No one who reads this will doubt that the Second Amendment has particularly deadly dimensions in minority communities.
A professor of sociology and government offers a study of gun laws and their racial implications in three states.
Though sometimes overly academic, Carlson’s account points to an important social problem: The Second Amendment right to carry a firearm is unequally applied to members of different ethnic groups. In particular, African Americans, such as Philando Castile, may be authorized to carry concealed weapons, but that fact did not keep a white police officer from gunning him down at a traffic stop. “The proliferation of guns,” writes the author, “disproportionately harms African Americans who are feloniously killed, injured, and traumatized by them at rates that exceed manyfold those of other racial groups in the United States”—and that especially includes state harassment, usually by police. Carlson demonstrates in an argument that centers on Arizona, California, and Michigan that police officers and leaders tend to support gun rights, and far more so than the public; in particular, they oppose widespread bans. This seems a curious stance given that an armed society is certainly more lethal than an unarmed one, “but police nevertheless appear willing to live with the consequences of a widely armed society.” This is generally as true in “gun-restrictive” California as it is in “gun-lax” Arizona. In the West, Carlson ventures, a tradition of law enforcement being used in the service of ethnic oppression—mostly of Hispanics and Native Americans—has translated into oppression of all minorities. This has not lessened in the least with the arrival of Donald Trump, since he “represented the populist stitching together of hard-knuckled policing with gun rights patriotism,” earning the support of the Fraternal Order of Police and the National Rifle Association. Ultimately, Carlson writes, “structural racism intersects with gun policy to aggravate, rather than ameliorate, vulnerabilities facing communities of color.”
No one who reads this will doubt that the Second Amendment has particularly deadly dimensions in minority communities.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-691-18385-5
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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