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Reviews
Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements by Charlene Carruthers
swifteagle's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
kaylin1612's review against another edition
5.0
Just so good. Will be recommending this book to everyone I know, especially other white activists.
It is so important that we make sure our fight for freedom includes everybody’s freedom, and that we are listening to the wants and needs of everyone around us and I think this book really emphasizes that.
I think for me it was really important listening to her experiences with movement work, and hearing just how long things can take. I think it can get disheartening thinking about a fight taking even a year, let alone 5, 10, 20+ years to see any real change made. But we’re in it for not just ourselves but future generations, and they won’t see change if we don’t start now.
I am forever inspired by everyone who came before me, and thankful I was recommended this book.
Many more thoughts to be had, but glad I got to experience this.
It is so important that we make sure our fight for freedom includes everybody’s freedom, and that we are listening to the wants and needs of everyone around us and I think this book really emphasizes that.
I think for me it was really important listening to her experiences with movement work, and hearing just how long things can take. I think it can get disheartening thinking about a fight taking even a year, let alone 5, 10, 20+ years to see any real change made. But we’re in it for not just ourselves but future generations, and they won’t see change if we don’t start now.
I am forever inspired by everyone who came before me, and thankful I was recommended this book.
Many more thoughts to be had, but glad I got to experience this.
srj's review against another edition
5.0
Short but dense with insight and history (will require some dedicated Googling and Appendix digging!) of Black radical organising in US, this book was both practical and inspirational. I appreciated Carruthers' personal vulnerability and historical outlook. We read it in a book club and often found we couldn't possibly discuss all that we wanted to from a given chapter in our meetings — so much that it took all summer to get through our discussions — a testament to the book's value for those of us reading it. I will keep it close to my desk and probably reference it often.
This review is written from perspective of white, 30-something, queer, US-born, college educated community organiser based in Berlin, Germany.
This review is written from perspective of white, 30-something, queer, US-born, college educated community organiser based in Berlin, Germany.
cass_lit's review against another edition
This book contained a lot of helpful and instructive aspects, but there were also parts that I struggled a bit with. Maybe they’re things I need to struggle with though, and if getting me to think about them is enough then the book did what it intended.
danileighta's review against another edition
5.0
A powerful blueprint for movement-building. I got this out from the library, but I'm purchasing it now because it's so rich and needs re-reading again and again.
ralowe's review against another edition
2.0
this book made me mostly mad at myself. there's more i could have done to make sure the anti-501(c)(3) critique had been passed on. friends of mine used to screenprint shirts that said "non-profits are the new The Man,"ќ i lost mine. i wore it all the time. the shirt's screenprinted beautifully awkward grammar scored doubletakes off the more conceptually elegant articulation it hit when you get it. never got back my copy of *the revolution will not be funded,* gay shame got jumped by someone in a cowboy hat while trying to pass out our zines on direct action alternatives to corporatized activism outside of creating change when it was in downtown oakland. that's what's so filthy about how "reparations"ќ as a buzzword traffics black political life, it becomes an alibi for the fallacy that profit motive can fuck with social justice. ask any new hire at a food co-op. in some fucked up careerist fart cloud where assata and booker would even sit at the same table. and i know fred moten counsels a sort of deconstructive skepticism of the marxist formulation of the commodity, neither his nor frank wilderson's work are intended as prescriptive; in fact, it's easy to renovate cedric robinson's black radical tradition as contiguous with fund transfer activism. nibbling confit and sipping aperitifs in qatar with the captains of industry about rosa parks murals on county jails. it starts there and then becomes whatever moves will survive an audit, so deep inside the institutions of state legitimacy, trying to speak their legalistic slave-holding language, trying to fit into their photo-op frame, trying to teach cops to be nice as "prison abolition."ќ sure there are some noble endeavours but then you're trying to explain why a new ted talk wine shop co-worker cafe on your block is bad, why trying to buy political influence is bad, why crowdsource popularity darwinism fucks everybody, why trying to help CEO's get woke is kind of how you play yourself. i want to believe in the apparent optimism in the beautiful parts of this book that don't read like a resume at diversity consultant follow-up interview at warcriminal.com. i can't describe how painful it is to see the ideas you hold dear made palatable to an apparently non-black funding stream. antiracist anticapitalism now includes "pay me to make you a better person,"ќ and that's just what's normal now. it's so fucking depressing. and you probably think i'm dramatic.