Notes toward a national political vision from activist Sharpton (Go and Tell Pharaoh, not reviewed), who is again considering a presidential bid.
Sharpton explores his sense of personal and national integrity and how it might guide his decisions if he were to reside in the White House. He considers himself a liberal (“one who believes in social and domestic policies geared toward people . . . not big business”) who hopes to bring the liberal wing back into the Democratic Party. Foreign policy is treated only sketchily—end the Cuban embargo, promote stability in Africa—and though Sharpton does seem keen on “alliances,” words like “when I deal with the white power structure, it’s on my terms” don’t exactly hew to the language of diplomacy. This inflexibility cuts both ways, for while brashness may not buoy foreign relations, it keeps the author to his sense of fairness, justice, and human rights within the political sphere, despite his religious convictions. He may not believe in abortion, but he believes in a woman’s civil right to choose; he may believe homosexuality is a sin, but he “will fight for people to have the right to go to hell if they choose.” He is against the death penalty; for prison reform; and for a cap on contributions to political campaigns. Health care reform gets only six pages while his disappointment in rap music gets nine, but that’s because he gets particularly exercised over lost opportunities in the African-American community. Sharpton’s version of the events at Howard Beach and Bensonhurst and of the Tawana Brawley, Amadou Diallo, and Abner Louima cases are valuable attempts to clarify misperceptions of his intentions, which were to highlight issues as a defiant advocate of civil rights: “Racism is still America’s biggest problem.”
Airy, but of a tone bespeaking Sharpton’s notions of social justice and personal responsibility.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7582-0350-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dafina/Kensington
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2002
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
Not an easy read but an essential one.
21
GET IT
Title notwithstanding, this latest from the National Book Award–winning author is no guidebook to getting woke.
In fact, the word “woke” appears nowhere within its pages. Rather, it is a combination memoir and extension of Atlantic columnist Kendi’s towering Stamped From the Beginning (2016) that leads readers through a taxonomy of racist thought to anti-racist action. Never wavering from the thesis introduced in his previous book, that “racism is a powerful collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity and are substantiated by racist ideas,” the author posits a seemingly simple binary: “Antiracism is a powerful collection of antiracist policies that lead to racial equity and are substantiated by antiracist ideas.” The author, founding director of American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center, chronicles how he grew from a childhood steeped in black liberation Christianity to his doctoral studies, identifying and dispelling the layers of racist thought under which he had operated. “Internalized racism,” he writes, “is the real Black on Black Crime.” Kendi methodically examines racism through numerous lenses: power, biology, ethnicity, body, culture, and so forth, all the way to the intersectional constructs of gender racism and queer racism (the only section of the book that feels rushed). Each chapter examines one facet of racism, the authorial camera alternately zooming in on an episode from Kendi’s life that exemplifies it—e.g., as a teen, he wore light-colored contact lenses, wanting “to be Black but…not…to look Black”—and then panning to the history that informs it (the antebellum hierarchy that valued light skin over dark). The author then reframes those received ideas with inexorable logic: “Either racist policy or Black inferiority explains why White people are wealthier, healthier, and more powerful than Black people today.” If Kendi is justifiably hard on America, he’s just as hard on himself. When he began college, “anti-Black racist ideas covered my freshman eyes like my orange contacts.” This unsparing honesty helps readers, both white and people of color, navigate this difficult intellectual territory.
Not an easy read but an essential one.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-50928-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
Did you like this book?
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Did you like this book?
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2022 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.
