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lattelibrarian's review against another edition
4.0
This was a book that really made me think. There've been plenty of other nonfiction books that challenge my view, that teach me new things, but this is the first one in a long time that made me set it down and just...reflect for a couple minutes. On the bus, at work, in bed. This challenged some preconceived notions, which for me is typically pretty easy for me to reconcile. But this book made me really uncomfortable. I don't like admitting that certain critiques and analyses in this book are true, but it is.
For example, one chapter that stuck out most to me was a critique of the It Gets Better movement, started by Dan Savage. The essay poses the question: "For whom does it get better?" For white, middle class high schoolers, this means that their gayness will be easily overshadowed by their whiteness and upwards mobility once they graduate. For gay people of color, their race will ensure that things do not get better--they do not have the privilege of upwards mobility, and they do not have the privilege of higher pay, not being stopped by police, and so on and so forth.
This book also challenges the notion that white folks are less homophobic than black folks, and challenges the notion that sex workers are not a part of a larger city community, a community cited as saying they don't want sex workers to be in their locale.
Additionally, this book argues that so many social movements would not be where they are today if they didn't use the bodies of the dead as political tools. Respect for the dead is an ideal, but not when their lives are already so disrespected. Even more, the authors critique American nationalism, and its weird love for war and death despite the homosocial aspects of close living quarters that the army requires.
Overall, this is a book that is so unlike anything else I've ever read, both in topic and in the way its made me readjust my own preconceived notions. It's interesting, intriguing, and investigative.
Review cross-listed here!
For example, one chapter that stuck out most to me was a critique of the It Gets Better movement, started by Dan Savage. The essay poses the question: "For whom does it get better?" For white, middle class high schoolers, this means that their gayness will be easily overshadowed by their whiteness and upwards mobility once they graduate. For gay people of color, their race will ensure that things do not get better--they do not have the privilege of upwards mobility, and they do not have the privilege of higher pay, not being stopped by police, and so on and so forth.
This book also challenges the notion that white folks are less homophobic than black folks, and challenges the notion that sex workers are not a part of a larger city community, a community cited as saying they don't want sex workers to be in their locale.
Additionally, this book argues that so many social movements would not be where they are today if they didn't use the bodies of the dead as political tools. Respect for the dead is an ideal, but not when their lives are already so disrespected. Even more, the authors critique American nationalism, and its weird love for war and death despite the homosocial aspects of close living quarters that the army requires.
Overall, this is a book that is so unlike anything else I've ever read, both in topic and in the way its made me readjust my own preconceived notions. It's interesting, intriguing, and investigative.
Review cross-listed here!
drbjjcarpenter's review
2.0
Several of the chapters of this book are highly frustrating, they give quite good food for thought what a lot of them end up making points that are more or less passé, doing very little to go beyond previous work (in particular those bodies of literature that are being directly cited). It was an ok read, but nothing groundbreaking.
Also the cover design for this text is awful (just saying).
Also the cover design for this text is awful (just saying).
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