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halschrieve's review against another edition
4.0
Schulman puts forward a work that is part memoir, part impressionistic history, and part theory. One of the best things about this work is how it contextualizes a lot of AIDS history and complicates the heroic narrative of groups like Act Up by demonstrating how complicated and fraught the interactions between different activists and writers has been. She prints exchanges with Edmund White and Larry Kramer which demonstrate how so much of this history is subjective and contested and dramatic. Schulman's strength is that she is deeply empathetic and deeply interested in the lives and ethics of other people, and she is very committed to making things legible to others so she can expand the conversations she has to include as many people as possible. She puts forward a model of understanding the gentrification of the LES as related to the high turnover of housing after the deaths of people with AIDS, which I think is a valuable thing to think about, though of course there are other reasons (policy, zoning) that led to the possibility of the hypergentrification of Manhattan. Schulman's main oversight, in my opinion, is failing to indict earlier generations of artists as participating in gentrification in a way that made the very dramatic later turnover of neighborhoods possible. She attempts a kind of project of talk therapy to gentrifiers (?) which I think in the end is a futile one, though it's fiercely optimistic about human ability to recognize each other and understand what has happened to us.
fjcookie's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
super interesting...some ideas that I don't agree with and some that were super thought provoking
judereadsbooks's review
4.5
I was originally annoyed at the lack of defined terms and felt that this self-admitted pseudo-academic book was leaning too pseudo, but I read on. It's a book with a bite, asking you to question things and the meager progress (or progress, then backslide) we've made in LGBTQ rights and thus gentrification, both mental and literal. It's a heartfelt book, not mushy but sincere. A solid tribute to the deceased and the victimized. It provides a new framework with which to look at intentional sociological and public health oversights. I was changed by it and am looking forward to reading all the works mentioned.
ahsimlibrarian's review
5.0
While Schulman says this is not academic in nature, and does not cite many sources, I still appreciated how she connected the mass deaths of AIDS and the governmental and familial neglect of these deaths in a through-line to the gentrification of cities and what that has meant to the livability for queer and marginalized peoples and the erosion of diversity in our communities. She then underscores how gentrification itself comes with a whole host of supportive ideologies and supposedly value-neutral absolutions as it continues to homogenize our communities.
“Gentrification is a process that hides the apparatus of domination from the dominant themselves.”
“Urbanity is what makes cities great, because the daily affirmation that people from other experiences are real makes innovative solutions & experiments possible. …cities historically have provided acceptance, opportunity, & a place to create ideas contributing to freedom.”
“Just as gentrification literally replaces mix with homogeneity, it enforces itself through the repression of diverse expression. This is why we see so much quashing of public life as neighborhoods gentrify.”
“The professionalized children of the suburbs” “came not to join or to blend in or to learn & evolve, but to homogenize. They brought the values of the gated community and a willingness to trade freedom for security.”
“It is clear to me, although it’s rarely stated, that the high rate of deaths from AIDS was one of a number of determining factors in the rapid gentrification of key neighborhoods of Manhattan.”
“The deaths of these 81,542 New Yorkers, who were despised & abandoned, who did not have rights or representation, who died because of neglect of their government & families, has been ignored.”
“It is the centerpiece of supremacy ideology, the idea that one person’s life is more important than another. That one person deserves rights that another does not deserve. That one person deserves representation that the other can not be allowed to access. That one person’s death is negligible if he or she was poor, a person of color, a homosexual living in a state of oppositional sexual disobedience, while another death matters because that person was a trader, a cop, or office worker presumed to be performing the job of Capital.”
“The cultural apparatus was instructing Americans that those works telling the truth about heterosexual cruelty, gay political rebellion, sexual desire, & righteous anger were not to be recognized.”
“The gentrification mentality is rooted in the belief that obedience to consumer identity over recognition of lived experience is actually normal, neutral, and value free.”
“Making people accountable is always in the interest of justice. The dominant hate accountability. Vagueness, lack of delineation of how things work, the idea that people do not have to keep their promises—these tactics always serve the lying, the obstructive, the hypocritical.”
“I’ve noticed through my long life that people with vested interest in things staying the way they are regularly insist that both change and accountability are impossible.”
“Ignoring the reality that our cities cannot produce liberating ideas for the future from a place of homogeneity keeps us from being truthful about our inherent responsibilities to each other.”
“Autobiographically, the AIDS experience may be where I came to understand that it is fundamental of individual integrity to intervene to stop another person from being victimized, even if to do so is uncomfortable or frightening.”
“In order for radical queer culture to thrive, there must be diverse, dynamic cities in which we can hide/flaunt/learn/influence—in which there is room for variation and discovery.”
“The truth—that queer, sexually truthful literature is seen as pornographic, & is systematically kept out of the hands & minds of most Americans, gay & straight—has been replaced with a false story of a nonexistent integration & a fantasized equality, w/ no basis in lived fact.”
“Gentrification replaces most people’s experiences with the perceptions of the privileged and calls that reality. In this way gentrification is dependent on telling us that things are better than they are—and this is supposed to make us feel happy.”
“It’s a strange concept of happiness as something that requires the denial of many other people’s experiences.”
“Gentrified happiness is often available to us in return for collusion with injustice. We go along with it, usually, because of the privilege of dominance, which is a privilege not to notice how our way of living affects less powerful people.”
"Herein lies the problem. We live with an idea of happiness that is based in other people's diminishment. But we do not address this because we hold an idea of happiness that precludes being uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable is required in order to be accountable. But we currently live with a stupefying cultural value that makes being uncomfortable something to be avoided at all costs. Even at the cost of living a false life at the expense of others in an unjust society. We have a concept of happiness that excludes asking uncomfortable questions and saying things that are true but might make us and others uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable or asking others to be uncomfortable is practically considered antisocial because the revelation of truth is tremendously dangerous to supremacy. As a result, we have a society in which the happiness of the privileged is based on never stating the process towards becoming accountable. If we want to transform the way we live, we will have to reposition being uncomfortable as a part of life, as part of the process of being a full human being, and as a personal responsibility. Once we embrace the fact that it won't kill us, and start the process, with repetition it becomes more tolerable. And once the prohibition on being uncomfortable is diluted, dismantling gentrified thinking and supremacy ideology becomes an interesting and natural part of being alive. Ultimately it becomes invigorating and then, exciting--I love the moment of recognition that I am uncomfortable and the process of trying to understand why. This insight makes my interior life richer, and I feel deeper and more human. (167-8)
“Gentrification is a process that hides the apparatus of domination from the dominant themselves.”
“Urbanity is what makes cities great, because the daily affirmation that people from other experiences are real makes innovative solutions & experiments possible. …cities historically have provided acceptance, opportunity, & a place to create ideas contributing to freedom.”
“Just as gentrification literally replaces mix with homogeneity, it enforces itself through the repression of diverse expression. This is why we see so much quashing of public life as neighborhoods gentrify.”
“The professionalized children of the suburbs” “came not to join or to blend in or to learn & evolve, but to homogenize. They brought the values of the gated community and a willingness to trade freedom for security.”
“It is clear to me, although it’s rarely stated, that the high rate of deaths from AIDS was one of a number of determining factors in the rapid gentrification of key neighborhoods of Manhattan.”
“The deaths of these 81,542 New Yorkers, who were despised & abandoned, who did not have rights or representation, who died because of neglect of their government & families, has been ignored.”
“It is the centerpiece of supremacy ideology, the idea that one person’s life is more important than another. That one person deserves rights that another does not deserve. That one person deserves representation that the other can not be allowed to access. That one person’s death is negligible if he or she was poor, a person of color, a homosexual living in a state of oppositional sexual disobedience, while another death matters because that person was a trader, a cop, or office worker presumed to be performing the job of Capital.”
“The cultural apparatus was instructing Americans that those works telling the truth about heterosexual cruelty, gay political rebellion, sexual desire, & righteous anger were not to be recognized.”
“The gentrification mentality is rooted in the belief that obedience to consumer identity over recognition of lived experience is actually normal, neutral, and value free.”
“Making people accountable is always in the interest of justice. The dominant hate accountability. Vagueness, lack of delineation of how things work, the idea that people do not have to keep their promises—these tactics always serve the lying, the obstructive, the hypocritical.”
“I’ve noticed through my long life that people with vested interest in things staying the way they are regularly insist that both change and accountability are impossible.”
“Ignoring the reality that our cities cannot produce liberating ideas for the future from a place of homogeneity keeps us from being truthful about our inherent responsibilities to each other.”
“Autobiographically, the AIDS experience may be where I came to understand that it is fundamental of individual integrity to intervene to stop another person from being victimized, even if to do so is uncomfortable or frightening.”
“In order for radical queer culture to thrive, there must be diverse, dynamic cities in which we can hide/flaunt/learn/influence—in which there is room for variation and discovery.”
“The truth—that queer, sexually truthful literature is seen as pornographic, & is systematically kept out of the hands & minds of most Americans, gay & straight—has been replaced with a false story of a nonexistent integration & a fantasized equality, w/ no basis in lived fact.”
“Gentrification replaces most people’s experiences with the perceptions of the privileged and calls that reality. In this way gentrification is dependent on telling us that things are better than they are—and this is supposed to make us feel happy.”
“It’s a strange concept of happiness as something that requires the denial of many other people’s experiences.”
“Gentrified happiness is often available to us in return for collusion with injustice. We go along with it, usually, because of the privilege of dominance, which is a privilege not to notice how our way of living affects less powerful people.”
"Herein lies the problem. We live with an idea of happiness that is based in other people's diminishment. But we do not address this because we hold an idea of happiness that precludes being uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable is required in order to be accountable. But we currently live with a stupefying cultural value that makes being uncomfortable something to be avoided at all costs. Even at the cost of living a false life at the expense of others in an unjust society. We have a concept of happiness that excludes asking uncomfortable questions and saying things that are true but might make us and others uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable or asking others to be uncomfortable is practically considered antisocial because the revelation of truth is tremendously dangerous to supremacy. As a result, we have a society in which the happiness of the privileged is based on never stating the process towards becoming accountable. If we want to transform the way we live, we will have to reposition being uncomfortable as a part of life, as part of the process of being a full human being, and as a personal responsibility. Once we embrace the fact that it won't kill us, and start the process, with repetition it becomes more tolerable. And once the prohibition on being uncomfortable is diluted, dismantling gentrified thinking and supremacy ideology becomes an interesting and natural part of being alive. Ultimately it becomes invigorating and then, exciting--I love the moment of recognition that I am uncomfortable and the process of trying to understand why. This insight makes my interior life richer, and I feel deeper and more human. (167-8)
interruptinggirljoke's review against another edition
dark
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.25