An excellent look at lived experiences of Black Americans that should be required reading for all Americans.
A perfect follow-up to the authors’ You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey.
Ruffin and her sister, Lamar, describe their second collaboration as a collection of stories not just about the two of them, as in their previous book, but “about our whole family, all our siblings and even some friends.” Here, the tone is heavier than You’ll Never Believe; the authors note that the text is roughly “50/50 silly/scary racist stories.” Their tales range widely—someone using a ridiculous racist phrase at work that required research to understand; a jaw-dropping example of “why we need diversity training at diversity training”; and a heartbreaking yet poignant account of Lamar leading a Zoom-based Q&A session regarding the first book with several “boys and girls homes across the US”—and offer a pleasingly diverse array of different generations, occupations, and environments. As in the previous book, the banter between the sisters is consistently funny, but the underlying social commentary remains incisive. Among countless others, standout pieces include Lamar’s description of an incredibly awkward first date and a story about a Black mother who was informed that when her children registered at a new school, they would need their pictures taken and “show it to all the students so they don't get scared.” Though obviously upset, the mother made the pictures because, as the authors write, “if these people need to see Black people in order to not feel scared, then there’s no telling what the fuck these little monsters are capable of.” Ultimately, Ruffin and Lamar provide a much-needed wake-up call for anyone who still doesn’t believe the severity of anti-Black racism in America. “What is a racist?,” they ask at the beginning. “Is it just a confused person who means well but blah blah blah? No. A racist is a turd.” Well said.
An excellent look at lived experiences of Black Americans that should be required reading for all Americans.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5387-2455-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
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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