A solid resource for making points or resolving some arguments rather than a collection for casual reading.
This entry in the new Penguin Liberty series digs into a controversial issue that has always polarized the nation.
Brettschneider, a professor of constitutional law at Brown University who also serves as the series editor, offers historical context on presidential impeachment through a selection of documents on the impeachments of three presidents: Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. Perhaps the perspective on Donald Trump’s impeachment has been deemed too recent for a full analysis, but having three cases without the fourth seems incomplete, and the charges of political partisanship and polarization in the Trump case are certainly connected to the two previous ones. Each of the sections include some of the documentation preceding the impeachment, the Articles of Impeachment from the House of Representatives, and excerpts of the arguments presented before the Senate. In the prefatory material, Brettschneider intriguingly analyzes why the constitutional framers decided that impeachment trials should be conducted by the Senate rather than the Supreme Court. The context provides illumination on two issues that resurfaced during the Trump proceedings: whether the “high crimes and misdemeanors” referenced in the Constitution requires that the president be guilty of criminal activity and whether a sitting president can be prosecuted on criminal charges. The answer to the first would seem to be a resounding “no,” as the annotation shows that the language was particular to impeachment proceedings and not criminal proceedings, while the latter remains a point of contention. One gets the sense that Johnson’s white supremacist obstructionism justified his removal from office, though the specific grounds for his impeachment were much narrower. It’s also clear that Nixon would have lost his case in the Senate had he not resigned. That leaves Clinton and Trump, whose partisans and detractors aren’t likely to find much common ground here.
A solid resource for making points or resolving some arguments rather than a collection for casual reading.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-14-313510-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 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
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