An activist program for confronting white privilege and dismantling white supremacy.
Building on a workbook downloaded by nearly 90,000 readers, multicultural writer Saad, born in Britain and now living in Doha, Qatar, delivers “a one of a kind personal antiracism tool” that is meant foremost to teach white readers how to recognize their privilege and “take ownership of their participation in the oppressive system of white supremacy.” Many readers will likely recoil, protesting that they’re not racist, are colorblind, have nothing but benevolent thoughts, and so forth. The author is ready for them: White supremacy, she writes, is not just a comprehensive system, but it also trains those who benefit most from it to “keep you asleep and unaware” of the power that whites hold relative to those of other races and ethnicities: “BIPOC,” as in, “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.” Saad enumerates some of the features of that power: Pulled over for a traffic violation, a white motorist doesn’t usually have to fear for their life; any stylist can cut their hair; popular culture considers people who look like them to be representative; and so on. The author’s approach is at first confrontational and righteously indignant, but as she guides her readers—including BIPOCs who may for whatever reason benefit from systems of white privilege and supremacy—through a monthlong series of lessons, including self-critical journal prompts, one has the sense that her method is much like that of Marine Corps boot camp: Tear down in order to build up. A reader’s guilt may rise and crest, buttressed by sweeping damned-if-you-do-or-don’t condemnation for such things as “clinging to pink pussy hats, safety pins, and hashtags over doing the real work.” At the end, however, that reader is assured that even though they may be part of the problem, “you are simultaneously also a part of the answer.”
A bracing, highly useful tool for any discussion of combating racism.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-72820-980-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Categories: FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS | SELF-HELP
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
25
GET IT
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | SELF-HELP
Did you like this book?
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Categories: PSYCHOLOGY | SELF-HELP
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
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.
