Performing Racial Uplift
Did you watch last night's Grammy Awards? This week's review highlights the work of Black activist and music teacher E. Azalia Hackley and the power of “musical social uplift.”
Posted on in Review of the Week
Atmospheres of Violence
This week's review examines how violence against trans/queer people of color is "built into the structure of American society."
Posted on August 8, 2022 in Review of the Week
Atmospheres of Violence: Structuring Antagonism and the Trans/queer Ungovernable
Stanley, Eric A. Duke, 2021
200p bibl index, 9781478013303 $94.95, 9781478014218 $24.95, 9781478021520 $24.95
Although many strides have been made in the battle for LGBTQ+ rights, violence against transgender/queer people still remains a mostly quiet epidemic that disproportionately effects trans/queer people of color. In this text, Stanley (Univ. of California, Berkeley) argues that these are not instances of personal phobia; rather, they are built into the structure of American society. Through a lens of anti-colonialism attributed to Franz Fanon, the author seeks to explain intersectional racial and gendered violence as a systemic issue in which increased visibility is a two-edged sword: on one side, rights are being extended; on the other, trans/queer people of color become exposed to greater systems of violence. Through historical narratives that include everything from interviews with those in the prison system to the suicide note of a lost teen, this text looks to serve as both a memory of oppression and a method for rising above. Often challenging to read in its honest, sometimes brutal retelling of violent incidents; in its discussion of suicide; and in how it speaks to a pervasive anti-Blackness and anti-trans/queerness, this text is a must read for those interested in dismantling systems of oppression and in trans/queer liberation.
Summing Up: Essential. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals.
Reviewer: A. N. Weiss, Loyola Marymount University
Interdisciplinary Subjects: African and African American Studies, Women’s & Gender Studies, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Studies, Racial Justice
Subject: Social & Behavioral Sciences
Choice Issue: Jul 2022
Enjoy this week’s review? Check out more reviews of related titles:
- Equity and Inclusion in Higher Education: Strategies for Teaching
- Our Children Are Your Students: LGBTQ Families Speak Out
- Seeing Like an Activist: Civil Disobedience and the Civil Rights Movement
- Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century
- Queer Freedom: Black Sovereignty
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