A bitingly humorous compendium of the absurd subtle racism of the American workplace.
A slim, sharp, satirical guide to preventing racial microaggressions against Black people at work, written by a fictional Black colleague.
Daquan, “the Black coworker you are referring to when you claim to have Black friends,” has something to say. He can always spot the moment when a White person becomes aware they are interacting with a “full-on BLACK PERSON.” Their eyes “take on a mad gleam,” and both revulsion and attraction play on their faces. They simply cannot help themselves; they must speak about it, abandoning appropriate topics like work, weather, and sports for dicier conversation peppered with African American vernacular. Microaggressions ensue. Fed up, Daquan offers a list of slyly disrespectful comments he would rather “people of pallor” kept to themselves. Organized from A to Z and presented with no filter, entries include “articulate” (not a compliment); “dark” (stop using it as a synonym for bad or evil); “ghetto” (“sits next to ‘urban’ in the dog-whistle drawer”); “hair” (don’t touch it without consent); “quiet” (Black people have a right not to be); “voted for Obama” (“if the last time you respected a Black person was 2012, probably you should keep that to yourself”; “you’re different” (no, but White people often have limited understanding and experience with Blackness); and all manner of subtle discrimination and affronts in between. Smyer delivers the directives with heaping sarcasm, cutting humor, and some web lingo. Best avoided by would-be White allies who demand to be treated gingerly, this book lets loose the frustration of being Black in majority White spaces. Less a guide for White people than a palliative for the daily indignities suffered by real-life Daquans, the book is a balm for tongues bitten and comments swallowed that is guaranteed to leave some Black folks chuckling in recognition while White colleagues cringe in embarrassment.
A bitingly humorous compendium of the absurd subtle racism of the American workplace.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61775-896-6
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Akashic
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
