Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde

12 reviews

introverted_reads's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Murder, Sexism, Violence, Racial slurs, and Cancer

Moderate: Police brutality, Classism, Infertility, Colonisation, Hate crime, and Lesbophobia

rieviolet's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

Like any kind of collection, there are always some parts that you like better than other ones but, overall, there is an awful lot to appreciate here and many interesting, challenging and complex reflections to ponder over.

There were a couple of chapters that I didn't much care about and, in places, were also a bit of a struggle to get through (for example "Notes from a Trip to Russia"; "An Interview: Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich", which was way too long, too much focused on their personal relationship, and also I do not like Adrienne Rich).

I have to admit that some sections were a bit difficult to understand, but that has more to do with me lacking in similar personal experiences and knowledge, than to any fault of the author. 

A lot of what Audre Lorde reflected on and wrote about back then still resonates deeply today. I think it will be worth it to read more from the author and then revisit these essays.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Racism, and Hate crime

Moderate: Police brutality, Murder, Colonisation, Death, Violence, Gun violence, Child death, Homophobia, War, Cancer, Racial slurs, Lesbophobia, and Bullying

Minor: Death of parent, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Medical content, Rape, Medical trauma, Ableism, Sexual assault, and Torture

meganpbell's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.75

Published nearly 40 years ago, this iconic collection of essays, interviews, and speeches by the self-described "black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet" Audre Lorde remains as powerful, impactful, and relevant as ever. Here, in these brilliantly intersectional writings, Lorde confronts sexism, racism, and homophobia, all while inviting us to see the potential for political change in social difference and revelation in the erotic.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Sexism, Racism, and Lesbophobia

Moderate: Murder and Racial slurs

Minor: War, Police brutality, Medical trauma, Cancer, Sexual violence, Child death, and Death

yaoipaddle's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Very very very good. My copy is full of annotations for quotes I liked, inspiration I found, facts and stories I wanted to look up further, facts I wanted to pull for reference when speaking with others. 

Definitely not a book to just read and put away without Audre's words tying themselves into your brain.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Lesbophobia, Sexual assault, Sexism, Colonisation, Medical content, Racial slurs, Religious bigotry, Sexual violence, Slavery, War, Hate crime, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual harassment, Medical trauma, Murder, Physical abuse, Homophobia, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Racism, Infertility, Police brutality, and Sexual content

steveatwaywords's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

Those looking to meet Audre Lorde unabashedly might stop here for a while and absorb her very intimate expressions of anger and optimism, insight and intersectionality--all, in brief, in search of the space for us to love freely.

These essays and speeches, mostly from 1978-1983, make frequent reference to events of the time and some of her ideas overlap across multiple titles, but none of this makes the reading less valuable. It may be that some readers are less interested in her travelogues, or her academic papers, or her lengthy interviews--but they are here all in a single collection, rightly demonstrating the complexity and range of Lorde's life and thought.

What you will not find here are much of her poetry (though it is frequently referenced; try From a Land Where Other People Live) or her extended reflections on her life (for this turn to her powerful mythobiography Zami). 

What is here is amazingly prescient about where our broader discourse on race, feminism, queerness, and intersectionality would all take us, 40 years later. She is not so nearly affrontive or controversial in her demands today than in her time, and that is a good thing. Where I was illuminated, however--and appreciably so--is her optimism, her clear vision of a path forward. While the problems and questions she raises are now more commonly heard, we have yet to really embrace the strategies and solutions she sometimes calls for. Still more to learn, us.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism

Moderate: Sexism, Police brutality, and Violence

Minor: Sexual content

Lorde does not shy from sharing incidence of racial and misogynistic violence when they occur

mandkips's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia

Moderate: Misogyny, Racial slurs, and Rape

Minor: Cancer, Sexual violence, and Police brutality

waybeyondblue's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Police brutality, Misogyny, Mass/school shootings, Hate crime, Classism, Sexual assault, Racial slurs, Cancer, Racism, Sexism, Gun violence, and Child death

robinks's review

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

What a powerful introduction to Audre Lorde’s words. I read so many lines over and over to let them sink in. There were such meaningful, clear anecdotes and heavy research to support Lorde’s points. This is definitely a collection I will come back to time and time again.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Colonisation, Racial slurs, Violence, Misogyny, Sexism, and Racism

Moderate: Homophobia, Classism, Lesbophobia, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Police brutality, Bullying, Rape, Terminal illness, Sexual violence, Gun violence, Cancer, and Genocide

kennedylamb's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexism, Sexual violence, Racial slurs, Misogyny, Lesbophobia, Xenophobia, Racism, and Police brutality

now_booking's review

hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

It feels almost cheeky to give this amazing collection of essays, interviews, conversations, speeches anything less than 5 stars- cheeky in the way that would you rate a story a beloved grandmother tells you about your ancestry and heritage 4 stars? Because essentially, that is what this book is- it is history and politics, economics and geography, we’re called to reflect on sexism and racism, homophobia and heterosexism and above all intersectionality and how all the intersections that breed inequality and injustice are as relevant now as they ever have been. If it’s not 5 stars for me, it’s because sometimes I craved more of the author than her boundaries delivered in this book. This was so excellent that perhaps in the diversity of its composition, I preferred some formats to others- I wanted more than what the scope of this one book promised- I wanted perhaps a book of poems, an autobiography, a book on feminist theory, another on neoliberalism and yet another on history- to know more of this author and her practice and her lived experience. My greed for this book to be more than a patchwork quilt (however gorgeous) of varied content cast me a little adrift at times when reading this.

Every single word in this collection is laden with wisdom- from reminders of the mundane (and even the mundane here is insightful), to the mind-blowingly progressive.  My favourite parts were the bits where Audre Lorde speaks of her life and lends us her stories and personal lived experience to illustrate the concepts she’s putting forth. The opening story where she narrates her experiences as a Black lesbian woman in socialist Russia, to the tidbits she drops about learning from practically babyhood the ranking of a dark-skinned Black woman in society, and about what that would mean for her lived experience as an American and moreover a Black feminist and intersectional activist. When in one of her most famous pieces from this collection, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” she calls on us to acknowledge difference rather than fear it, to face intersectionality head on, to lean into the anger of injustice and the discomfort of speaking up and use it to drive change… chills. She’s everyone’s trusted Aunty in this book- the one that calls you out, tells you about yourself when necessary but also always has her arms open and inspires you. 

I’m not much of a non-ficition reader typically but this collection was so rich with lessons and insights that are relevant to me as someone who is interested in inequality, but also as someone fearful of getting the fight wrong. This book is part instruction manual for understanding the genotype and phenotype of inequality and injustice in America (and to a lesser extent, globally), and part call you action for how all of us as a society can learn to see and acknowledge things and to do better.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexual violence, Sexism, Police brutality, Misogyny, Lesbophobia, and Homophobia