A compelling, if disjointed, survey of contemporary Texas politics.
A veteran Texas journalist and political commentator compiles his recent columns and editorials in this excoriating anthology.
“Texas is now a joke,” writes Bills, who laments that the Lone Star State has become “synonymous with shameless cretins, imbeciles, sexist morons, or chauvinist losers.” As a once-proud Texan, the author recalls that it was not so long ago that the state “used to be the exception” in the South, having elected a liberal Democratic governor (Ann Richards) and the nation’s first Black congresswoman from the South (Barbara Jordan). As long ago as 1925, Texas boasted the first state Supreme Court composed entirely of women. But the state that produced national treasures from Willie Nelson and Janis Joplin to Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather is now, per Bills, “a laughingstock,” best known for its reactionary politicians like Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, and Greg Abbott. A seasoned freelance journalist, the author has dedicated much of his recent writing career to speaking out against the direction his state has taken through editorials and columns published in the Fort Worth Weekly and other local periodicals. In this collection of 25 pieces, mostly written since 2021, he tackles Texas’ “despicable and dangerous” political climate, which, he observes, has led the nation in policies that include government-mandated censorship of libraries, a statewide ban on abortion (even for victims of sexual assault), and a xenophobic immigration policy. As the author of multiple books on Texas history and politics, Bills is a keen observer of state government and supports his well-argued editorials with more than 50 research endnotes. Taken individually, each chapter is consistently thought provoking, providing a concise, effective, and alarming introduction to Texas politics—but the work could have used a more thoughtful structure. While loosely organized by theme, the chapters often jump timelines and topics. Bills’ engaging writing style blends accessibility with learned analysis, and his text is accompanied by full-color photographs, historical paintings, and other images. An appendix featuring the manifesto of El Paso mass shooter Patrick Crusius offers a frightening reflection on the link between rhetorical and physical violence.
A compelling, if disjointed, survey of contemporary Texas politics.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9798218342722
Page Count: 178
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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