If one has any doubt about the vacuousness of most diplomatic summits, this book by Gorbachev's interpreter at the 1987 summit with Ronald Reagan in Washington, D.C., should remove it. Not that this is the author's intention. Korchilov, an appealing man who now lives in New York City, was entranced by an Elvis record as a youth, decided to learn English, and rose to the top of a highly demanding profession. It's clear that his presence at the summit left him somewhat dazzled; he regales us with lists of those who attended and with some of the less entrancing conversations. (``Welcome to the United States of America. We are delighted to have you here,'' George Shultz tells Gorbachev.) There is a good deal of that kind of thing, as leaders tell pointless jokes, assure each other of the historic nature of what they are doing, and are photographed walking together and smiling broadly as they talk to each other in languages they don't understand. The greatest interest lies in vignettes, as when Reagan tells Gorbachev how appalled he is by the brutal way in which the KGB treated Russian crowds that pressed in on him and Gorbachev winces but makes no reply; or when Gorbachev recounts how party bosses fought over who was to inherit the Lincoln Continental Brezhnev had been given; or in Korchilov's offhand comment that Gorbachev and his wife behave ``like normal people,'' devoid of the arrogance ``so characteristic of most Soviet leaders of the past.'' Korchilov believes that there was a diminution in Gorbachev's energy and sense of direction in his last year in office, but concludes that, while he may have destroyed the Soviet Union by mistake, ``his reform program consciously and deliberately discredited the old Soviet system.'' A good deal of this stream has been exhaustively panned, but there are some nuggets here.
Pub Date: June 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-81418-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1997
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Not an easy read but an essential one.
19
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Title notwithstanding, this latest from the National Book Award–winning author is no guidebook to getting woke.
In fact, the word “woke” appears nowhere within its pages. Rather, it is a combination memoir and extension of Atlantic columnist Kendi’s towering Stamped From the Beginning (2016) that leads readers through a taxonomy of racist thought to anti-racist action. Never wavering from the thesis introduced in his previous book, that “racism is a powerful collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity and are substantiated by racist ideas,” the author posits a seemingly simple binary: “Antiracism is a powerful collection of antiracist policies that lead to racial equity and are substantiated by antiracist ideas.” The author, founding director of American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center, chronicles how he grew from a childhood steeped in black liberation Christianity to his doctoral studies, identifying and dispelling the layers of racist thought under which he had operated. “Internalized racism,” he writes, “is the real Black on Black Crime.” Kendi methodically examines racism through numerous lenses: power, biology, ethnicity, body, culture, and so forth, all the way to the intersectional constructs of gender racism and queer racism (the only section of the book that feels rushed). Each chapter examines one facet of racism, the authorial camera alternately zooming in on an episode from Kendi’s life that exemplifies it—e.g., as a teen, he wore light-colored contact lenses, wanting “to be Black but…not…to look Black”—and then panning to the history that informs it (the antebellum hierarchy that valued light skin over dark). The author then reframes those received ideas with inexorable logic: “Either racist policy or Black inferiority explains why White people are wealthier, healthier, and more powerful than Black people today.” If Kendi is justifiably hard on America, he’s just as hard on himself. When he began college, “anti-Black racist ideas covered my freshman eyes like my orange contacts.” This unsparing honesty helps readers, both white and people of color, navigate this difficult intellectual territory.
Not an easy read but an essential one.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-50928-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Straight talk to blacks and whites about the realities of racism.
In her feisty debut book, Oluo, essayist, blogger, and editor at large at the Establishment magazine, writes from the perspective of a black, queer, middle-class, college-educated woman living in a “white supremacist country.” The daughter of a white single mother, brought up in largely white Seattle, she sees race as “one of the most defining forces” in her life. Throughout the book, Oluo responds to questions that she has often been asked, and others that she wishes were asked, about racism “in our workplace, our government, our homes, and ourselves.” “Is it really about race?” she is asked by whites who insist that class is a greater source of oppression. “Is police brutality really about race?” “What is cultural appropriation?” and “What is the model minority myth?” Her sharp, no-nonsense answers include talking points for both blacks and whites. She explains, for example, “when somebody asks you to ‘check your privilege’ they are asking you to pause and consider how the advantages you’ve had in life are contributing to your opinions and actions, and how the lack of disadvantages in certain areas is keeping you from fully understanding the struggles others are facing.” She unpacks the complicated term “intersectionality”: the idea that social justice must consider “a myriad of identities—our gender, class, race, sexuality, and so much more—that inform our experiences in life.” She asks whites to realize that when people of color talk about systemic racism, “they are opening up all of that pain and fear and anger to you” and are asking that they be heard. After devoting most of the book to talking, Oluo finishes with a chapter on action and its urgency. Action includes pressing for reform in schools, unions, and local governments; boycotting businesses that exploit people of color; contributing money to social justice organizations; and, most of all, voting for candidates who make “diversity, inclusion and racial justice a priority.”
A clear and candid contribution to an essential conversation.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-58005-677-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
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