A review by yikesbmg
The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination by Sarah Schulman

5.0

Wow, this was an excellent book to read after “How to Survive a Plague” by David France. It gives context to what happens when People With AIDS died, and were essentially disappeared by the American government policy and American culture. This book left me thinking a lot about what it means to be accountable in community, and the responsibility each person has to another when it comes to accountability. One question she asked (“Everything humans constructed can be transformed. If people can change you, why can’t you change them” or something like that) will stick with me forever. Her simple and yet very complex and aware answers of what shapes her happiness (a job, health insurance, understanding and interrogating why things are they way they are) really moved me and I am excited to explore those things for myself. Schulman doesn’t cut herself, or anyone else, any slack which is a bit intimidating but at the end of the book, I was left with a profound awareness of how valuable that is. New York City was significantly reshaped after the AIDS crisis, and there’s no way to read this book while knowing we have lost north of 300,000 neighbors due to COVID, and not wonder how those deaths with shape our city. Who and what have we lost? Who and what will replace it? How do we ensure the people that replace those loved ones have context and respect for what came before them? How do we make sure the orphans left behind by parents who left for COVID don’t struggle with the same lack of recognition and distorted sense of self of those in the queer community who survived the AIDS crisis were left with? Most importantly, I think, is how do we even create space for us to discuss those questions? This book is leaving me with so many questions, which is exactly how I like to be at the end of a great read. Bravo Schulman, one of the best New Yorkers of our time.

ALSO: One huge take away is that it’s our duty to our neighbors and other human beings not to turn away from something just because it’s uncomfortable. It was nice to have this affirmed by Schulman. Ok i think that’s it!