/edu/ - Education

I have a mate who's an Eastern European. He perceives himself as "self-made" because he escaped from childhood poverty in the 90s and he thinks other people could do the same if they "really" wanted. He also hates BLM because "African Americans have it better than any ex-USSR Slav just because they live in the US."

He's not a hardline right-winger, but a "classical liberal" who thinks it's meritocracy out there and laissez faire is cool and good for "resource distribution", while governments are obstructive and corrupt. He is open to learning, but I struggle to offer anything coherent beyond "read these 20 transcripts of the episodes of Citations Needed".

Please share some medium-sized books on:

1. How poverty kneecaps people on every level and becomes a vicious circle;

2. How the US keeps segregating and repressing its black population even after the Civil Rights movement (he's against slavery but thinks Black Americans could do better "if they wanted" because Slavs also had it bad a century ago);