11corvus11's reviews
904 reviews

If it weren't for the anarchist reference in the title, I probably wouldn't have caught this one. This is not usually my preferred genre. I'm glad this came across my feed as it was a a good story and a good example of having lgbtq and far left characters where that's an important piece while also not being the only part of the story. I'll have to make sure to read the next one. Also the hardcover is gorgeously produced.

 I have immense respect for Dean Spade's work. I especially like how he has branched out from academia further than many people do, creating highly accessible and urgent texts like Mutual Aid and now, Love in a F*cked Up World. I understand why the cover design is the way it is- to grab the attention of a wide audience. But, it made me think that it might not be for me. (Also, I just hate yellow for reasons I can't articulate.) Despite having chosen not to seek out romantic or sexual relationships many years ago, I figured why not give this a go even if it didn't apply to my current situation. Don't let the cover fool you into thinking this is another romantic relationship advice book. Spade even anticipates the hesitation some folks, especially radicals, may have. He urges the reader to remain open minded to a self help book being more than an "...individualistic... liberal, bougie... distraction from collective action." This book takes all the good little nuggets from various self help and communication books, sorts out all of the garbage, and then translates it all into something very wise and healing.

Even as someone who doesn't have intentions in the near future to date, I desperately needed this book for all other relationships in my life. Even moreso, I needed this book years (decades?) ago when mired in polyamorous organizing and kink communities. I needed it so much that I had to grieve a bit while reading for my former, ignorant self and anyone around me.

Even on a good day, I'm someone who craves categories, boxes, clear lines, and knowing exactly how to quantify the harm I've caused, could cause, and to predict that which will come to me in any situation. My mental health tends to make this far worse than the average person, essentially leading to isolation. I judge situations, myself, and sometimes others harshly in order to avoid further trauma and out of fear that I will cause it. This book gave me permission to let go of that. It was an exercise in self awareness and understanding of others while telling me that it's ok to find the grey area.

I won't pretend I'm cured of OCD/PTSD in 326 pages of reading, but this book ended up being a really good complement to my exposure therapy exercises, especially socially. Spade manages to write a relationship book that centers radicals, queers, leftists, etc rather than simply including us in the margins as other relationship books do (if they do at all.) As a result, anti-aurhoritarianism ends up being centered, leading to a final product that is a book many of us have been waiting for and needing our entire lives.

I recall that when Sarah Schulman's Conflict is not Abuse came out, many of us were able to ignore some of the flaws because it was a drink of water in the desert. Our communities, much like the larger world, are punishing and full of human beings with diverse needs and backgrounds. Spade urges the reader early on not to filter the book through dominant pop psychology trends in an attempt to ostracize and isolate others. (Lookin at all of the people who call every disagreement "gaslighting narcissism" and whatnot.) Instead, he offers tons of relatable anecdotes (including those from his own life) showing the normal conflicts that occur in many kinds of relationships. These conflicts can be so charged, stressful, and hurtful, that we may jump to what we've learned from larger cultures as solutions- even when it goes against our values. Movements are fractured, healing is impossible, and the whole thing can become a downward spiral taking the connections we desperately need with it. Spade urges us to better understand ourselves and others to better align our relationships with our values.

Like Mutual Aid, LIAFUW is highly readable, accessible, and well organized. I think that perhaps the centering of our communities might take a second for someone outside them to get used to, but not so much so as to be a barrier. I like to hope it will be enlightening, pulling the well intentioned (USAmerican, essentially center right wing) liberal further away from oppression and closer to what they're actually craving.

The best part of this book is the insistence on the importance of differentiation, interdependence, and creating relationships outside of romantic ones. While many exercises and anecdotes do involve romantic conflicts, since we often tend to be our worst selves in those, the sections on friendship and other relationships are refreshing and critical. One of the main reasons I stopped dating was that I realized I had very few nonsexual friendships and had not been single more than maybe 6 months since I was 13. Friendships, in my opinion-especially in adulthood- are harder to create and nurture than romance in a society that prioritizes the latter as the most important thing. Spade does well to show how nourishing friendships is not only important in and of itself, but it also results in all other relationships being healthier.

The only thing I wanted from this book was a little more advice on how to tell when something is actually abuse. There is a small section in the beginning that discusses this difficulty and I do understand why this is outside the scope of this book. I just found myself wondering in some sections, "but what if this behavior is controlling beyond normal conflict?" and "what about people who utilize the freedom in radical communities to prey upon people?" There are many books already written well about this such as Creative Interventions, Beyond Survival, and The Revolution Starts at Home. If you also find yourself wondering about that, I suggest those as complement texts.

I highly recommend this book to anyone really, but especially to leftists and Queers who've become accustomed to relationship books- even those that are supposed to be outside dominant culture- leaving much to be desired, or worse, giving dangerous advice. I see LIAFUW becoming one of those staples on leftist bookshelves that we lend to each other with love and care. I look forward to Spade continuing to expand his writing in ways that allow for larger, stronger, and more diverse movements.

This was also posted to my goodreads and blog.

 

I don't know how anyone could call this boring. I also am not sure why some folks say it's a rebuttal to "The New Jim Crow" as he speaks positively of that text as revolutionary in changing hearts and minds. I have definitely fallen into the toxic kind of identity politics where one hopes that their own monolithic demographic or that of another oppressed group will shift things if given leadership positions- often when I didn't even believe it would happen. This book is a good antidote to that shallow way of thinking.

I was completely engaged with this book from beginning to end. This was both fascinating for it's detailed history of a majority Black location (DC) and the criminal (in)justice system as well as a refreshing thesis on the complexity of these issues.

It sucks that this needs to be said in any discussion of any marginalized group, but Black folks are like other humans- complex and diverse in opinions and beliefs. They are also susceptible to corruption by unjust systems, as we all are. Tokenizing folks and pretending like just adding more Black (or enter any other group) cops/prosecutors/judges will somehow automatically solve an authoritarian regime is misguided at best. Though it makes sense- in desperate times we all want solutions and we often use the only things we've ever known, even if they're known to destroy us.

This book was also a good look into the unique confounding factors that Black people have to navigate in various neighborhoods, being forced to clean up messes they didn't create with tools they didn't design. The author is a good writer, story teller, and does very well to make his points by both telling and showing. Highly recommended reading.

 It is rare to encounter a book regarding farming or the (mis)treatment of animals that is for so many audiences at once. Transfarmation, by Leah Garcés, happens to be one of those books. Garcés is the president of Mercy for Animals. While this particular org is often quite good at bridging divides, I still expected this book to either lean towards something mostly vegans would go for (screaming to the choir in our void of despair where everyone ignores us (joking... sorta)) or one of those books that insultingly erases the most vulnerable individuals of all species involved in farming so that the reader doesn't have to feel bad (or responsible.) Transfarmation is both emotionally honest and intellectually rigorous. It is for the city dwelling vegan with a one-dimensional view of animal farming and for the rural residents whose exploitation and injury via animal agribusiness seems like an inescapable fact of life. It is for the person most moved by true stories that tug at their heartstrings and for the person who says, "show me the numbers." Possibly most importantly, it involves a plan: Tangible, attainable solutions to the current crises we find ourselves in. There is definitely a place for exposure of the absolutely heinous abuse of animal agribusiness alone. When paired with solutions though, it leaves the reader feeling less hopeless.

The writing and structure of this book is extremely well thought out. Every section has a central individual interest storyline (aka human interest, but since this includes other species I've made it more general.) It is well documented that this is the sort of story that causes most people to change their mind. You can tell people all day about the trillions of animals who die per year for food, slaughterhouse covid transmission statistics, how many farmers take their own lives, and so on. For most people though, this isn't enough to make it stick. As much as we like to pretend otherwise, we are not rational beings. To absorb the data, we need to relate to it. Garcés does this exceptionally well.

We first focus on the farmers themselves who are manipulated by industries who profit from their work while the farmers descend further into crippling debt and despair from the actions they must take against other animals and their community to meet this capitalist need. The titular name of the book refers to the Transfarmation Project which "provides resources and support to industrial animal farmers interested in transitioning their farms to plant-focused operations." After reading this book, it is clearly about much more than that. It is about forming relationships and bridging divides. I always knew that factory farmers likely weren't evil moustache twirling animal abuse fetishists, but I also didn't realize just how much they have been manipulated to fail and how that failure is basically a central tenet of the profit model of animal exploitation corporations.

"Farmers aren't factory farming because they love the idea of being under the thumb of corporate entities and picking up dead and dying chickens. They do it because they are trapped in debt and have few other economic options."

We learn next about farmed animals by focusing on a few who make up the miniscule minority who are rescued and can have their tales told. I particularly like that she focused on a chickens and cows exploited for dairy as agribusiness industries have lobbied hard to make these seem like less horrific options (they are not.) We learn of three chickens a farmer was willing to let go of and the bits of freedom they were allowed to experience before succumbing to the inevitable demise caused by industries who breed their bodies to be their own enemies. We learn of Norma the former dairy cow who was rescued after defending her calf Nina after so many forced inseminations she had experienced previously where her calves were stolen from her within a day. This story has a happier ending where we learn that both she and her calf were rescued and reunited. I also love that Garcés chose VINE Sanctuary as the focus for one of the stories as their collective liberation models of organizing and care are revolutionary. They fit well into the aims of the book to further the conversation to include the humans most exploited by these industries.

The narrative of the book is next expanded into the larger community, where we learn about the disproportionately low income BIPOC communities who find themselves surrounded on all sides by farms imprisoning pigs that spray literal feces into the air they breathe and the homes they sleep in. We learn about the lengths they have had to go to to literally organize for the right to breathe shit-free air when the county sheriff is also a hog farmer. We learn how even the BIPOC communities who have homes to hand down over generations find those homes and neighborhoods now uninhabitable. Following this, we move on to the immigrant communities- a large number of whom are undocumented or are still awaiting citizenship approval- who work in the slaughter facilities. We learn of the heinous lengths they go to to survive their trip into the country, only to be forced into a processing plant that demands impossible speeds of killing and dismembering animals, resulting in physical injuries, severe PTSD, disease, and death. We also learn of the refugee communities who may have more support, but who find themselves placed into and therefore harmed by the same job in order to gain any benefits from their refugee status. "Processing" plants rely on the vulnerability of these workers along with prison laborers paid 25 cents an hour. This means they are also often run by men who sexually harass and assault workers, who make threats and defy the already meager legal restrictions, and so on. We learn what it is like to be a mother forced to do a job bludgeoning baby pigs. We learn of the slaughter rate of 3 chickens per second allowed by both democrat and republican legislatures, causing immense pain for the workers and resulting in the birds who are not killed fast enough drowning in scalding water.

That summary may make it seem like a trauma dump, but I assure you that this book is not that. My already long review has its limits. We also learn of these peoples hopes, desires, and joys. We learn of the lives they could have- lives that are indeed possible with change. The book ends with a grounded and detailed section including solutions for every problem it presents which include further support for farmers to transition away from factory farming, animal welfare measures making animals lives slightly less miserable, unions and worker protection measures for those laboring in farms and slaughterhouses, and systemic economic changes. While I have not followed every single effort, I have generally found Mercy for Animals to be an org that understands how to mix welfarism with abolition (a long standing argument occurring between animal advocates.) However, I was not the biggest fan of how cage free eggs were spoken of. While she does acknowledge that the practice does not come close to eliminating suffering, she neglects the marketing aspect of these (predominantly also factory farming) companies that make well intentioned but misled people imagine chickens running around happily in the grass and dying of old age, when the reality is far more horrific. These corporations lack empathy but not cunning. They know how to market any loss to turn it into a win and we need to think of that. That said, if I was in a battery cage the size of a small closet with 7 other people and someone offered me a large, crowded, dank warehouse to die in instead, I would choose the latter.

If you will allow me a final moment for a more personal vent. The information in this book not only infuriated and hurt due to the horrifying nature of atrocity. It bothered me because I worry that, no matter how perfectly the information is presented, it won't be heard. The group I kept thinking of most throughout this book, were the non/anti-vegan leftists who use strawmen and tokenization to avoid taking a hard look at our relationships to these industries and their victims. This is likely because anti-vegan sentiment often hurts the most when it comes from a respected leftist turned reactionary, a skilled environmentalist turned agribusiness lobbyist, and so on. White, single issue vegans (like white single issue proponents of any movement) are in part to blame for the divide, and there are legitimate criticisms. But, I rarely find honest conversation. I find defensiveness and cognitive dissonance. It reminds me of the Rob Zombie quote, "Everyone "loves" animals until they hear the word 'vegan'. Then they'll argue tooth and nail why it's acceptable to abuse them." I would love to see non/anti-vegan leftists read this book. I want to hear what they have to say about farmworkers picking vegans' plants (who they only bring up when veganism is a topic despite most farmland going to animal agribusiness and feed,) after they read about the struggle of slaughterhouse workers (who they of course never mention.) I want to hear from the upper middle class white person who tokenizes BIPOC communities in these discussions (while simultaneously erasing them) explain to me why spraying pig feces on their homes for bacon is helping. I also want the vegetarians and the "humane" slaughter proponents to pay attention- not the ones who are just doing the best they can, but the "not like the other girls" subset who are hostile to animal rights and veganism. I want them to understand the cost of dairy and eggs and how it is often higher than the meat they abstain from for ethical reasons. I want them to read about what happens to these animals and the humans forced into hell with them.

I say this as someone who almost 19 years ago was a non-vegan. Most of us were not born with perfected leftist ideals making us immune to the world influence we grew up in. Many of us, including recovering teen edgelords like myself, were first hostile to the idea of animal liberation or criticism of various related systems. This vent isn't meant as a superiority thing. It's meant to lay bare that many of the arguments my usually otherwise like minded kin make against animal liberation and veganism are awful and self-contradictory. They are almost always a hard turn to the far right or doing the work of capitalism via tokenization. They are often bad faith and even recreate the oppression dynamics that we claim to be against. This hurts not just because the arguments are harmful, but because I don't think they believe them in their hearts. There is room for more. There is room for a better world for all of us.

Please read this book. Read it even if you think you and I have nothing in common. You may find that we do. I hope this book helps others create the kinds of relationships and successful transitions that the author and her fellow organizers have created. Despite how tough it was at times, it gave me more hope than I have had in a while.

This was also posted to my goodreads and blog. 

I'm hoping to write a longer review later. I have some extreme reactions to this. Most of the entries are fantastic and I saw a lot of familiar names from queer porn and was saddened to hear of what they went through. I learned a lot about sex work activism and organizing efforts. The essays on how to decipher cults from chosen family and the corruption within "ethical" and "feminist" porn companies were my personal favorites. 

One essay details what is in my opinion one of the most irresponsible exercises of (bdsm) power exchange that I've read and I can't stop thinking about how ridiculous I find it being included in this. I've done demos and have been in some hardcore play scenarios and D/s relationships and even with blanket consent in a 24/7 agreement, I would find it abominable to 1. Do a demo with a slave without discussion of 2. PUBLIC humiliation involving enemas and diapers which is 3. their first experience of the sort 4. having paid no attention to their health ahead of time, 6. in front of a class you're supposed to be teaching proper consent to, and 7. painting the whole thing as ok bc you call them an uwu good boy after. I do not shy away from extremes and this was so irresponsible at best that I can't stop thinking about it. Why was that essay in this book?

This obsession has kept me from writing a more coherent review.

 A fun and creative way to send a heavy handed message that is very important while still being highly entertaining. Probably longer review later. 

Even master birders with decades of experience will often concede that they struggle with identification of gulls. These birds are so diverse yet so similar, have so many different phases where they look drastically different, yet very similar to one another in similar cycles, and sometimes telling them apart is a matter of the edge of a single feather or something equally ridiculous. As a result I was excited to get my hands on a copy of Amar Ayyash's The Gull Guide: North America.

I myself am not a master birder. While I am not a complete amateur since I have some years of experience under my belt, I only very recently started venturing out into interactions with other people who can teach me new things outside of my own reading and studying. As a result a guide like this is exceptionally valuable. The reason this book works so well, in my opinion, is that it does not fall into the trap that some guides do and trying to simplify something complicated. The author discusses this in how some people do not want to teach the different feathers and parts of the bird so as not to confuse someone new. However, with gulls as well as some other species, being able to tell these minute differences apart is critical. Ayyash also critiques the "x winter" labeling style since it's inaccurate given the differences in molt and breeding months between species and instead uses a far more accurate "x cycle" labeling structure.

The information as well as the many charts and labels are indeed somewhat intimidating, but I found myself completely engaged. I was not intimidated in the way one can feel like they're drowning in information that's impossible to parse. There are copious amounts of photos showing each bit of information from a different angle. All of the photos have clear descriptions that help to learn things by sight quite well. Each section on an individual species has tons of photos and many different ways of identifying and thinking about the birds. There is even a section on aberrant birds such as leucistic and melanistic gulls.

Ayyash also offers general birding tips on when to step back and when to hyper focus. He gives examples of confusing identifications that were made in error. The only criticism I have of the book's structure is that the multitude of images in an average sized book means that it's tough to see some of the details in smaller images. But, I'm not sure this could have been created any other way because making the images large would make the book so massive and heavy as to be unusable. I'd rather have this structure than fewer images.

Approaching the material this way not only helps one see the whole bird and learn more, it gives the reader multiple ways to focus on the birds. What I mean by this is that people learn and perceive things in different ways with different traits dominating their minds. This gives enough information on each identification type to be used by each person. Because it is full of photos and the print is high quality, it is a heavier guide. Sort of like a medium-sized Bible. So, to use in the field, I imagine this guide would be better for something like a stationary birding session. However, as someone who uses both apps in the field and print guides at home, don't let this deter you. There's something about book guides in hand that aid identification in ways that are different than those on electronics, including the wonderful pages available on Cornell's website. I can't even describe what this is, I just know that there are many times that I've been stumped only to open a book that makes everything clear to me. This book is indispensable as one of those on my shelf. None of my other guides, of which I have many, managed to make it possible to more confidently identify gulls.

I still have a lot of practicing to do. Recently a group of ring-billed gulls in multiple cycles stood in a nice little line for me. Thanks to this guide, I was able to pick out the features and cycles of each which was a great exercise with an abundant species I'm somewhat familiar with. The next time a rare bird alert goes out for a gull, I'll be much more confident in my ability to find that needle in a haystack.

This was also posted to my goodreads. and blog.

Rasheedah Phillips' Dismantling the Master's Clock is the sort of creative academic scholarship that makes me glad that I still give academic books a shot, despite some of them seeming to be little more than reinventing the wheel using the biggest words possible. The author is a jack of many trades, boasting not only academic author chops, but she is also an activist, organizer, artist, and lawyer. Her ability to mash these things together and come out with something coherent, engaging, and fascinating is a major strength of this book.

I took my time reading this. It is very out there (in a good way) and quite dense. It includes many quantum physics topics that I have read the popular science versions of but was very rusty even on those. Phillips also is constantly blending metaphors and real histories to create a constant stream of thought exercises on the topics of time, race, social justice, gender, and so on. I will say that I would love to hear a review from someone who is more of an expert in quantum mechanics to see what their take on her use of these concepts in this text would be. My very meager understanding is that quantum mechanics are occurring at the tiniest of scales. Things work differently there than they do on the macro scale... sorta? Phillips uses a lot of quantum mechanics ideas- especially of duality of matter states and nonlinear timescapes- as a way of explaining how things occur or can be seen on a macro scale. From my understanding- again, a very limited one- this would not be accurate if taken literally. Sometimes it's not clear to me how literal she is being in this application. But, using quantum states as metaphor for history, culture, and experiences of Black and other marginalized people does make sense. It's a creative way of discussing things that have been studied and examined before in a new light. This offers new ways of thinking about both critical theory and the science of time, which is what separates this text from your run of the mill academic book on either subject.

One thing central to the book is the phenomenon of "Colored People's Time" (CPT) which Phillips dives deeply into (also comparing it with the quantum physics concept of charge-parity time.) She discusses its use as a pejorative, as a lie, as a different cultural way of living, as an inevitable response to years of oppression, and a way to transform one's thinking about space and time in general. She explains her ideas about "temporal oppression" which involves forcing Black people into a version of time that was designed without their freedom in mind. My personal experience is with similar phenomena less centered around race often called "anarchist time" or "punk standard time." I have similar mixed feelings and experiences about how these looser interpretations of pun(k)tuality affect oppressed people. The confines of strict schedules can both harm marginalized people who cannot meet them OR harm them by causing them to wait when they don't have the ability to. My very, frankly primitive, understanding of these things has left me frustrated many times sitting for hours longer, irritated, wondering how the world is supposed to function when someone needs to be relieved of their post. Thankfully, Phillips is talking about something so much deeper than that. I feel honestly grateful to now see how shallow my understanding of these things has been.

One thing about linear, strict, standardized time keeping is how rooted in European colonization it is. Now, I knew this was a thing, but did not really know the specifics of it. I am sitting here surrounded by clocks (mostly because I dig the aesthetic, but also because I can barely keep a schedule without having them in my face constantly and running 15 minutes ahead.) Reading about when the first clocks were erected in public squares and how that changed time keeping was eye opening for me. Time is no longer based majorly on more rational things like light, seasons, weather, and so on specific to various locations and cultural needs. It is based on clocks designed by a small subset of people mainly for capitalistic, globalization, or related reasons. This review is obviously the briefest of cliff notes. The author presents a case that is both informative and convincing that the way we currently keep time is oppressive and doomed to fail the most vulnerable. It is designed in ways to control and also in ways that make those with the least resources have the most difficult time meeting deadlines.

Another thing she discusses is who is allowed grace with time. One thing that really hit home for me as someone dealing with my hellscape of chronic illnesses was the mention of doctor's visits. That was one of the first things I used to think of when folks would discuss looser concepts of being "on time." How would a doctor's appointment with life sustaining treatment be run if people showed up whenever they wanted? (Which- for the record- is not at all what she is arguing.) Phillips ends up mentioning the waits in many doctor's offices and it came together in a more personal way for me. I can sit in a waiting room for 2 hours and it is expected that I do so if those we are paying are running late. But, if a patient- again, the person paying- is 15 minutes late, they can be asked to leave. My doctor can reschedule my appointment 3 times, but too many cancellations on my end could leave me looking for someone new. The institution's time is valued over the patients', even if the doctors themselves don't feel that way.

The really deep dive goes into the history of slavery and Jim Crow. How long did Black people have to wait? Centuries. Yes, this is big picture and abstract, but the only way to survive waiting centuries for even partial freedom is to have a looser, more fluid idea of time. She wraps up the book with an interesting study of time capsules and how they differ across cultures and races. It is here that she uses the most examples of art installations including her own to show how imagining new ways of understanding time give a more accurate depiction of the world at large. I must stress again how this book does a much better job explaining this in detail. I have struggled to write this review in giving people a taste of the contents that are so very complex. What I can say for sure is that no matter what sort of views you have on time and space, this book will have you thinking differently about them.

Overall, Rasheedah Phillips uses her varied skills to discuss these topics in creative and fresh ways. The book will require your time, thought, and attention- and it pays off. I hope that folks with physics degrees will read this book and offer their takes as I imagine they would have very interesting things to add. This is definitely an example of an academic book that is both heavy and worth the effort to lift.

This was also posted to my blog and goodreads. 

Probably a longer review later, but this was an interesting mix of memoir, history, ethics, and sociology mixed together and captured very well what happens to folks who speak out against the group, especially if the group has a lot of power and one is fighting it alone. Left me feeling both validated and depressed.

I'm not the biggest fan of how much neoliberal stuff was in this, but they also basically included people who contradict the very capitalist and centrist solutions. So, it's a tough book to rate. It can't hurt to have a wide variety I suppose. Most of the entries were good.