A well-reported introduction to a growing, controversial movement among the younger electorate.
A journalistic account of the recent emergence of a millennial cohort of progressive politicians and activists.
It’s no small irony that the swelling ranks of youthful leftists came about, at least in some measure, because of the presidential campaigns mounted by the superannuated Bernie Sanders. “As much as they admire Sanders, this new crop of left-wing…candidates are more interested in enacting his vision than imitating his personal style,” writes political journalist Lipsitz, “which, unless Sanders’s apparent artlessness counts as a style, isn’t what attracted them in the first place.” In other words, next to the rumpled Sanders, an array of well-put-together young people such as, notably, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has risen to put a fresh face on progressive politics. Some of them, such as a Buffalo-based activist, eschew “capital S” socialism. Others are quicker to embrace the label, but they also seek to run for existing political offices rather than attempt to build a larger movement because the path to the former is more clearly defined. One of the great strengths of the more effective candidates and activists is their ability to explain “poorly understood concepts like ‘identity politics’ and ‘intersectionality’ ” to their young audiences. In doing so, some are helping to expand the horizons of a new kind of socialist feminism, “broadening its conception of workers and deepening its understanding of the interconnectedness of different forms of oppression.” A new labor movement is also emerging. For all that, the young progressives face considerable opposition not just from their right-wing challengers, but also from entrenched Democratic Party operatives who understand correctly that they’re in the crosshairs, too. It’s for that reason, Lipsitz suggests, that not much has changed with the Biden presidency, which causes her to conclude, somewhat dejectedly, that “progress does not inevitably follow a smooth, upward trajectory.”
A well-reported introduction to a growing, controversial movement among the younger electorate.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-83976-426-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Verso
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
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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