This fiery polemic and celebration stands out among contemporary books on the subject of Black women’s bodies.
A deeply intimate critique of systematic racist and sexist inequities behind the so-called health-and-wellness industry.
“Health has been connected to whiteness for over a century, it’s nothing new,” writes Wilson, a self-described “regular-degular” dietician. She continues: “Colonialism, white supremacy, and capitalism ensure that people assigned Blackness will never fit within the confines of Health.” Written “specifically for Black women,” the author’s first book makes the case for “putting Black women at the center of the narratives, rather than having our stories filtered through a white lens.” Wilson rewrites the narratives surrounding Black women’s bodies and maps a collective and individual reclamation of Black joy. After the introduction, the author presents three sections. The first, “Live, Laugh, Love,” features chapters such as “It Isn’t Diet Culture, It’s White Supremacy” and “Too Much, Yet Not Enough: Restriction.” The second section, “ ‘Solutions’/Having a Body Is Hard,” digs deeper into the myriad perils of body image and “the impacts of pathologizing people’s bodies,” and the final third, “A New Story,” is dedicated to Black joy. Wilson peppers her arguments with dashes of humor, and her directness, acerbic tone, and honesty about her personal life and struggles with seizures make for compelling reading. Many of the author’s arguments and insights are undeniable, and she unpacks them with both originality and candor—e.g., “Health disparities are not solved by teaching people how to cook quinoa and put sliced almond on salads.” She recounts her experience at the 2021 Gwyneth Paltrow’s In Goop Health summit, which gave “a glimpse of what it would mean to live a life of ease” but made her sick. She also references recent significant moments, such as Mo’Nique’s 2021 Instagram live video on respectability. The most-repeated line Wilson tells her clients is to eat more food, in hopes that they will “enjoy it without overthinking it.”
This fiery polemic and celebration stands out among contemporary books on the subject of Black women’s bodies.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780306827693
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Hachette Go
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
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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