Nothing earth-shattering, but Yang offers thoughtful, sensible proposals for a better democracy.
A plan to make America work better, from the former presidential and New York City mayoral candidate.
Like many observers, Yang sees the U.S. beset by economic and political problems. “Our physical health, mental health, financial security, and expectations for the future,” he writes, “have all been declining or at multi-decade lows for years.” Sharing lessons from the campaign trail, as founder and CEO of Venture for America—a nonprofit that channels enterprising recent college graduates into startups—and as founder of Humanity Forward, which promotes a “human-centered economy,” the author proposes key structural changes. Election reform is paramount: When Yang first declared as a candidate, he felt largely ignored by the media until he grew in popularity on Twitter. The market drives media coverage, he asserts, and media thrive on fomenting polarization. Yang proposes open primaries and ranked-choice voting, which, he argues, better accounts for voter preferences. Noting that most members of Congress were elected in the 1980s or ’90s, Yang advocates term limits, which would also lessen lawmakers’ need for constant fundraising for reelection. Addressing legislative gridlock, the author acknowledges that government bureaucracies are “designed for stasis and inaction.” Lawmakers are “actively discouraged” from bipartisan cooperation, and lobbyists have undue influence. Yang proposes getting rid of the filibuster and convening “civic juries” to inform legislators about their constituents’ real concerns. Technological upgrading is crucial, as well—e.g., the creation of a citizen portal where people could renew licenses, file tax information, get benefits, and register to vote. As a presidential candidate, Yang famously proposed a Universal Basic Income of $1,000 a month, and he also advocates health care for all. The pandemic, he notes, has exacerbated divisiveness and sparked racism—which, as an Asia American, Yang has experienced directly. The most significant things the country needs, he believes, are grace, tolerance, and forgiveness.
Nothing earth-shattering, but Yang offers thoughtful, sensible proposals for a better democracy.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-23865-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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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