A thorough, frank, and enlightening assessment of a growing problem in the sports world.
A former wrestling official chronicles the decline of sportsmanship in amateur and professional athletics in this nonfiction book.
West became enthralled with sports while in the fourth grade, and was particularly impressed by those officiating the games. In fact, he admired them so much that he began officiating while in junior high. Eventually, he would become a seasoned official, one who specialized in wrestling. (The author was a star wrestler in high school, good enough to win an athletic scholarship to a community college.) But his career unceremoniously ended when disaster struck—while officiating a high school wrestling match, one of the athletes attacked him. A wrestler, only 17 years old, headbutted West with such force that the blow rendered him unconscious. The ramifications of the assault were extraordinary—the author formally pressed charges, and severe injuries haunted him for years. He underwent four neck surgeries. In addition, he turned to psychotherapy in order to manage the rage and depression that ensued, a predicament he describes with impressive candor and unabashed emotion. In the aftermath of the incident, West became a dedicated activist, advocating for greater protections for sports officials as well as for a movement to reestablish a lost valorization of sportsmanship: “I felt like I was on a crusade. In addition to being a voice for other sports officials, I thought this might provide some type of closure as well. Victims of assault tend to relive their vicious attacks for years and even sometimes never get over it. Here was an avenue to help take my mind off those events.” The author convincingly makes the case that sportsmanship is in a general decline, and that the consequences, especially for younger fans who idolize their athletic heroes, are worthy of concern. In addition, he proposes a series of pragmatic reforms, including holding perpetrators of violence more robustly accountable, that are perfectly sensible, if obvious. But some readers will wish this were a shorter book—they will tire of the autobiographical portions. And while West’s prose is unfailingly clear, it is often anodyne: “I calls ’em as I sees ’em!” Nonetheless, for sports aficionados interested in this genuinely important issue, the author’s treatment is edifying.
A thorough, frank, and enlightening assessment of a growing problem in the sports world.Pub Date: July 13, 2023
ISBN: 978-1039166738
Page Count: 222
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America.
A thoughtful program for eradicating poverty from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted.
“America’s poverty is not for lack of resources,” writes Desmond. “We lack something else.” That something else is compassion, in part, but it’s also the lack of a social system that insists that everyone pull their weight—and that includes the corporations and wealthy individuals who, the IRS estimates, get away without paying upward of $1 trillion per year. Desmond, who grew up in modest circumstances and suffered poverty in young adulthood, points to the deleterious effects of being poor—among countless others, the precarity of health care and housing (with no meaningful controls on rent), lack of transportation, the constant threat of losing one’s job due to illness, and the need to care for dependent children. It does not help, Desmond adds, that so few working people are represented by unions or that Black Americans, even those who have followed the “three rules” (graduate from high school, get a full-time job, wait until marriage to have children), are far likelier to be poor than their White compatriots. Furthermore, so many full-time jobs are being recast as contracted, fire-at-will gigs, “not a break from the norm as much as an extension of it, a continuation of corporations finding new ways to limit their obligations to workers.” By Desmond’s reckoning, besides amending these conditions, it would not take a miracle to eliminate poverty: about $177 billion, which would help end hunger and homelessness and “make immense headway in driving down the many agonizing correlates of poverty, like violence, sickness, and despair.” These are matters requiring systemic reform, which will in turn require Americans to elect officials who will enact that reform. And all of us, the author urges, must become “poverty abolitionists…refusing to live as unwitting enemies of the poor.” Fortune 500 CEOs won’t like Desmond’s message for rewriting the social contract—which is precisely the point.
A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America.Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780593239919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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
