Reviews

Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism by Patricia Hill Collins

ralowe's review against another edition

4.0

it's not possible to dislike this book, and really my biggest quibble (or whatever is a size or two above 'quibble') is the inconsistency of its theorization. it's not as harsh as it sounds, as this book is an important baseline. it's a nice birthday gift for the well-intentioned acquaintance. a well-intentioned friend would deserve a more involved conversation. the tragedy was that the book would endlessly write against itself. it was trying to get to a genderqueer sense through gender binary conceptual forms. uh, actually, it is perhaps leaving the acquaintance alone with the text is probably what has lead to so many unfortunately inadequate formulations. but the book tries and is vital if you understand what she's trying to say. you know, because it is putatively unnecessary to consider better ways of inhabiting heteronormative genders if your end goal is obliterating heteronormativity. i know that it's not that clean, that the lived experience of the identity is a thriving contradiction, except i don't think collins' idea of the structure ever admits any, at least as she writes it in the book. i mean i know she knows. we all do.

aeandrews's review against another edition

4.0

Read excerpts for 20th Century Black Feminist Thought and Practice in the US, Fall 2013.

jadealmeida's review

5.0

Un must read comme à peu près toute la bibliographie de Patricia Hill Collins. Black sexual politics et La pensée féministe noire sont deux de mes bibles pour ma thèse ! Un travail vraiment extraordinaire.

stormy's review

1.0

So a few years ago I read a couple of pages from the beginning, the bit with the movie theater. It got me curious.

The first thing that I noticed when I started reading this? It's binarist and cis-sexist. A few years ago I wouldn't have notice and most likely wouldn't have even known those words. Now I can't help but notice. But ok, I read further, preparing myself for sexuality as in gay or straight and nothing more. I get up till page 16 where I see "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgenderED". Yeah, nope. I expected better.

samsimpson's review

3.0

Enlightening... but the problems feel so much bigger than some of the (possible) solutions presented here.