A must-read for politics-watchers.
Thoughtfully prepared edition of the public-domain report issued by the U.S. House of Representatives.
In the eyes of the Jan. 6 Committee, the principal agent of the attempted coup was Donald Trump. Indeed, Trump incited insurrectionists well before his famous “will be wild” tweet, and he called those insurrectionists off, after what the committee deemed “187 minutes of dereliction,” only when “it was obvious that the riot would fail to stop the certification of the vote.” This exhaustive report, like its hearings, is structured thematically, with sections devoted to such issues as the insurrectionist groups whom Trump and his allies recruited, including the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who invoked not just 1776, but also the Bolshevik storming of the Winter Palace. (“No historical event has been less American.”) Another section treats the bizarre legal theories advanced by John Eastman, who “concluded that President Trump could remain president if—and only if—Vice President Pence followed Eastman’s illegal advice and determined which electoral college ballots were ‘valid.’ ” Apart from punishment of the criminals, the committee recommends some actions that are likely to cause controversy (and which will doubtless be ignored by the Republican-majority House in January 2023—e.g., the call to monitor media companies (read Fox, OAN, et al.) whose programming has “had the effect of radicalizing their consumers, including by provoking people to attack their own country.” This edition, prepared in conjunction with the New Yorker, includes excellent commentary by David Remnick, who has long been reporting on related events. Sometimes snippy, as when he refers to the insurrectionists’ “cosplay battle gear,” Remnick provides useful context, while committee member Jamie Raskin adds recommendations to the report, including direct election of presidents and abolition of the Electoral College in order to “break out of the GOP’s matrix of democracy suppression.”
A must-read for politics-watchers.Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2022
ISBN: 9781250877529
Page Count: 880
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
© 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
