A highly insightful, useful text.
An energetic call to action for White women to fight against inherent elements of White supremacist thought.
Via careful examination of their personal experiences and those of the other people of color who gave testimony for this book, Jackson and Rao unpack the ways in which White women’s treatment of people (particularly women) of color upholds White supremacy. The authors are clear and concise, making their points with no room for argument. They present readers with incontrovertible evidence of inherent racism and how “White silence is violence.” The authors also show how being nice can only get you so far, and White women must do the work to move beyond merely serving as an ally. “Allies don’t have any skin in the game; they are standing side by side in solidarity,” write the authors. “But you do have skin in the game—your white skin. Stop aspiring to be an ally—and good Lord, stop calling yourself an ally. Rather, be an accomplice. A partner, a collaborator, a co-conspirator. Anything but an ally.” Jackson and Rao not only call out the racism of White women on the behalf of people of color; they also call attention to the fact that White supremacy is detrimental to White people as well. At every step, the authors call for substantive action and for White women to move beyond simply sharing inspirational memes, giving thoughts and prayers, and believing that positivity and “colorblindness” will solve racism. The authors are especially astute in their investigation of the language regarding White supremacy, noting that “the words ‘privilege’ and ‘fragility’ are so mild—so moderate, so proper, so subtle—when you consider what they are describing, the work these things do, the heavy lifting in upholding violence against people of color.” The authors also append a helpful glossary of relevant terms, including microaggression, toxic positivity, and tone policing.
A highly insightful, useful text.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-14-313643-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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SEEN & HEARD
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
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