An argument that, while debatable and occasionally strident, is worth hearing out.
A charged, controversial manifesto in support of rioting and looting as instruments of rebellion.
Rioting and looting, writes Osterweil, bring liberals and conservatives into agreement: Conservatives root for the police while liberals, “because their love for law and order is much greater than their belief in freedom,” dismiss looters as bringing destruction on their own community. The thought that liberals are more committed to law and order than to freedom seems inapposite, the kind of thing radicals say to denigrate those less fervently committed to the cause. However, Osterweil scores points by noting, with particular respect to the weekslong riots in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, that the inner-city proletariat seldom owns any real property in their own communities and that “the same white liberals who inveigh against corporations for destroying local communities are aghast when rioters take their critique to its actual material conclusion.” Considering looting to be an impromptu means of wealth redistribution that she likens, curiously and unpersuasively, to the potlatch of Native peoples in the Pacific Northwest, Osterweil also describes it as an undeniable way to draw attention. Mounting a so-called peaceful protest will simply result in being ignored, and regardless, “there is no such thing as peace under current conditions. Social peace is just the condition under which patriarchal white supremacist violence is acting most fluidly and most thoroughly and is distributed most invisibly. When the white supremacist violence appears in the streets, it is not an aberration or a dramatic change of direction: it is a continuation of the world as it is in more direct, open terms.” The author’s long disquisitions on the history of slavery and lynching are accurate but not entirely necessary to her argument that nonviolence plays into the hands of the powerful.
An argument that, while debatable and occasionally strident, is worth hearing out.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64503-669-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Bold Type Books
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
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
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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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