Book Review: How to Be an Antiracist

Image: The cover of the book is a white background with black that looks like it was applied with a paint roller unevenly. In the black area, in large capital letters going down line by line vertically is "how to" in red, "be an," in yellow, "antiracist" underlined and in white, "Ibram X." in pink, and "Kendi" in green. Across the bottom in very small white capital letters is "National book award winning author of" and under that in yellow is "Stamped from the Beginning."

In reviewing How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, I want to note that I read this book and followed it up by seeing a live discussion of the book with him in person. Seeing and hearing Kendi at the event definitely boosted and added to the book and my understanding of his philosophies. My review of the book alone may have been different.

My introduction to Kendi was through reading his book Stamped from the Beginning. Though that book was "a definitive history of racist ideas in America," I still consider this book to be one of the best overall American history books in existence. As a result, I went into "How to be an Antiracist" with very high expectations. Not all of them were met, but Kendi still left me with a lot to think about. The book jumps around stylistically quite a bit. A good chunk of it is a memoir composed of Kendi meticulously analyzing his own history with internalized racism and racist actions. It sometimes jumps from 101 level information to fairly advanced analyses of racism and white supremacy a bit too quickly. An excellent historian, Kendi peppers the book with well researched history to back up each topic. There is a lot of telling and explaining different kinds of racism and racist ideas. What this book is not, despite its title, is a "how to" guide for being an antiracist. Kendi only really goes so far as to say things like "holding and acting on this idea is racist, holding and acting on this opposite idea is anti-racist," creating a black and white set up for the whole book. At his event, there was much better elaboration on this. But, before that, when I finished the book, I felt like he was saying you jump into being an antiracist and that anti-racists no longer do racist things. This is, of course, untrue and at odds with his claim that all races include racists and are capable of racism- a highly contested point, but we will get to that.

Once I let go of the title, I did find the book held my attention, despite its lack of organizing. The book's target audience can vary from section to section, but one thing is for certain: this book is for all races. Many antiracist texts are specifically for unaware but well intentioned white people or are for those with advanced scholarship. Kendi emphasizes the varied human experiences with racism among different people and I believe this really helps the book stand out in great ways. In the book he focuses on his and other Black people's projections of their internalized racism (bootstrapping for instance) along with the rampant racism of white people against people of color. 

While overall, I really liked this approach, there was one section that had me scratching my head. Kendi devotes an entire chapter to "anti-white racism" whereas no other race has their own chapter. He follows it by a chapter on the "power argument" in which he gives his opinion as to why the assertion that people of color can't exert racism over white people due to poc's lack of power- is false. I disagree with this, but I do understand where he is coming from. I understand that the average person is not going to grasp why hating white people is prejudice rather than  something with the power of anti-poc racism. I also agree that claiming anyone never has power can be, well, dis-empowering. But, it seemed to me that all of the ways Kendi claimed Black and other non-white people had power over white people were of class and other oppression, not race. For instance, a Black cop having more power than non-police, a rich Latinx person having power over poor people including white poor people, etc. I also don't understand why such a large section of the book was dedicated to "anti-white racism," and why it was tackled as if it had the same effect and impact of white supremacy. Then there is something that really baffles me- Kendi capitalizes the "W" in white. It is my understanding that people capitalize the B in Black, the L in Latinx, etc to express proud racial and cultural identities that are often attacked and maligned by racists. What does capitalizing the "W" encourage? White pride?

At Kendi's event, "anti-white racism" did not receive any of this kind of attention, for good reason. Thus, I am wondering if a better editor could have helped convey his intention better in the book. I didn't ask him about these things because I did not want to re-center whiteness. But, in the talk, he stated, "I define being racist as someone who is expressing racist ideas or racist policy through their action or inaction." I suppose with this definition, you could make the argument that, since race and class are inseparable, a person of color with class privilege, internalized racism, and who is espousing and supporting racist policy could have an effect on a white person. But, again, I don't see how "anti-white racism" holds the power here. I just worry that the fragility of white liberals will be supported and ignited by this kind of analysis. It seems to support the crying white woman's tears about having been called, "Becky" after a racist action she took was called out as somehow being the same as a Black person being called the n-word. Do we really need that in a book white people will look to as a "how to" guide?

Kendi's attempts at tackling intersectionality were less messy, but still struggled at times. I definitely appreciate the importance that Kendi placed on tackling all oppression and that being indivisible from tackling racism. But, he does things like create terms like "Queer Racist" and "Queer Anti-Racist." Just reading those without the book, one would think he is talking about Queer people who are being racist or anti-racist. But, his intention is to call out racialized homophobia of heterosexual people and so on.

These issues have a lot to do with semantics though and arguably don't dismantle the meat of the text itself. Kendi did a ton of things right. Along with the aforementioned original ways of tackling a book like this as well as tons of the interesting history, Kendi has an ability to be direct and firm while also being gentle. Something from his talk that exemplified how he does this in the book was when he said something to the tune of, "admitting you've done something racist is an antiracist action." Basically, being an antiracist is a constant practice of confronting, learning from, and dismantling racism. Kendi's focus on racist policy as the center of this. I don't entirely agree as I believe racist and colorist othering and prejudice existed before government and likely will after it. But, I do agree that the policy, government, and corporate levels are where most of the power lies. Kendi speaks regularly of the reality that it is not only direct racist actions that are racist, but the failure to take action against racism. At his event, he aptly stated, "The heartbeat of racism is denial." This leads into another thing I believe Kendi did well that is often shied away from by self-professed anti-racists.

Something many people reading this book may be reluctant to accept is that there is a very real problem with racism in liberal, progressive, and radical thought. Kendi explained this both in the book and at the event. The book details many instances of harm caused by mildly (if that) left of center (democrat/liberal) politicians with heavy emphasis on the damaging words and actions of the Clintons. I believe Kendi did an excellent job encouraging liberals to look in the mirror instead of always pointing the finger at republicans and did so in a way that will leave them open to accepting it. 

The end of the book ends up being a gut punch. We discover that Kendi has been surrounded by cancer for some time now. His mother and wife battled with severe cancers. Following that, he was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer- one of the most dangerous, having approximately an 80% death rate. Kendi is now in remission. I found myself crying while reading this part of the book and when he spoke of this during the talk. I recently had a second cancer surgery for a far less dangerous (but still not fun, of course) cancer and thought maybe that was why. But, really, I couldn't stop thinking about how this great mind could have been taken from us so early. The emotional impact of him sharing these experiences actually went quite well with his analogy that racism is like cancer. I often am put off by any comparison of an oppression to an illness or especially a healthy disabled person's life. They often dance on the line of ableism at best. But, I have yet to meet someone that celebrates cancer. I found that the way Kendi tackled this discussion was quite beautiful. He took something that had plagued his family and turned it into a way to better understand and strategize how to eliminate racism. He encouraged us to tackle racism as we do cancer- relentlessly, in both targeted (like surgery) and widespread (like chemo and radiation) ways, with consistent monitoring (like follow up visits and testing) after these treatments, and repeating treatments when necessary. For instance, simply killing a racist bill or policy in Congress is not where the fight ends, you have to monitor the entire system to make sure another doesn't show up and detect it as early as possible. It is true that many won't make it and many will be left struggling. It is also true that many can survive. He encouraged us to see calling someone or something racist as an invitation to "begin the painful process of healing" from the infection of racism (spoken at event.)

Seeing Kendi in person definitely warmed me to many aspects of the book I was confused about and added a face and voice to the parts I really enjoyed. The book is definitely worth reading for anyone out there who needs to understand the different ways that racism manifests in our world. I also definitely encourage going to see him speak or discuss the book in person if that is available in your area.

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: Radical Joy for Hard Times

 

Image: The cover of the book is a photo of a forest taken from the perspective of looking straight upward. All of the trees tops point towards the center where the dawn sun is brightly shining through. In large white capital letters, the title of the book covers the page with each word on its own line. Under that in much smaller letters is "Finding meaning and making beauty in Earth's broken places." Below that is the author and foreword authors names in smaller letters

Radical Joy for Hard Times is a poetic and beautiful work that tackles many ugly things. This is a book about environmentalism and the planet and its starting point likely requires the reader to at least care a bit about the environment. Trebbe Johnson explores these topics using mainly story telling and philosophy, but you will also find poetry, studies, activities, and more. While this book could get a little too hippy-ish for my personal tastes at times, it undoubtedly made me consider a great many things about how I exist on and relate to this planet and its inhabitants. I imagine I will continue to do so as time passes.

Trebbe Johnson is a very wise woman with countless experiences to share from throughout her life. Johnson is from Pennsylvania, like me. As a result she intimately knows the horrors of fracking all over the state among other things. She tells quite a few stories about this in the book. There are so many other stories and experiences she shares including things like surviving natural disasters and the destruction of the environment and also rituals people have used to mourn or celebrate the plant and ways to find joy among it all. Do not read the title and assume this is all a happy go lucky read, though. I believe I got through at least half of it and asked myself, "where is the joy?" (Don't worry, she gets there.) This worked out fine for me. One reason is that I can't stand excessive optimism and positivity when discussing things like this as they are often manifestations of denial. The other reason is that one of Johnson's main themes in the book is accepting the entirety of our experiences and how everything is intertwined from the messy to the beautiful.

There is an entire section on emotions and grief regarding the loss and/or transformation of the "Broken Places" of the world. It calls attention to the detrimental nature of many cultures to demean grief about other animals and the planet. This is particularly true for men who in western colonialist and some other cultures are not permitted to show any emotion other than mild happiness or a spectrum of anger.  It was nice to see a section that tackled this directly, especially because the lack of allowance for grief and emotions is a huge cause of burn-out.

Johnson also explores the wide reaching psychological and sociological effects of ecological collapse. Destruction of environments and nonhuman animal habitats is something that is of mourned by both individuals and entire communities- sometimes worldwide such as in the case of oil spills that have attracted attention (unfortunately representing only a few of many that regularly occur.) The cultural expectations around grief translate to the clinical as well. Johnson describes more than one instance where a client was trying to grieve the horrors of environmental destruction and the therapist told them it was actually a manifestation of something else and that they would stop being upset once some other root issue was addressed. I can attest that I have had similar experiences. Even as a child while sobbing, mourning the death of my beloved dog, I was told I was likely actually upset about a human in my life. It was here that Johnson introduced me to the field of ecopsychology, which was very interesting and something I had not heard of previously.

In Johnson's analysis of what she calls "Scare/Scold/Rally" campaigns, she made me consider the ways I have approached environmentalism and animal liberation. She reminds us of examples of environmentalists like the founder of Earth First! calling humans a cancer and his and other racist environmentalists' borderline celebrating the deaths in Africa via AIDS and other disease. (Johnson doesn't call them racist, directly, but I am.) She includes studies that show that apocalypse type messaging can activate bigger denial responses in people via activating the just world fallacy. This is the belief that the world is inherently a just place where bad things only happen when they are deserved and good things happen to good people. It is, for instance, associated with the appropriated and colonized version of what people call "karma." This denial can be seen in how many grown adults have responded to the brave and brilliant teen, Greta Thunberg's passionate address to world leaders by ruthlessly attacking her. (For the record, I support Thunberg's style of address and her passion, I am just using the most recent example of widespread denial.) Johnson does not claim that the answer is to be without passion, anger, and seriousness around issues of climate change, but to be more thoughtful and considerate of the tactics we use to talk about it. She urges us to discover ways to tell the truth most effectively. 

She also discusses how some Hindus (and I note, many far left radicals) have a belief that we may be too late to stop ecological collapse with the ways we are headed and thus must invest more in community based structures and ideas of mutual aid. Johnson includes perspectives and experiences from various cultures and includes Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. I do think that at times, Johnson leans a little toward "noble savage" tropes in her discussions of indigenous people. There are some statements that seem to paint all native people as having the same rituals around nature, all being people who kill animals and believe an animal "gives" their life for humans. There are a lot of indigenous people who believe animals' lives are taken from them and choose not to consume animals as a result. There is a very wide range of indigenous experience regarding nature and animals. That said, I still appreciated her sharing and insights from the times she spent listening to various indigenous people about their rituals and cultures. I appreciate her discussing environmental racism (even if she didn't use those words) via calling attention to countless abuses of mostly poor Black people in polluted housing projects.

The only thing I disliked like about this book was the way Johnson talked about animals. It wasn't egregiously terrible. There is just a divide sometimes between environmentalists like me who see animal liberation as a central tenet of environmentalism and ones like Johnson who shy away from any strong statements about nonhuman animal exploitation, aside from ones most people have an easy time agreeing with, like saying endangered species poaching is wrong or discussing the beauty of wild, non-domesticated animals. She refers to animals as "it" regularly which always bothers me, especially in texts literally about environmental destruction. The borderline fetishistic admiration of how some indigenous people slaughter animals is another example. I am not saying indigenous people should stop preserving their cultures. They are the least responsible groups worldwide regarding animal exploitation and environmental destruction. I just often see white and other colonizing people using them as an excuse to shy away from calling out animal agribusiness as a whole. More and more each day, environmentalists are accepting that we must stop animal agriculture- including the 1-5% that are nonfactory farms (many of which have an even larger carbon footprint than factory farms) in order to slow climate collapse. I would have liked more direct addressing of domesticated animal exploitation and related environmental destruction.

Johnson finishes off the book by discussing environmentalism through a lens of existentialism in one of the final chapters. This was something I did not quite expect and really enjoyed reading. I don't claim to have a single philosophy I adhere to in life, but if I had to, existentialism would likely be it. She discusses the reality that, yes, focusing on individual consumption or intervention as some world saving venture can yield unrealistic assessments of what should be done. (I am vegan for instance, but don't believe my individual veganism is more powerful or that I need to be more accountable than large exploitative corporations like Tyson foods.) However, doing what is right in general as an individual has meaning and purpose in and of itself. Existentialism is often associated with atheism- since there is no afterlife, we must do what we can to create meaning in this life. But, even as an atheist, I think existentialism can also be applied by those who are afterlife-faith-based as well. Rather than believing that all rewards will come after death, we also can find rewards now even if the reward is in knowing that we did the best we could and remained true to our moral compass. 

Overall, this book was a compelling read that defies categorization. Johnson has a great many ways of wisely approaching these topics and it works out fantastically in this text. 

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: Forward

Image: The cover for the press packet of the series is a navy blue in the top left corner that transitions to black at the bottom. Across the center from the bottom left corner to the top right is a wide set of thin lines in different shades of blue- light in the middle and darker on the edges. Above the halfway mark of the cover is the words "please enjoy" in small, white capital letters and below that "FORWARD" in letters transitioning from white to light blue, top to bottom. The "W" is bent like a fast-forward icon and is pink and light blue.

The six short stories in Amazon's Forward series are all listed separately on the website and on goodreads. I decided to review all of them at once since they are, by nature, short. The series features six prominent authors in fiction, most known for their science and/or speculative fiction. Like any collection of short stories, some are better than others. I enjoyed reading most of them, but the ones I didn't love weren't terrible or a total waste of my time. 

The only author I was familiar with before reading this series was the legendary N.K. Jemisin, so I can't speak to if this collection is definitely a good representation of these authors' longer form works. What I will say is that Blake Crouch definitely earned himself a new reader with his entry in the series. I will do my best to discuss each story without any spoilers. This means I'll be saying less about each one, but it's probably for the best.

The first story in the series is Ark by Veronica Roth which centers a botanist in charge of preserving pieces of nature before the end of the world via a cosmic collision. This story is all about what is going on between characters and the interactions and connections they have. I feel that the author did a good job capturing the complicated experiences and emotions in the lives of the protagonist and others. This is a slow, casual story involving themes that are anything but casual. It was not the most exciting of the collection, but it was an enjoyable read and a good starting off point for the collection.

The second story was my favorite of the collection. Blake Crouch's Summer Frost explores artificial intelligence in really interesting ways. It centers Riley- a video game developer who creates an artificial intelligence that performs differently than it was intended to. Crouch manages to include themes that I don't often associate with AI stories such as witty examinations of humans' interpretations of gender and sexuality, misogyny and gender discrimination in gaming and developer cultures, and how those things translate to an artificial intelligence that is analyzing them. 

The story has some decent representation as well, centering on a lesbian/bisexual/queer woman (she is married to a woman, thus could be any of those) who is a brilliant programmer. She has very real discussions about what it means to exist in a body and to feel for someone- or some thing- else. That said, I am not just giving it cookies because I liked the representation. It is a genuinely well written and rounded story. It held my attention the entire time and included a really cool twist and ending. It is a story that felt complete when it was over, which is something I find lacking in some short fiction. After reading this story, I added Crouch's books to my list of those I want to read.

N.K. Jemisin's Emergency Skin was the third story in the collection and I have quite a lot of feelings about it in multiple directions. This was the entry that sparked my interest in the collection in the first place. I will say that this is a story I liked more once some time had passed, but I am not exactly sure of the reason. I can say that I am the target audience for a story like this that is very heavy on leftist themes of anti-capitalism and communist utopia. The thing is, while it was written beautifully, I think Jemisin was a bit heavy handed with some of the messaging while failing to adequately tackle other intertwined messages. I am being vague because the progression of the story involves many reveals that I don't want to give away. 

Emergency Skin is about a traveler from a far off, tidally locked planet that is returning to Earth in order to collect necessary substances and information. It is narrated by those who are commanding the central character who is returning which was a very interesting narrative style. It becomes clear quickly that the commanders are white supremacists, capitalists, and all other manner of terrible things who believe those left behind are either all dead or are primitive savages. What the explorer finds is quite interesting to say the least.

As I mentioned, the delivery of the messages in this is very heavy-handed, which I have found not to be the case with other things by Jemisin that I have read. So, I would not call this story entirely representative of her work. Her famous Broken Earth trilogy is brilliant in part because the characters are very developed, very flawed, and the obvious underclasses in these books are still imperfect and capable of doing harm. This is not the case in Emergency Skin. I also think Jemisin missed the opportunity to tackle forms of oppression outside of class struggle. While there are mentions of others, there seems to be a suggestion of a simple solution for very large and complex problems. These are the reasons why I have ended up writing more about this story than the others. All of that said, I still enjoyed it. Sometimes it's fun to have something heavy handed, especially if it is well written, which it was. As time passes, I enjoy the story more as I recall the terrible and fantastically creative aspects of the supremacist commanders and their willingness to do anything to hold on to the worlds they have created.

The fourth story was You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles. This is another story focusing more on the characters than anything else. The science fiction aspect of it involves the likely future of designer babies via genetic engineering. The protagonist visits a fertility clinic that explains their work as similar to how credit scores are collected- by examining a variety of information and drawing conclusions about future behavior and other occurrences. Our protagonist is shown several full videos of his potential future children that were chosen by his wife in advance. What begins as an exciting experience becomes an unnerving awakening. I am on the verge of giving away too much about the story, so this one will remain brief. Overall, an enjoyable and interesting story.

The next story was one of my least favorite of the bunch. The Last Conversation by Paul Trembley is written in second person narrative which I generally find off putting with a few exceptions. This story was not one of the exceptions. However, it did hold my interest because there is a mystery to be solved. It surrounds someone waking up after being in a prolonged sleep, confined to what seems like a prison, and being both studied and cared for by a scientist who assures them that they are not in prison. The scientist is very focused on helping the central character recall the memories they have lost. I knew what the big reveal was going to be long before it occurred. The author does manage to capture the kind of fear and despair of existing in an apocalyptic world full of loss and struggle. It wasn't without merit. I was simply not a huge fan of the execution and story overall. If you are buying the whole collection, it is still worth reading.

The final story- Andy Weir's Randomize- was the one hard science fiction story of the bunch, which made it a fun and valuable read. My only exposure to Weir before this was seeing "The Martian" in the theater before knowing it was based on his book. I was not a huge fan of the movie, but it was entertaining enough. However, movies are often not representative at all of the books they are based on, so I did not know what to expect. 

Overall, I enjoyed the science more than I enjoyed the story. It is a story about capitalism and competition that doesn't seem to take issue with either one. It borders on making capitalist exploitation and ingenuity seem, for lack of a better term, cool. We have a brilliant scientist and a cutthroat business owner going head to head in craftiness. It didn't surprise me to find out that Weir identifies as "fiscally conservative." The writing style in general didn't blow me away either. The story is told, though, using super interesting descriptions of quantum computing and quantum entanglement which I found fascinating. I can't say I fully understand how all of it works, but things were still explained enough to create a real sense of wonder in me. It likely helps that I have interest in these topics outside of this story, despite my meager grasp of them. 

Because of how far this story leaned right, the science was not enough to make me fall in love with it. But, like the one preceding it, I don't regret reading it and still think the collection has value as a whole. Forward saved the least enjoyable for last, though perhaps that doesn't matter much given that these stories are all available as single items and are also marketed as such on some platforms. As far as short story collections go, this one has some high and low points but overall provided an entertaining escape from this dying world and gave me a glimpse into many possible futures.   

This was also posted to my goodreads with ratings at the following links:
Ark
Summer Frost
Emergency Skin
You Have Arrived at Your Destination
The Last Conversation
Randomize

Book Review: Oppression and the Body

 

Image: The cover of the book is a dirty pink color background with black abstract images in the foreground that resemble a person's body silhouette, their shadow, and patterns of lines over all of it that almost look like ribs from a chest x-ray. In large, capitalized, white letters that cover most of the space is, "OPPRESSION AND THE BODY." I smaller black letters across a dirty pink stripe at the bottom reads, "ROOTS, RESISTANCE, AND RESOLUTIONS." Below that in smaller white letters is, "EDITED BY CHRISTINE CALDWELL AND LUCIA BENNET LEIGHTON."

"Oppression and the Body," begins from a place of introspection and intentionality. Both editors took the time to explain where they are positioned in society via privilege or lack of it, how this may affect what they produce, and steps they took to even things out. Both editors come from a background of somatics and did make attempts to have representation across authors chosen for the book. There were some times where their language fell short, such as using "transgendered" instead of "transgender" on the back cover and elsewhere as well as taking Ta-Nehisi Coates quotes about Black peoples experiences out of context and generalizing them to everyone. I thought the former was because an Eli Clare essay from 2001 was included in the book using that term, but they also have another trans person in the book using updated terms. I found it a little strange that such an old (while excellent) entry from Eli Clare was chosen because he expands upon it and addresses some things he has changed his thinking about in his recent book, "Brilliant Imperfection." But, that could simply be a publishing/copyright issue. That said, it served an important function in discussing disabled, Queer, and trans bodies in Clare's consistently elegant ways.

The entries in the book are grouped into three main sections: Oppression of bodies in societies, marginalized bodies in society, and embodied action. The authors come at the topics using multiple mediums including descriptive analyses, therapeutic interventions, and poetry and other types of art. I really appreciated that some authors were inclusive of nonhuman animals in their discussions of somatic oppression and healing. Most of the essays are academic in style and nature. I am not a poetry person normally, so I am not sure if my distaste for it was because of preference or quality of the poetry. I really enjoyed and got a lot out of most of the other entries though. I also enjoyed that each essay contained both citations and bibliography offering the reader a lot of other sources that expand upon these topics.

The entries I enjoyed the most were the two at the beginning by each editor and those by Carla Sherrell, Beit Gorski, and Jen Labarbara. The first two gave me a better idea of studies in somatics and did well setting the stage for the rest of the book. Sherrell brought needed attention to the white centrism of many somatics practitioners and practices, leading many people to see the term "somatics" as meaning white. She explained how Black people suffer in unique and transgenerational ways, requiring tailored interventions such as those inclusive of their ancestors. Gorski shared xyr experience and knowledge as an intersex, nonbinary, trans person by explaining ways in which the medicalized binarism of sex and gender are problematic and harmful. Xie showed that it is not only gender that is socially constructed, but also sex. In xyr other essay, xie offered models for defining and coping with body and social dysphoria via "transforming distress" group intervention. Labarbara utilized her knowledge and experience as a Queer, Femme, woman to destigmatize Queerness as a response to trauma. She describes Queerness as a sublimation and "welcome effect" of sexual violence and other trauma, smashing ableist, rape culture ideas that stigmatize survivors and/or LGBT people or attempt to separate us from the whole of our lives. I chose to focus my review only on these entries because I enjoyed them the most, but do not take the intentional brevity as indication that the other entries did not have immense value as well.

While this book didn't hit on every demographic out there, there comes a point where attempting to do so can amount to destructive tokenism. Given that reality, I thought the authors did well finding voices across a pretty specific field of study. I also really enjoyed the graphic design of the cover and book, as a side note. You can judge this book by its cover.

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: Reimagining Death

 

Image: The cover of the book shows a colorful photo of a shroud. The body is wrapped in a white shroud and covered with wildflowers. There is an illustrated white ribbon added to the photo over the shroud. The top part of the ribbon says "Reimagining" in script, the next section says "DEATH" in capitalized letters, the next portion says "stories and practical wisdom for home funerals and green burials: in smaller capital letters. Across the bottom is a white box with the author's name and the foreword author's name in capital letters.

Reimagining Death tackles very important topics that many human beings shy away from confronting, often until the last minute when it is too late to have access to the most choices. The book definitely has a target audience- one that I thought I was part of but it turns out, not so much. This affects my review, but does not mean someone else would not enjoy this book more than I did. I am reviewing mostly on my own tastes and unmet expectations.

It is necessary to mention that I'm an atheist, but not the annoying internet dude kind that finds superiority in their lack of belief in God(s.) I respect that religion and spirituality have important and often positive roles in peoples lives and have no desire to take that away. That said, my opinions and outlook on green burial and other topics covered in this book come from a love of nature and desire to feed the Earth and those on it when I die. It comes from a rational place of wanting to avoid contributing to the suffering of others and to climate change in death. I also have thought about death fairly regularly from a young age, so I didn't need to learn a lesson that death should be spoken about and embraced as part of life. I was hoping that this book would teach me a lot about conventional and green practices in depth, how far reaching the negative effects of the former are, and the importance of viewing death differently. Instead, I got a book that is very heavy on the stories and very light on the "practical wisdom." Every time I would get past a long, drawn out story about a death ritual, I would get to a section I thought would teach me what I wanted to know. Unfortunately, I would just find a bullet point list with a few bits of information before the author moved on to another story. All of the stories were written in a style that just didn't work for me. Most of them seemed longer than they needed to be.

It is very clear that the author is writing from her perspective as a a "woo woo" spiritual hippie type who lives in a community on Whidbey Island that I assume is predominantly white, middle to owning class people of a similar bent. I have been to the island once and it is an absolutely gorgeous place, but is very unlike where most people live. Every story is written in this very new agey perspective, assigning extreme cosmic significance and meaning to all sorts happenings. There is a lot of psychic, spiritual, and other things that were of no interest to me, however much I understood the significance to the author and her friends. I think I was just hoping for something that didn't treat everything around death as a magical experience all the way down to washing the genitals of your mother's dead, rigored body or anointing your dead husband's perineum with oils. Sure, we can find spiritual experiences in after death rituals, but is all of it a fantastical experience full of immense meaning? It may be for some, and that is fine. But, the book is written as if it should be for everyone.

Another thing that makes the author's centering of her own experience clear is that cost is pretty much never discussed. Is a green burial and home funeral cheaper (after all of the legal paperwork and home hospice care many cannot afford?) I don't know. It was something I wanted to know. The author discusses her housekeeper nonchalantly as if it's something everyone has and all the stories focus on people who were able to afford home hospice care from what I can tell. Do I believe people should be able to die at home or wherever they prefer? Absolutely. But, many people don't. There is a section about if someone dies in a hospital, but it is not a centered experience throughout the book. Pretty much everyone discussed seems to be someone the author is related to or is in her community.

Even though I did not get a whole lot out of these stories, though, I do think that some people can. I think that reading these stories can help people realize that there are alternatives to many mainstream western after death rituals. I think that these stories could be comforting to someone who has recently lost someone or who needs to see death as a topic that should be embraced rather than avoided. I think people similar to the author in particular could enjoy these stories. I think people looking for story telling more than practical information on the topic would enjoy these stories. 

I didn't really get what I was looking for until the last two chapters of the book. The chapters, "Reimagining the Future in Ecological After Death Care" and "Be Prepared: Creating a Plan with Family and Friends," were the most useful to me. They were still too light on the information I wanted, but I did finally get to read more about what practices like embalming and typical cremation do to the body and the environment. There were a lot of things I learned such as alternatives to cremation if you don't want a burial and how these alternatives can actually be good for the environment rather than neutral. I found things like composting burials, the use of cryogenics, water processing and other methods to be very interesting. The appendices at the end also offer information and sources for those looking for more outside the format of the book. There are also a lot of lovely photos of green burials and rituals that were really cool to look at.

All in all, I don't regret reading this book. I would recommend it to someone looking to understand how after death rituals do not have to be as expected. If you are more looking for the kinds of information I was, I think you could easily skip around in this book, choose what you need, and leave the rest.

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: Empowered Boundaries

Image: The cover of the book has a white border with most of the center of the book coated in light blue to look like an uneven paint job. All of the fonts resemble hand-writing in capital letters. Across the top in black is, "EMPOWERED BOUNDARIES," with "power" underlined in orange. Below that is a horizontal orange strip with "SPEAKING TRUTH" written inside. Below that is "SETTING BOUNDARIES" in white. Below that is another orange stripe with "INSPIRING" in black letters. Below that is "SOCIAL CHANGE" in white letters. Coming out of the orange stripes are thin, curby arrows made of orange dotted lines. Across the bottom in yellow is the author's name: CHRISTIEN STORM.

Something that frequently goes through my head when reading various self-help books is the phrase, "must be nice." As in, "it must be nice to have the privilege and/or luxury to do (xyz.)" Many self-help books reflect the dominant culture or demographics which leads many of them to fall short. Different people experience the world in different ways based on how they are positioned in society. One of the best things about Cristien Storm's "Empowered Boundaries: Speaking Truth, Setting Boundaries, and Inspiring Social Change" is the author's intimate understanding of and connection with the great diversity of human experience.

Boundaries are something I have struggled with endlessly and I sought this book out in hopes it would give me more of a backbone and better communication skills. I did not expect it to be as relatable as it was. I didn't realize from the name that Cristien Storm is one of the founders of the group Home Alive which formed after the brutal assault and murder of a close friend. Storm not only has personal connections with oppression, but has educated herself about things she may not suffer personally. These things help create a book that includes the premise that societal oppression is intimately linked with boundaries. We all have power in some situations and lack it in others, thus there are always power dynamics at play in all of our interactions. As she states near the end of the book, "power cannot be communicated away." Thus, she offers a wide range of tools to navigate boundaries while also navigating human interactions in the real world.

I do think this book will be received best by people at least slightly on board with leftist ideas of collective liberation (i.e. people who at least believe oppression exists and have an introductory understanding of it.) There is a central theme of the issues with individualist, victim blaming culture vs creating supportive and functional communities. Storm communicates how setting boundaries can foster community-wide change for the better.

Something that adds a very human touch to the book, among all of the deep discussions of oppression dynamics and complicated social interaction, is the real anecdotes peppered throughout. Storm uses groups and interactions she has had over the years to give the reader examples of each concept as she goes along. These anecdotes represent a wide variety of voices, allowing her to better explore the nuance of these topics. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for boundary setting, self defense, communication, conflict resolution, or any other human interaction.

Storm is very thoughtful with her use of language and it shows. I could tell throughout the book that she made an effort not to leave anyone behind. She regularly brings up how one experience or technique will work for one person but not another. There are a number of helpful exercises included at the end so that people can practice and figure out what works best for them. Storm is also exceedingly kind and highlights the importance of being gentle with ourselves. This was especially evident in discussions of survivors who thought they didn't do enough to defend themselves or others. Storm re-frames things to help people focus on all of the things they did do to survive, once again breaking through patriarchal, victim blaming ideas that are internalized by many if not all people, feminist or not.

After reading this book, I feel like I have a much better understanding of boundaries and how to create and communicate them. I believe that if this book was not written from such a radical perspective, I would not have gained so much from it. I have been able to assess things throughout my life that make more sense now. I have a much better idea of how I can handle boundary setting in the future. It really brought the point home that boundaries are a critical aspect of all relationships. As the saying goes, "good fences make good neighbors."

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: We've Been Too Patient

Image: The cover of the book is light blue with a large illustrated dandelion going to seed. A few seeds fly away from the flower in multiple directions covering the top half of the book. In the center of the book in large white illustrated letters reads "We've Been Too Patient." Below that in smaller, navy blue letters reads "Voices from Radical Mental Health." Below that in slightly smaller white capital letters reads "STORIES AND RESEARCH CHALLENGING THE BIOMEDICAL MODEL." Across the bottom of the book are the author's names in navy blue letters "L.D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh, Foreword bu Robert Whitaker."

As the cover of the book shows, "We've Been Too Patient" is a collection of voices from radical mental health movements in a variety of mediums including storytelling, poetry, academic essays, and other types of nonfiction. It is organized into two larger sections- narratives and interventions- allowing contributors to share stories and offer solutions. This book did a relatively good job of being inclusive of a wide range of voices from people who have identified with, been diagnosed with, or otherwise personally experienced mental health disturbances in ways that were medicalized (with and without their consent.) This is a refreshing update from a lot of radical mental health voices that were often heard the most- mainly middle class white people with depression and anxiety disorders (whose voices have also helped me immensely, don't get me wrong.) This book offers a much needed expansion on the topic and I am happy to see that it will likely be accessed by wider audiences outside the movements such as mental health professionals currently immersed in the biomedical model. I am going to use diagnostic terms in this review for brevity's sake and because I honestly don't have a wide enough vocabulary to know how to describe these experiences otherwise. However, I do not intend to label anyone's experience. I have chosen to share more personal anecdotes than I usually do in reviews because it was the only way I could think of to properly explain my nuanced perspective.

I want to start with two minor notes, one positive and one negative. 

First, this is not something I normally discuss, but the graphic design of the print version of this book is really lovely. The use of different complementary fonts, light grey graphics, and dandelion seeds scattered across each chapter was a really nice touch and made for an enjoyable experience of a tough subject.

Second, there is a troublesome problem with the foreword of this book. Given that Deaf communities are used as a model for radical mental health movements in more than one instance in the book, it was pretty disappointing that Robert Whitaker used "deaf" as a pejorative at least 5 times in his only 8 page introduction. I am not sure if it was not properly edited, or if it was included after the rest of the book (which is very well edited) was put together. I won't dwell on it much longer, but it should have been addressed.

Moving on... I have fairly long history with radical mental health communities and literature. Some of it was amazing and probably saved my life. The Icarus Project literature was handed to me at a time that I really needed it and it changed me for the better. At other times, some aspects of these communities and ideas created struggles for me and other members. I do believe that sometimes, individuals in radical mental health movements can swing into territory that often excludes those with the most severe symptoms and or struggles with mental health. In their valid and desperate attempts to escape the often abusive biomedical psychiatric model, they'd create a polar opposite model and express that there is no mental illness, only problems with society and environment. This lacked nuance and mainly manifested in people reducing everyone into a category of creative artists with "dangerous gifts," claiming mental illness was not actually an illness, just a different way of thinking pathologized by society. There is a lot of truth to this, but it can be all too reductive. There are many radical people who have never and will never consider themselves particularly creative nor do they see their mental health struggles as gifts in any way. A similar critique can be made of the social model of disability. There have been healthy disabled people who claim that with societal and environmental changes, all disabled people could have access to the world as abled people do. But, for unhealthy disabled people- such as those with chronic illness(es)- this would surely improve things and help, but would not make their struggles disappear.

I am a person who has dealt with psychiatric abuses and has been in the system in some shape or form since I was 9 years old. I have had the bruises on my arms from hospital workers being rough for the fun of it and was on a giant cocktail of psych meds (including some later taken off of the market for destroying organs) as a teen that I believe caused damage to my development. I also got a B.S. in psychology, did research in cognitive neuroscience, worked in a clinical facility for people with intellectual disabilities and mental health struggles, and still voluntarily go to therapy because I believe that psychology holds many truths. Along with my personal experiences, have one parent who died by suicide and another that has extremely severe, near constant paranoid psychosis. They refuse any treatment and live in a nightmare world. When you have a beloved and caring parent who claiming everyone around them is part of a vile government conspiracy to destroy them because of something they wrote on their computer; someone who is getting into fights with people on the street for being "in on it;" someone who is banging on your windows or yelling in your face in the middle of the night after hearing voices telling them you are being pimped out for heroin by your roommate to the free masons and lying about it; someone who later claims you are dead and visit them as an angel to tell them that the corporeal version of you is an evil doppelganger; someone who gets arrested 3 times in one week- once found sitting in the middle of a highway in the dark- and who disappears for years at a time to escape anyone who tries to help, it becomes very distressing to hear all of this boiled down to just a "different way of thinking" or just a manifestation of a struggle with "dangerous gifts."

Did the state of the world, trauma, stressors, triggers, and other circumstances outside of biological functions play a huge and dominating part in this? Absolutely. But, I have spoken to radical mental health community members who experience psychosis who shared that it is only (often non-consensual) hospitalization and/or drugs that help them get out of psychosis. They shared that it was terrible every time and that the system needed major improvement, but it would happen any time they stopped their meds. They often feared judgment from other radical mental health people if they spoke the truth about this. One of the only essays in the book that centers psychosis- by Imogen Prism- touches upon this in stating, "For me, meds do the job. They do it quicker and dirtier, and with potentially devastating long-term results, but they do the job." They express that they have survived 4 involuntary hospitalizations within terrible often medieval institutions. They also admit that they are "not sure" of the solution. They do offer many ways that they have found within and outside these systems that work for them and may work for others. This was very real, honest, and was one of the best essays in the book.

While the phrase "dangerous gifts" is used multiple times by multiple contributors in this book, they use it in a way that it was likely intended by its original creators- as descriptors of how they relate to their own experiences with mental health struggles- not a dismissal of any need for medical intervention. There is a constant focus on adopting recovery and harm reduction models over biomedical models- which is something I whole-heartedly agree with. The adoption of trauma informed therapy and community models of mental health and support were and still are some of the best teachings that come from radical mental health movements. Many writers shared very real experiences with pain and heartache that came with their struggles along with tangible techniques they used to keep themselves stable enough to enjoy life. Some of the people who were involved in founding radical mental health communities like The Icarus Project went on to get degrees and positions in psychology fields and are bettering the system. 

There was only one academic essay- by Jonah Bossewitch- that manifested my aforementioned issues with the "dangerous gifts" and "mental health issues are not illnesses, just problems with society" type of thinking, but the essay also offered a lot of really good history, information, and critiques. So, I still consider it a very positive and necessary contribution to the book. The entries by Kelechi Ubozoh were particularly informative in that they included both stories of her personal and community experiences with mental health along with a large catalogue of suggestions of how to deal with mental health struggles. She also brought a personal perspective that included the intersection of race, gender, and Black community with mental health struggles. These are conversations that Black people have been having for some time, but they have not been centered enough in radical movements.

The epilogue of the book by Jessie Roth ties everything together in recapping the need for recovery and harm reduction models over purely medical models. They also remind the reader to look at the book as a whole. The wide variety of voices make it clear that these communities are not one dimensionally anti-psychiatry (like scientologists, for instance.) They remind the reader that for some people, medications are ok, they and the system just need a ton of improvement.

The only thing that I think this book needed was more voices talking about psychosis and the best ways to cope with it, particularly when it becomes dangerous (usually for the person suffering it more than anyone else.) Psychosis is one of the experiences that is punished tortuously in institutions and represents a huge amount of people- especially sufferers of color- that are murdered by police. Some techniques that work for non-psychotic disorders like depression may help, but psychosis also needs it's own focus. I still often feel lost in finding ways to navigate that aspect of mental health crises. I believe this book could appeal to a wide variety of readers from people like me to completely unexposed psychiatrists in the field looking to update their education. In fact, the latter group needs to read this book. The voices represented here are far reaching and diverse and the people contributing were willing to be vulnerable and share their lives with us. This is more difficult than many people may imagine. So, to those in the field, accept this gift with open arms. We all could learn a thing or three.

This was also posted to my goodreads. 

Book Review: Rebent Sinner

Image: The cover of the book is a black and white photo of a light skinned child blowing bubbles out of the window in the foreground with a snowy hill lined with black silhouettes of people standing or sitting with several people riding sleds down the center. The left side of the cover is a thick, pink margin. Just above the center of the book, across the top, reads "REBENT SINNER" in capital, white letters. Across the bottom is a thick black margin with "IVAN COYOTE" in capitalized pink letters.

Rebent Sinner is Ivan Coyote's memoir/autobiography told through magnificent short stories, essays, and letters. Coyote's skilled story telling made this book more enjoyable than most memoirs and the like that I have read. I cannot think of one that was formatted in the creative and interesting way that this one was, alternating stories that ranged from one sentence to many pages.

Coyote invoked a wide range of emotions in me with this book. There were times I would laugh out loud, times I would be nodding my head, times that my heart hurt, times that I felt understood and met, and many other feelings. Gender and sexuality are obviously large parts of this book given who Ivan Coyote is and the intention conveyed in the book's description. But, Coyote has a way of telling truths without, frankly, making me feel endlessly depressed after reading them. There is a kindness and honesty to their work that allows them to convey the whole picture of what it is like to move through the world as we Queer and trans people do. They capture the daily grind of what it's like for many of us who move through the world as visibly trans and gender non-conforming people.

Coyote holds human beings' complexities at the center of their stories. There is discussion of LGBTQ elders, or lack thereof, throughout some of the stories that reminded me of how few there often are. Coyote and I have a lot of things in common, being cross-stitching non-binary butches who are read in the world in different ways by different people every day. We also have a lot of wonderful differences such as age, residence, and experience. I saw myself in many of their stories and was grateful for the history lessons told through them. I felt that Coyote captured the complexities of generation gaps between LGBTQ people of different ages without falling into ageist tropes against older or younger people.

One thing I truly appreciated about many of Coyote's tellings was the humor brought to each situation. There are countless misgenderings that I related to that Coyote helped me laugh about. We share similar feelings about inevitable ways that people gender us, but they took what can often be anxiety-inducing situations and helped me smile and see them in a different light, or just made them feel less defeating overall. There is something that happens when all of the stories we read about ourselves are of terror and violence. That said, Coyote did not shy away from the realities of when things are truly terrifying such as AIDS crises of the 80's and 90's and trying to navigate abuse or violence in public bathrooms in (big and) small towns. Coyote did not shy away from the discomfort of being on stage in front of largely cishet audiences that they knew were visually dissecting their body piece by piece. I actually learned a lot about the critical need to be patient, intentional, and to take our time when responding to others' well-intentioned ignorance (when possible.) 

Coyote also has a lot of social commentary peppered throughout that isn't specifically based in stories of personal experiences. Their discussions of safer spaces, education, bridging generation gaps, changing with times that must change, seeing and being seen help this memoir extend even further outside the boundaries of the genre.

All in all, this was a beautiful and engaging book that was an absolute joy to read. Rebent Sinner is due out in November of 2019 and is definitely worth picking up regardless of the demographics you come from.

This review was also posted to goodreads.

Book Review: Dopesick- Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America

 Image: The cover of the book is a black and white image of a hilly town surrounded by mountains and trees which mostly obscure the small white houses and the streets that they line. The top half of the book is made up of the sky and says "dopesick" in large white capitalized letters. Below it says "dealers, doctors, and the drug company that addicted america" in small, red, capitalized letters. One the lower half of the book near the top is the author's name in larger white capitalized letters. There are a few white lettered lines of text that are unreadable.

Dopesick by Beth Macy was a mixed bag of a read for me. I understand all of the hype and stellar reviews after reading it and I appreciate that Macy brought a kind and human face of addiction to a wide audience. However, many of the ways that she chose to go about it may do more harm than good. This review is long because there were so many things to explain and dissect.

I will start with the things that Macy did right. I believe she portrayed addicts as struggling human beings to the reader, rather than immoral and heartless. She covered what it's like to be dopesick pretty well and created empathy for how inescapable the cycle of trying to get well is. She grasps how heroin grips you and doesn't let go. She did a good job highlighting the despair caused by all of the barriers to recovery and re-entering society, especially for those imprisoned by the war on drugs. She did well highlighting how Purdue Pharma deliberately ruined lives and lied in order to make money with devastating consequences. Though, I do wish more time would have been spent discussing drug costs and insurance companies. For instance, you can get opioids cheap so insurance will pay for them, but things like lidocaine patches which are risk free and effective are rarely covered.

Macy also taught me a lot about medication assisted therapy (MAT) such a suboxone. I was previously unaware that studies showed it worked far better than abstinence only programs. My experience with 12 step programs (which I have been learning to combat by becoming educated in harm reduction) led me to believe that all MAT was the same as using or was using-lite. She highlighted well how 12 step programs, rehabs, halfway houses, and other institutions malign and exclude recovering addicts on MAT. She taught me about how MAT is exploited by some doctors and professionals requiring hundreds of dollars out of pocket per month and how insurance companies often will not pay for it despite it being proven more successful than abstinence only programs. I now understand and support it as a life-saving, while imperfect, treatment that more places need to embrace.

It seems necessary that I admit while writing that I am a former heroin (and other drugs) addict, who used heavily from age 14-22, who has over 14 years "clean" under my belt. I am also now disabled with multiple chronic health conditions from cancer to severe never-ending costochondritis that have required pain management involving opioids. In the past few years, I have had 4 major surgeries, one severely necrotic tooth requiring an ER visit and opioids, and 3 other procedures under anesthesia that included fentanyl. Due to my experiences in 12 step programs, I was terrified when I had to start dealing with these now commonplace things in my life because I thought as soon as an opioid touched my system, I would lose all control and relapse. I delayed procedures and was bedridden with pain and fatigue due to my fear of trying something that would manage my pain enough to help me take care of myself when other methods failed, made things even worse, or were marginally effective. The reality is that with everything I told you, not once have I become addicted again. I have not finished a bottle of pain killers after a procedure yet, but I take them as long as I need to. I have laid in bed crying and unable to function when my pain after surgery was unmanaged and recovered more quickly from surgeries where it was managed well. I am sure my years of experience with sobriety and ability to be honest with myself and what I need is a huge reason why I've been able to navigate this. But, there are other people who have been or were never addicts who also manage it just fine. I tell this perhaps tl;dr story because it leads into two of my biggest gripes about Macy's approach to this subject.

Macy talks about opioids as if most people who use them become addicted and pretends that exposure to the drug itself alone magically turns you into an addict. This was lazy at best. There are a great many factors that lead to addiction including genetics, isolation, mental illness, untreated illness and chronic pain, insurance companies' refusal to pay for non-narcotic drugs and interventions, employment, afterschool activities, the lies of drug companies, socioeconomic status, and many other things including those science has not discovered yet. It is incredibly dangerous- especially for disabled people with chronic pain- to scare-monger like this. Macy did a really good job covering the problems with 12 step and other abstinence only treatment options, but then ends up parroting what many people in meetings say about drugs.

The second issue causing me to reference my personal story was her lack of handling of how opioid restrictions negatively affect chronic pain patients. She offers one story about a colleague explaining to her that responsible use of opioids allows her to work and remain part of society and how restrictions could remove necessary treatments she needs to be a part of the world. Outside this very small section, she dismisses the lack of pain management as a valid problem- especially for women and people of color who are notoriously disbelieved by doctors which has even lead to their deaths. She chalks it up to a lie and a "big pharma" talking point. While predatory pharma salespeople definitely latched onto the technique as something they could use to sell drugs, that does not mean it was not a serious problem. To offer another anecdote, a friend of mine had to have a hip replaced multiple times due to likely malpractice. The pain of course increased each surgery and on DAY ONE a nurse yelled at her for asking for her pain meds, "YOU'RE GOING TO GET ADDICTED TO THESE!" Her bone had been sawed in half and replaced with metal for the third time and all this nurse could do was label her drug seeking for trying to manage her pain. Pain management is also critical for surgery and anesthesia recovery as unmanaged pain causes excess stress on the system and prevents patients doing important things like getting up and moving around as soon as possible after many surgeries. Do some doctors over-prescribe? Absolutely, and that needs to be better handled. Yet, the fear mongering that pain on the whole is over-managed is a blatant falsehood. This leads to my next point. Inclusion of more science would have helped her greatly with these points.

Macy's handling of race in this book is not very good. She does mention multiple times how white suburban people becoming addicts is what people give attention to, unlike the crack epidemics that were treated with criminalization alone. Then she refers to white, suburban people as "unlikely" addicts, creating a racist and classist dichotomy that is also false as addiction has always been present in all communities for the most part. All of her human interest stories are white people and the only Black person heavily focused on is a dealer. She, again, tries to highlight the injustices in our system that force people back into dealing in order to survive, but then later falls short when she seems to suggest that dealers are solely responsible for addiction in the suburbs. The most egregious mishandling of race in the book, though, is when she discusses the doctors being less likely to believe and to treat Black people's pain. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, it is well documented that Black people, women, and especially Black women are disbelieved in medical situations. Black people especially are often seen to have a higher pain tolerance even though studies show it is actually lower on average likely due to stress and going untreated. This is residual from slavery times when surgeons experimented on enslaved Black women with no anesthesia claiming they feel no pain. She had the audacity to suggest that this had protected Black people from opioid addiction, turning it into a one-dimensional issue with a great outcome, rather than something that literally kills Black people in hospitals. The aforementioned scare mongering that opioids automatically turn everyone into an addict mixed with other kinds of oppression is a injurious and sometimes deadly combination.

As a result of these issues, I have mixed feelings about this book being so popular. I am not sure if I want people to read this book so they will care about addicts and take things more seriously, or if I want them to avoid it due to it's lack of nuance on several issues and misinformation on others. I hope people who do read it will see Macy as one voice of many on the issue who don't all agree.

This review was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: This Chair Rocks - A Manifesto Against Ageism

 Image: the cover of the book is a black background with yellow and red lines shaped like very elongated teardrops jut out from the center. In the center, in capital white letters is "This Chair Rocks" followed by a white line under which "a manifesto of ageism" is in yellow capital letters. At the bootom of the book is the author's name, Ashton Applewhite, in smaller white letters.

I had extremely high hopes for Ashton Applewhite's This Chair Rocks. I try to remain up to speed on how to fight oppression in general, but ageism is definitely something I could stand to learn more about. As a 36 year old, I am able to escape (for now) a lot of the ageism that older and younger people face. Thus, I want to know what part I can play in combating ageism. The book did not completely fail in giving me some ideas and teaching me to think differently here or there, but overall an extremely important topic ended up completely drowning in the author's unchecked white-centrism and lack of understanding and experience of oppressions other than ageism and (white) womanhood. I am white, so I am sure there are even more things I will miss in this review. This is normally a book I would have considered putting down, but I wanted to make sure I experienced the whole thing to give a much needed comprehensive review since it a new edition is due out. This is especially important given Applewhite's reach and appeal to wider (I would guess predominantly white) audiences.

There are some things Applewhite does well with this book, so I will begin with those. I felt the writing style itself was fairly accessible. She does attempt to mention how other oppressions are connected to ableism (albeit failing much of the time, which I discuss more later.) I found her discussion of alzheimer's and other forms of dementia to be important and challenged the way I thought about these disorders and the ways people live with them. The sections on sex and dating were ok, dispelling myths that older people somehow shut down in these areas after a certain age. Applewhite is very passionate about the subject and is charting territory in ways that are not as well charted as some other struggles, so props to her for that. Unfortunately, the good things I have to say about this book end there.

One glaringly problematic detail about this book is how she tackles ageism as something only affecting older people. This was a missed opportunity to get deeply into the ways that ageism affects youth and as a result, leads to some faulty conclusions on her part. One example was her stating that people care less or attend less to older people when they have health problems, stemming from the "they're going to die anyways," sentence forced upon people. This is true, but she juxtaposed it with suggestions that younger people are taken more seriously and cared about more when they become sick which I can assure you is not true in many cases. As a person who had to go through the whole social security disability process in their 30s, the belief that I am too young to be sick and whatnot has tainted my experiences. These kinds of ageism stem from the same root and could have made such a better argument if analyzed together. There are many other examples where Applewhite missed an opportunity to discuss the spectrum of ageism and limited herself and her argument to "olders." There are ways to discuss the parts of youth that are valued in US American culture without ignoring that youth, especially those under 18, also face ageism. It is not that she never mentions younger people, but I can probably count on both hands the number of sentences in the entire book that included them.

The next thing that needs to be discussed is the thing that bothered me most about reading this book. Applewhite regularly mentions other oppressions and "intersectionality" throughout her book. But, her lack of understanding of them and of how intersectionality actually works caused her efforts to to be tokenizing at best. She does occasionally mention that marginalized older people do struggle more, but it is rare and in passing, overall making the image of the person suffering ageism to be a white older person. This was especially evident in the common white, liberal, single-issue activism mistake of repeating something to the tune of "we no longer tolerate racism, sexism, or homophobia but we still tolerate ageism." It left me wondering just how sheltered Applewhite is if she is so comfortable suggesting these oppressions are somehow over. This gets even worse when she starts making insulting comparisons that not only create a binary of white older person or Black/gay/disabled/etc other person, but are downright bothersome I am sure even to people who aren't as immersed in leftist lingo as I am. Granted, some of these things are quotes from others, but quotes she celebrates and cosigns.

Some examples of tokenism and ignorance are her celebration of the phrase "when you become old you become black," her comparison of US American slavery to modern day ageist discrimination in the workplace, her honoring of her husband confronting a bouncer for calling him grandpa for saying in response something like "that would be similar to me calling you the n-word," claiming she wants (cisgender heterosexual) older people to consider adopting the term "age queer," comparisons between disability justice and the fight against ageism while littering the book with casual ableism (more on this in the next paragraph,) the use of the words "women and blacks" and a possibly unintentional suggestion that the "women's movement" could not be both, and other examples. Basically, Applewhite seems to care more about tokenizing oppressions she does not suffer for her thesis than she does actually understanding and fighting these oppressions. This is something I do think she cares about though and could definitely grow on, but the book has been out for years and I am reviewing the newest edition that came out in March. Thus, it still mirrors many of the issues found when white liberal cis women lead a conversation. This means someone looking at the current state of the USA with neo-nazis marching the streets, mass deportations, the executions of Black, Brown and Indigenous people in the street by police, the banning of trans people from various things, a vice president who supports gay conversion therapy, and so on and claim that racism and homophobia are no longer acceptable, but ageism is. It was infuriating that it happened over and over.

Next I want to focus specifically on disability because of how intertwined it is with ageing. This book is full of casual and some not-so-casual ableism. The most frequent kind is the need to focus on the "productive" older people and to dispel myths that older people are a drain on society rather than fighting against the idea that one must be capitalistically productive or active for one to have worth at all. There are times she almost goes there but then draws back. I think it is perfectly acceptable to highlight the diversity of peoples needs and abilities throughout ageing. I think this was executed badly in this book. With how much Applewhite brings up ableism, I was hoping she would have had a better hold on the core tenets of ableist oppression. Many other oppressions are in some way rooted in ableism, especially ageism. I wish she would have done a better job attacking the idea that for us to matter we must be productive, active, fit, etc. There was also a section about chronic pain that was one of the worst in the book. Strangely enough, it followed a section about how important it is for older people not to be isolated. She celebrates a woman who claims that she will walk out of the room if her friends mention any health problems they are having, because she wants to hear "about their life" instead. Applewhite goes on to say no one, except maybe your mom, wants to hear about your ailments. This is once again placing abled older people in the worthier position and requires that unhealthy disabled/chronically ill people in general lie when asked the age old question, "How are you?" in order to avoid making abled people feel uncomfortable. One can make a point that ageing doesn't always involve suffering without stomping on those who are suffering. I can't think of anything more isolating than knowing a friend would walk out of the room if you confided to her that you had just been diagnosed with metastatic cancer or that you need a knee replacement. Applewhite further goes on to talk about how physical therapy "fixed" her and her daughter's pain and made other statements consistent with someone who does not understand what it is like to deal with severe chronic pain that can't be fixed- something common in many of the most isolated disabled and/or older people.

These and other examples made me often ask myself, "Did Applewhite read her own book before sending it to be published?" She contradicts herself so often that I sometimes struggle to know what she believes. The conclusion of the book does offer some decent suggestions for combating ageism, both internalized and externalized. The book isn't 100% bad. But, it is so clouded with problems and limitations that I cannot recommend it as a worthwhile read. I wish I had something I could suggest in it's place instead.

This was also posted to my goodreads.