An analysis of racism that not only explains it, but could contribute to its diminishment.
A scholarly reconsideration of racism.
Given that racism is such a persistent and ubiquitous issue in the U.S., any treatment of it could be considered timely, but this book is especially so since it compels the reader to fundamentally rethink the terms of the contentious debate. In her first book, Poulton, a career academic and teacher with a background studying diversity, argues that the accusation of racism is too easily dispensed. In fact, what most might consider racism is really an instance of racial bias or an unexamined prejudice thoughtlessly applied. So what is racism then? Poulton, who is black, defines it as a trinity of prejudice, power, and intent. In layman’s terms, racism is the intentional denigration of another race as inferior by a person in a position of some authority. According to the author, the conflation of racism with racial bias has stymied a more candid dialogue about race relations in the U.S, reducing opportunities for constructive discussion to a flurry of ad hominem attacks. And racial bias infects everyone to some degree; we all have our own unexamined presumptions. The author helpfully explains the often muddled concept of race itself and argues that a proper understanding of it requites it be placed in the context of class and gender as well. Overall, it’s a commendably sober contribution to a typically hotblooded issue. Combining rigorous empirical research with anecdotal observation, Poulton generally avoids needlessly hypertechnical language. The book also has a practical component: she provides readers with concrete methods for detecting and appraising one’s bias, essentially a blueprint for searching self-reflection. She applies her definition of racism to a myriad of popular topics. Were Paula Deen’s comments racist? How about Tyler, the Creator’s infamous Mountain Dew commercials? Her ultimate goal is to improve and moderate the quality of racial dialogue. “Bottom line: if someone disagrees with you or asks you to reconsider your beliefs, it should not be taken as a personal attack. We need to get to a place where our identities are not threatened whenever our ideologies are called into question.” This important book shows readers what such a lively but civil dialogue could look like.
An analysis of racism that not only explains it, but could contribute to its diminishment.Pub Date: April 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1480805903
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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