Demanding better, Jones provides a wise, measured look at the economic and social landscape of America.
A prominent Black activist and YA author delivers a damning, resounding study of the many ways in which fiscal equality is denied to non-White people in the U.S.
“We know we’re equal to white people,” writes Jones. “Only a person in the deepest throes of the white supremacist delusion would say we aren’t. But now we’re fighting for equity. And we won’t get to equity until we rethink the system from the ground up.” By way of a pointed, memorable example, she looks into the history of Monopoly, which, she holds, was designed to teach players not how to get rich but how the financial system is rigged in favor of would-be monopolists—and certainly against Black people, who are legally thwarted or beset with violence whenever it appears that they are making advances. Whites, Jones notes, hold 90% of all wealth in the U.S. even though they represent less than 60% of the population. One reason for this bounty is that home loans and other intergenerational wealth-building instruments, including college loans, were readily extended to Whites while being withheld from Blacks. Jones fires with both barrels, sometimes inaccurately: It’s true that Black popular culture has been appropriated without proper compensation, though not in the case of Elvis Presley’s hit “Hound Dog,” which she attributes to Big Mama Thornton when in fact it was written by Leiber & Stoller. Still, the author’s points are well taken: Black communities can close the wealth gap only with resources that pass from one generation to the next. Jones advises measures for a sort of Reconstruction 2.0 that would channel reparations to institutions and not individuals. “Structural issues are what brought us here,” she writes, “and so structural changes should walk us out of here.” The author also argues that self-improvement, from education to exercise to financial literacy, is “the most revolutionary thing you can do” for people within the Black community.”
Demanding better, Jones provides a wise, measured look at the economic and social landscape of America.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-80512-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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 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
