Posts

Showing posts from May, 2021

Review: The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

Image
The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by Bell Hooks My rating: 5 of 5 stars hooks offers a compelling critique about how masculinity is constructed in American culture and malformed due to the systemic effects of patriarchy.  However, because no one is willing to name patriarchy's negative effects on how we conceive of manhood, it inevitably denies men a fuller and more meaningful sense of masculinity. She traces out some of the ways in which this impacts different genders and sexualities, highlighting how many across both spectrums uphold a patriarchal and often, toxic masculinity regardless of their desire to do so since we have so few examples and scripts to work from otherwise.  Like much of her other work, hooks grounds this in her own experiences to illustrate how she has come to the topic and experiences it within her own personal history. With her, I always find this enhances the experience as she's never using her ide

Review: The New Huey P. Newton Reader

Image
The New Huey P. Newton Reader by Huey P. Newton My rating: 4 of 5 stars Growing up, the Black Panthers were given a negative connotation by the culture around me and Huey Newton was utterly unknown--not a name that came forward during Black history month or at any other point. His name arose in college, occasionally, but barely. Rather, he appeared on my radar in grad school and beyond, but still, never a full picture.  This book is that fuller and richer picture of his life, his work, and ideas, coupled with the counter-intelligence reports from the FBI that illustrate how much he was purposely maligned by the government for his efforts and ideas to bring about a revolution of the people, grounded in restoring power to Black people and everyone, ultimately.  Collecting a mixture of speeches, interviews, his autobiography, Revolutionary Suicide, published essays, and the like, this collection paints a vivid picture of the deeply rooted ideas o

Review: Learning Outside The Lines : Two Ivy League Students With Learning Disabilities And ADHD Give You The Tools For Academic Success and Educational Revolution

Image
Learning Outside The Lines : Two Ivy League Students With Learning Disabilities And ADHD Give You The Tools For Academic Success and Educational Revolution by Jonathan Mooney My rating: 3 of 5 stars Though slightly dated (from the turn of the 20th century), this book actually has a lot of great tips and ideas for nontraditional learners (read: everybody) to consider and utilize to maximize their learning in environments where educators come to teaching and learning with a one-size-fits-all model.  The authors provide a great many strategies for college success and I think in some ways, much of what they have said has been integrated in parts to first-year seminars and college-prep courses.  They manage to pack a lot about how to get the most out of any course and provide lots of practical approaches to learning.  In the wrong mindset, one could read this as "hacks" to college but realistically, they provide meaningful support structu

Review: Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

Image
Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo My rating: 5 of 5 stars Olou returns with another strong discussion about race, racism, and white supremacy in US society with particular attention on the dominance of white males in said culture. Her criticism is critical, biting, and on target.  Her central tenant is that in a culture that has actively cultivated white males as the center of attention in the public and private spheres for centuries, it has also created a culture where white males feel entitled to always rise and any changes to this, feels like a direct challenge to them--even though that by statistical fact, most of them are average or mediocre.  White male culture suffers from the Lake Wobegon effect where we're all trained to believe that we're above average and therefore, challenges to that on the individual or cultural level creates resentment and triggers deeply seeded racist views and actions.