A dynamic chorus of voices leading the way in bolstering a true democracy.
Black women leaders demonstrate how we can create “an inclusive and multiracial democracy.”
Echoing Fannie Lou Hamer’s call to “wake up” to the urgency of addressing the unfinished business of “building democracy,” Blain, author of Until I Am Free and Set the World on Fire, brings together an impressive roster of Black women to discuss some of the most divisive issues facing us today. Among other topics, the contributors address reproductive and voting rights, racial equity in health care, equal pay, economic justice, and disability and LGBTQ+ rights. In the introduction, Blain astutely notes that Black women, having historically endured the most brutal deprivation of citizenship and human rights, “are uniquely positioned to combat injustices in our society.” They’re also the most dedicated voting bloc in America today. In the first part of the book, Laphonza Butler, former president of EMILYs List, recently appointed as California senator after the death of Dianne Feinstein, writes about how the devastating rollback of Roe v. Wade in 2022 should only reenergize the movement to elect pro-choice women to public office. Raquel Willis movingly argues that despite increased visibility and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community, the voices of trans people continue to be sidelined. In the second part, “Building Power,” Dr. Rhea Boyd weighs in on racial inequity in the broken American health care system, and Donna Brazile discusses what she is known for as a Democratic strategist: breaking through sexist barriers to initiate “coalition building.” In the final section, “Combating Hate,” contributors take on the systematic and often violent indignities that still confront Black Americans. Dr. Jacqui Lewis writes eloquently about the Zulu concept of ubuntu, or the fierce sense of humanity that binds us all. Most contributors offer a historical context and specific strategies for moving forward.
A dynamic chorus of voices leading the way in bolstering a true democracy.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781324065609
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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