A review by ralowe
White Girls by Hilton Als

2.0

no. ventriloquize the subaltern to blame the oppressed for their oppression so dave eggers can sleep at night. the crisis in the intellectual life of the black faggot is real, steve mcqueen and lee daniels (my mind always leaps to the spectacle and narrative of film when i think about this, but my feeling of crisis is unfavorably corroborated as we survey cultural productions in other areas). it's not cute. funny, this won the lambda literary award for best gay fiction the same year that mattilda won for best for transgender fiction; and my concern with mattilda's book of how her portrayal of me boded this formative moment of queer of color critique. it's sad 'cause i love how he beautifully fucks with race and gender, loved the stuff on flannery o'connor and jane bowles. yet when he lazily fills in the gaps in his essay or argument with memoir it's feels like hilton's not here to save me. we in trouble girl. black male homosexuals just aren't bringing it for me right now: i feel a deeper queer affinity to adrian piper, wanegichi mutu, kara walker but i fear "queer" would be imprecise to describe them. i do love mykki blanco's lyricism on *join my militia* and that video is something else. she's from new york too. but als talks to us about eminem for some reason. i mean we don't need ferguson to know mass incarceration and disproportionate hiv seroconversion, to know genocide. but people bring up race to entertain stupid people apparently. that must fit in well on mcsweeney's internet tendency thing. and malcolm x is angry at the other because he caused his own natal alienation. the ethical crisis emerges when the belle-lettrist takes their joyce carol oates-ish descriptive seriousness as a benevolent prescription for the social (entrepreneur).