Therapist, Marriage & Sex specialist
- Podcast: The Tim Ferriss Show: The Relationship Episode: Sex, Love, Polyamory, Marriage, and More with Esther Perel
- Podcast: Where should we begin with Esther Perel

Richard Swartz - Therapist, author, developed Internal Family Systems (IFS) in response to clients’ descriptions of various parts within themselves.

The Gottman Institute - Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman have revolutionized the study of marriage. Check out their books, online courses, and more.

Hendricks Institute - Seminars, resources and more on “Conscious loving & body intelligence.”

Imago Relationship Therapy - Developed by Dr. Harville Hendrix and Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt in 1980, Imago is a form of relationship and couples therapy that focuses on transforming conflict into healing and growth through relational connection.

Diana Chapman - Author, Conscious Leadership

Sam Harris - Mindfulness, Waking Up App

Andrew Huberman - Huberman Lab - Sleep, Trauma, Grief Work & more

*Disclaimer: Not all views shared in these resources are exactly the views of Mad Priest Coffee*

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander
“Two years after Obama’s election, Alexander put the entire criminal justice system on trial, exposing racial discrimination from lawmaking to policing to the denial of voting rights to ex-prisoners. This bestseller struck the spark that would eventually light the fire of Black Lives Matter.”
—Ibram X. Kendi, The New York Times

“[The New Jim Crow] transformed forever the way thinkers and activists view the phenomenon of mass incarceration.”
—Slate

Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, by James Forman Jr.“A masterly account of how a generation of black elected officials wrestled with recurring crises of violence and drug use in the nation’s capital . . . A big deal and a major breakthrough . . . Forman’s novel claim is this: What most explains the punitive turn in black America is not a repudiation of civil rights activism, as some have argued, but an embrace of it . . . Locking Up Our Own compel[s] readers to wrestle with some very tough questions about the nature of American democracy and its deep roots in racism, inequality and punishment . . . [Forman shows] that the solution will lie not only with policy changes but with individual changes of heart, too.”
—Khalil Gibran Muhammad, The New York Times Book Review

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson
“An unforgettable true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to end mass incarceration in America — from one of the most inspiring lawyers of our time. Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to defending the poor, the incarcerated, and the wrongly condemned.

Just Mercy tells the story of EJI, from the early days with a small staff facing the nation’s highest death sentencing and execution rates, through a successful campaign to challenge the cruel practice of sentencing children to die in prison, to revolutionary projects designed to confront Americans with our history of racial injustice.” – from the Publisher

Are Prisons Obsolete?, by Angela Davis
"As Angela Y. Davis has written, “prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings.” Prisons do not contain a “criminal population” running rampant but rather a population that society has repeatedly failed. Uprisings in response to the hellish conditions Black folk have been forced to live in, both in and out of prison, have been criminalized as well. In her book Are Prisons Obsolete?, Davis effectively analyzes the purpose of prisons. “These prisons represent the application of sophisticated, modern technology dedicated entirely to the task of social control,” she writes, “and they isolate, regulate, and surveil more effectively than anything that has preceded them.” An institution based on social control instead of social well-being is an institution that needs to be abolished."
—Colin Kaepernick, from Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future Without Police & Prisons

Orange is the New Black, by Piper Kerman
“Following a plea deal for her 10-year-old crime, Piper spent a year in the infamous women’s correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, which she found to be no “Club Fed.” In Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, Piper takes readers into B-Dorm, a community of colorful, eccentric, vividly drawn women. Their stories raise issues of friendship and family, mental illness, the odd cliques and codes of behavior, the role of religion, the uneasy relationship between prisoner and jailor, and the almost complete lack of guidance for life after prison. Compelling, moving, and often hilarious, Orange is the New Black sheds a unique light on life inside a women’s prison, by a Smith College graduate who did the crime and did the time.”
– from the Publisher

In Defense of Flogging, by Peter Moskos
“If we're capable of taking Moskos' idea as a serious option to incarceration, it could have profound consequences for a nation that incarcerates its citizens at a rate that's seven times as high as the other nations of the world. Clearly we have to find a way to reduce prison populations, and this just might be a logical one.... In Defense of Flogging forces the reader to confront issues surrounding incarceration that most Americans would prefer not to think about.”
–The Daily Beast

We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, by Mariame Kaba
“In her new book, We Do This ‘Til We Free Us Mariame Kaba demonstrates the ways that discipline—in intellect, in practice, in relationship—leads not to despair, but to hope. The far-ranging series of essays and interviews draws on her deep practice as a seasoned organizer who persistently distills the questions surrounding abolition to basic human decisions about the world we want to inhabit and how we will go about building it. Abolition, as Mariame sees and practices, is fundamentally both generous and pragmatic and her writing will move both seasoned abolitionists and those just now asking these questions for the first time to join in her conclusion that ‘your cynicism is unrealistic.”
—Danielle Sered, author, Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair

All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence, by Emily L Thuma
"All Our Trials is a tour de force. It stands among the best books on the history of modern feminist politics and represents one of the most elucidating histories of the US carceral state produced to date. Emily Thuma centers criminalized women’s ideas and organizing, providing graceful historical analysis that will undoubtedly influence current conversations about imprisonment, gender, and sexual violence. This history opens a fiercely urgent path toward an anticarceral feminist future."
--Sarah Haley, author of No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity

Rethinking the American Prison Movement, by Dan Berger
"From the penitentiaries and workhouses of the nineteenth century to the current prison-industrial complex, the United States has been a world leader in incarceration, discipline, and punishment. Dan Berger and Toussaint Losier examine the social movements that rose to reform or resist the American prison system, with attention to the marginalized activists and their allies who fought for justice both inside and beyond prison walls. This is a necessary and important book."
―Thomas J. Sugrue, author of Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North

Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair, by Danielle Sered
"Danielle Sered provocatively offers and backs up a vision that actually promotes real healing for crime survivors and improves community safety. A must-read for anyone who truly wants to dismantle mass incarceration."
―Nick Turner, president, Vera Institute of Justice

13th
“Filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation's prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans.”
–Rotten Tomatoes

“In this thought-provoking documentary, scholars, activists and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom.”
–Netflix

Q Ball
“In Q BALL, several convicts in California's oldest prison, San Quentin, participate in a basketball program. The film focuses mainly on star forward Harry "ATL" Smith, whose impressive skills could lead to a future in the NBA, if he can focus and learn to trust his teammates before he's paroled. Coach Rafael Cuevas, a convicted murderer, does his best to make sure that the team practices discipline and positivity. Older convict Allan "Black" McIntosh, a nonviolent victim of the Three Strikes law, acts as quiet role model. As the team -- called the Warriors -- embarks on its season, they all look forward to the final game against the Golden State Warriors' G League team.”
–CSM

The Prison in Twelve Landscapes “A cinematic journey through a series of seemingly ordinary American landscapes, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes excavates the hidden world of the modern prison system and explores lives outside the gates affected by prisons.

By examining the impact of mass incarceration from outside the prison walls, the film takes us to unexpected locations — from a California mountainside where female prisoners fight raging wildfires, to a Bronx warehouse with goods destined for the state correctional system, to a rural Kentucky mining town that now depends on the local penitentiary for jobs. The film visits two communities – Baltimore and St. Louis County, Missouri – bristling from racially motivated violence and rising tensions between African American communities and police, where we meet a Missouri woman who ends up in jail because she didn’t put her garbage bin lid on properly. And in New York, we meet a formerly incarcerated chess player and join family members on a dark street corner waiting for the bus to Attica.”
–PBS

Time
Time is a 2020 American documentary film produced and directed by Garrett Bradley. It follows Sibil Fox Richardson, fighting for the release of her husband, Rob, who is serving a 60-year prison sentence for engaging in an armed bank robbery.

They Call Us Monsters
They Call Us Monsters is a 2016 American documentary directed and produced by Ben Lear. The film follows three juveniles: Juan Gamez, Antonio Hernandez and Jarad Nava. The teenagers participate in a screenwriting class at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles, California with producer Gabriel Cowan.

WHAT IS THE GET MAD CRUSADE?

COFFEE INEQUALITY

CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM

REFUGEE CRISIS

THE DRUG WAR

INCARCERATION

ECONOMIC INEQUALITY

GET MAD INTERVIEWS