A cautionary, timely gay rights manifesto with teeth.
The noted outspoken gay journalist and radio host passionately appeals to the gay community to resist complacency in the struggle for equality.
In a thought-provoking call to arms, Signorile (Hitting Hard: Michelangelo Signorile on George W. Bush, Mary Cheney, Gay Marriage, Tom Cruise, the Christian Right and Sexual Hypocrisy in America, 2005, etc.) masterfully combines quotations and interviews from his satellite radio show with historical facts from the ever evolving gay rights movement to reiterate the “disconnect between the way we talk about the strides forward and the reality on the ground.” As revolutionary as the advancements in LGBT equality may appear, much work remains. Anti-gay violence, vicious schoolyard bullying, transphobia, Hollywood “gatekeep[ing],” and widespread discrimination in the name of religion are still occurring at alarming rates. The author surveys an impressive variety of contentious incidents (many already addressed on his radio program) ranging from the controversial, “morally complex” resignation of anti-gay Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich to extreme cases of homophobic bigotry, industry double standards, and hate crimes. Though it’s crystal clear whose side he’s on, Signorile fair-mindedly contrasts his pro-gay stance with contradicting conservative political and religious-leaning perspectives, and he points out the inherent flaws in their dictums. He severely criticizes the Republican Party for enacting widespread legislation based on the doctrine of “religious liberties.” By rebranding their backlash against marriage equality, the author shows how it directly threatens the freedoms of the LGBT community. Furthermore, he writes, this type of manipulative legal and social maneuvering places many other minority populations at risk for legalized discrimination as well. A summary of empowering steps forms a galvanizing takeaway for readers interested in making a difference. Though a tad vainglorious in spots, the thrust of Signorile’s urgent message is cogent and heartfelt, creating an essential reminder to the LGBT community to continue pressing forward toward the ultimate goal of “full civil rights and true equality.”
A cautionary, timely gay rights manifesto with teeth.Pub Date: April 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-38100-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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