A pragmatic, impassioned guide to vital current affairs.
A prominent civil rights activist offers a primer for change.
For much of her life, Garza, who grew up in a wealthy White community in Northern California, has been involved in grassroots organizing in groups such as San Francisco Women Against Rape, People Organized To Win Employment Rights, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and the Black Lives Matter Global Network and the Black Futures Lab, both of which she co-founded. Based on experiences with a variety of constituencies and co-workers, Garza brings a cleareyed view of what is involved in creating social change—not merely hashtags that will go viral, but viable, ongoing movements that engage people “in a consistent and deep way around issues.” As she notes, “the mission and purpose of organizing is to build power” and “to transform grief and despair and rage into the love that we need to push us forward.” Her work has taught her countless hard lessons: that Blacks, often disillusioned with politics, have not been a huge force in progressive communities and that “not all Black people want the best for Black people” but instead “will knowingly harm Black people for their own benefit, everyone else be damned.” In some organizations she has backed away from “factional power plays,” internal rivalries, and the kind of “respectable” protests advocated by the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. As a queer Black woman, she is especially sensitive to the exclusion of women in leadership positions: “I am used to environments where women, usually women of color, are carrying the lion’s share of the work but are only a minuscule part of the visible leadership.” Creating effective leadership through focused training is part of the work of organizing, she notes, and she describes Black Lives Matter, with its many chapters, as “a leader-full organization. That means that there isn’t one leader but many.”
A pragmatic, impassioned guide to vital current affairs.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-50968-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
For those satisfied with blame-the-victim tidbits of received wisdom.
The noted conservative economist delivers arguments both fiscal and political against social justice initiatives such as welfare and a federal minimum wage.
A Black scholar who has lived through many civil rights struggles, Sowell is also a follower of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, who insisted that free market solutions are available for every social problem. This short book begins with what amounts to an impatient declaration that life isn’t fair. Some nations are wealthy because of geographical advantages, and some people are wealthy because they’re smarter than others. “Some social justice advocates may implicitly assume that various groups have similar developed capabilities, so that different outcomes appear puzzling,” he writes. In doing so, he argues, they fail to distinguish between equal opportunity and equal capability. Sowell is dismissive of claims that Black Americans and other minorities are systematically denied a level playing field: Put non-white kids in charter schools, he urges, and presto, their math scores will zoom northward as compared to those in public schools. “These are huge disparities within the same groups, so that neither race nor racism can account for these huge differences,” he writes, clearly at pains to distance himself from the faintest suggestion that race has anything to do with success or failure in America. At the same time, he isn’t exactly comfortable with the idea that economic inequalities exist, and he tries to finesse definitions to suit his convictions: “The terms ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ are misleading in another and more fundamental sense. These terms apply to people’s stock of wealth, not their flows of income.” As for crime? Give criminals more rights, he asserts, as with Miranda v. Arizona, and crime rates go up—an assertion that overlooks numerous other variables but fits Sowell’s ideological slant.
For those satisfied with blame-the-victim tidbits of received wisdom.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781541603929
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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