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SEE
REVIEWS FROM DECEMBER 2000 ISSUE
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES09-4-0406 Banks, Ingrid. Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women’s Consciousness. New York: New York Univ. Press, 2000. 210 pp. ISBN 0-8147-1336-X, $55.00 (cl); 0-8147-1337-8, $17.50 (pb). This interesting work details research that illuminates the role that hair plays in black women’s lives. In interviews with black women ages 13 to 76, the subjects discuss such issues as why they chose their current hairstyles, at what age they became aware that hair was important, and what experiences they have had where hair was an issue. Black women have chosen their hairstyles for various reasons—convenience, personal style, or as a way to stay connected to their historical roots. A group of black women doctors believed their profession allowed them a great deal of freedom with their hairstyles but thought that black women in the corporate world had more restrictions on their choices of hairstyles. Black women have had such limited control over their destinies and lives since slavery that having control over their hair is one area they have been able to maintain. This work made me stop and think of my own hair and remember how I have judged others by their hairstyles. I realized that hair has had a much more significant impact on my life than I had ever thought. In the 1960s and 1970s, I wore an Afro to defy my mother and the establishment. In the 1980s I wore my hair relaxed because I wanted to be accepted by the establishment—I worked at a predominantly white institution. In the 1990s and today, I wear my hair in whatever style I choose. Hair itself is not the real issue in this work; the book is really dealing with black women’s attitudes, self-esteem, power, and having control over aspects of their lives. —Charlie
Spencer Lackey 09-4-0407 Belgrade Circle, ed. The Politics of Human Rights. New York: Verso, 2000. 360 pp. Introduction by Obrad Savic. ISBN 1-85984-727-7, $25.00. This collection features articles from some of the most prominent moral and political thinkers of the past 30 years—John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jon Elster. Most have also appeared in the Belgrade Circle Journal, edited by dissident Serbian intellectual Obrad Savic, who provides introductory and concluding remarks. Part I offers exceptionally interesting and relatively new analyses of human rights. Richard Rorty’s dismissal of philosophical efforts to ground rights in a universal human nature retains the controversial bite it had when it was first published in 1993. Aaron Rhodes provides an impressive rejection of Rorty’s skepticism about rights, arguing forthrightly that it is the responsibility of intellectuals to seek and speak the truth about elemental rights. Charles Taylor imagines ways in which non-Western traditions can come to accept what have been so far very Westernized formulations of individual rights. I found his discussion of Thailand and Theravada Buddhism to be especially creative and fertile. Disappointing is the dearth of contributions from Serbian thinkers. There are the short pieces by Savic, an annotated list of international declarations, and Yugoslavian statutes on the rights of minorities put together by a law student at the University of Belgrade. One of the ideas behind this anthology, I take it, is that political philosophy could be brought to bear on the recent crises in Bosnia and Kosovo and used to help enlighten and temper pan-Serbian nationalism. In fact, there is very little about Yugoslavia and more about Israel and the Palestinian problem. This is really a loosely arranged and uneven compilation of articles, whose publication is nevertheless noteworthy because it informs us that there are sophisticated critical voices to be heard in what remains of Yugoslavia. —Paul
Santilli 09-4-0408 Blakeslee, Spencer. The Death of American Antisemitism. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood/Praeger, 2000. 304 pp. ISBN 0-275-96508-2, $69.95. This is a thoroughly researched, tightly organized, and lucidly written study—of one side of the picture. American anti-Semitism is in steep decline. Nevertheless, American Jews feel a powerful sense of "foreboding." So far, so good. But Blakeslee also maintains that money-centered and power-hungry Jewish advocacy groups (American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League) perpetuate the myth of anti-Semitism and exaggerate the threats to Jewish security in order to advance their organizations’ interests. A summary of the European roots of American anti-Semitism offers a sound historic background, providing the basis for understanding why American Jews, despite success, still worry. Blakeslee’s research and presentation of American Jewish history are accurate and honest. Interviews with more than 20 American Jewish leaders add immediacy and credibility, but he talks and refers only to the people who tell him what he wants to hear and say. Blakeslee’s study centers on tension between blacks and Jews, neglecting the important role of these advocacy organizations in keeping church and state separate and monitoring organizations that hate blacks and Jews with equal vehemence. Eighteen months ago, I was a victim of a public anti-Semitic attack in a local newspaper. In a matter of the separation of church and state, a columnist vilified me, using language taken from the deicide myth, language well worn by 2,000 years of hatred of Jews. Blakeslee challenges those who claim to be victims of anti-Semitism to detail their "personal experience." Fortunately, the local Jewish Community Relations Council stood behind me. A decline in anti-Semitism does not mean it has disappeared. And were Jewish advocacy organizations to disappear, there would unfortunately be a need to reinvent them. —Rabbi
Dennis Ross 09-4-0409 Dana, Richard H., ed. Handbook of Cross-Cultural and Multicultural Personality Assessment. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000. 720 pp. ISBN 0-8058-2789-7, $145.00. In general, this book will make a significant contribution to the field of psychology. There are many hands-on practical strategies, making it an excellent text for practitioners and even researchers. There are also many culturally sensitive definitions that will give the practitioner a point of reference to better understand concepts in cross-cultural issues. A major strength is the respect accorded to alternatives to traditional assessment and the many innovative suggestions for multicultural personality assessment. The only limitation of this book is that mental disorders could have been addressed in more detail than through the personality tests themselves. Therefore, suggestions for assessing individuals with childhood disorders, pervasive developmental disorders, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, thought disorders, personality disorders, and so on, should have been offered under a distinctly separate section, rather than presented in a chapter on specific populations, such as the chapter on assessment of depression among American Indians. In general this is a powerful asset to the mental health field. I strongly recommend this volume for use as a supplemental or even a major text in multiethnic studies. —Sharon-Ann
Gopaul McNicol 09-4-0410 Davis, Mike. Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the U.S. City. New York: Verso, 2000. 158 pp. ISBN 1-85984-771-4, $19.00. While Davis, a faculty member at SUNY Stony Brook, makes a sincere attempt to demonstrate how Latino immigrants, legal and illegal, reinvented the American urban landscape, he promises more than he can deliver. Instead, he provides us with a well-written advocacy study of the "browning" of American cities due to current and projected immigration of Latinos to the United States over the next 50 years. Unfortunately, Davis assumes that the current patterns of Latin American immigration will remain constant. He ignores the major changes in American immigration policy over the last 35 years and how the policy could just as easily change again. Also, the push factors from Mexico or Dominican Republic could just as easily change, and economic/political instability in eastern Europe could send new waves of immigrants from Romania or Russia to the United States. It is far too early to conclude that patterns of previous immigrant groups’ "Americanization" will be fundamentally altered by Latino immigration. The strength of Davis’s study is his nuanced account of the diversity of immigration from Latin America and regional and local patterns of immigration. Davis is also sensitive to indigenous immigrants that students of immigration policy tend to ignore. Another strong point in this study is the analysis of the cross-border connections of La Frontera—Mexican-American border communities like San Diego and Tijuana, and El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. Finally, Davis gives us a thoughtful summary of the economic difficulties faced by underskilled immigrants in the changing American economy and the limitations on upward mobility. This work is recommended to anyone interested in the impact of Latino immigrants on American cities, especially Los Angeles and New York. —Harvey
J. Strum 09-4-0411 Franklin, Donna L. What’s Love Got to Do with It? Understanding and Healing the Rift Between Black Men and Women. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. 256 pp. ISBN 0-684-81851-5, $25.00. Franklin looks at black women’s and men’s relationships, especially at the issue of why black men sometimes find it difficult to commit to a relationship. She looks at many factors. Some go all the way back to Africa. The highest honor a man could achieve in some African cultures was to become a father and provide for his family. When brought to America as slaves, black men were not allowed to take care of or provide for their families; many were sold away from their families and never even knew what happened to them. This destroyed their self-esteem. Franklin tries to explain how black males feel threatened by strong black women. In some relationships where the black woman has more education or makes more money than her black mate, it poses a real problem. Some black males feel that in order to assert their manhood it is necessary to be abusive to their black mates. The appeal of the white woman was also a factor historically as well as today, for the dominant definition of female beauty was one that prized light skin. At one point after Reconstruction, the author argues, black men did not find black women feminine or appealing, so black women began to emulate white women. They straightened their hair, wore makeup, and tried to be more like white women to attract the black male. Franklin concludes by discussing the healing that must take place between black males and females in order to get back on track with real relationships. Positive ideas came from the Million Man and Million Woman marches, and in the "Sister, I’m Sorry" project, groups of black men openly apologize to black women for the mistreatment women have received from other black men. I found this to be an interesting historical account of black life in America. However, it did not provide many answers as to why black men are unwilling to commit, other than the scars of slavery. —Charlie
Spencer Lackey 09-4-0412 Gott, Richard. In the Shadow of the Liberator: Hugo Chávez and the Transformation of Venezuela. New York: Verso, 2000. 246 pp. ISBN 1-85984-775-7, $23.00. Throughout the 1990s, Hugo Chávez emerged as the dominant figure of Venezuelan politics. The jailed leader of a failed military putsch at the beginning of the decade, he is now the popular president of his oil-rich country. He has vowed to redistribute the wealth of that nation and castigates the corruption of its oligarchs. As a populist ally of Fidel Castro, he is also emerging on the international scene as a prickly challenger to the orthodox interests of the United States in Latin America. Although a considerable amount has appeared on Chávez in the world press, little is known in detail of his life, career, and ideas. This study of Chávez by a former editor of the London Guardian and writer on Latin America begins to fill the gap. Gott opens by focusing on the current policies and actions of the Chávez government and then places these within the context of Chávez’s life and military career and Venezuelan political history of the past generation. He then delineates the influence on Chávez of the ideas of the early-nineteenth-century Venezuelan political luminaries Simón Bolívar and Simón Rodríguez. Finally, he describes the development within the Chávez government of its political, electoral, and constitutional strategies and policies on national development, the economy, oil, agriculture, and indigenous populations. Gott is an intimate of Chávez, leaders in his government, and numerous contemporary Venezuelan political figures. Generally he renders a favorable judgment on the Chávez presidency and its ambitions, and finds that "the mass of the pueblo are with Chávez, just as . . . they have been with Perón, with Velasco, with Torríjos, with Allende and with Fidel." —Edward
A. Riedinger 09-4-0413 Joppke, Christian and Lukes, Steven, eds. Multicultural Questions. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000. 270 pp. ISBN 0-19-829610-X, $45.00. This collection of 10 articles by political philosophers and social theorists is essential reading for anyone who wishes to think clearly about multiculturalism. The editors’ introduction sets the tone with a superb essay on the central issues taken up in contemporary writing on multiculturalism—diversity, group rights, and ethnic identity. What are these issues? First and foremost is the tension between group allegiance to nonliberal traditions and individual citizenship in a liberal state committed to freedom, equal rights, and respect. Many multiculturalists like Will Kymlicka want to establish group rights for fragile linguistic-ethnic-religious communities (indigenous North America peoples, for example) within the nation state. The problem with this, at least in its more extreme versions, is that a state’s legally enforced recognition of the values and practices of some traditional cultures may weaken the status of vulnerable individuals like women and children in those cultures and threaten their civil rights. As Ayelet Shachar points out, the family law policies of many orthodox religious sects, for example, have a "detrimental effect on the citizenship status of women; for women stand at the fulcrum of a set of legal rules and policies that control their personal status, sexuality, and procreation, and are encoded in the group’s essential traditions." This issue is closely related to a moral-epistemological question common in debates about multiculturalism. Many American academics link their support of multicultural policies recognizing difference and diversity with a skepticism about foundational values and universal truths concerning human nature. Indeed, support for the inherent worth of multicultural identities would appear to demand support for the relative and variegated nature of human values. But as various authors in this collection point out, notably Martin Hollis in his chapter "Is Universalism Ethnocentric?," the recognition and support of human flourishing in the context of group identity face self-referential inconsistencies if these liberal values are simply seen as those of one more (Western) cultural tribe. Multiculturalists ought to defend at least some basic principles as having universal application and metaphysical heft or, as Hollis puts it, "liberalism has to remain a fighting creed with universalist pretensions." For anyone who thinks that civil discussion, rational arguments, evidence, and respectful consideration of alternative opinions are the only way to shed light on thorny issues like multiculturalism, this book is a refreshing break from the belligerent heat of recent culture wars. —Paul
Santilli 09-4-0414 Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2000. 331 pp. ISBN 0-520-22301-2, $27.50. This comparative study of contemporary religious terrorism demonstrates that religious ideas and a sense of religious community have been a central part of many of the cultures of violence from which terrorism springs. In contrast to politics, religion provides teleological moral justification and an enduring absolutism, which generate intense commitment to transhistorical goals. Political terrorists by definition have goals subject to negotiation and resolution in an earthly context. The aspirations of religious terrorists are cosmic, ultimately beyond historical spheres. To a degree, that represents a deliberate reaction against what religious terrorists see as the soft treacheries endemic in modern cultures of compromise. It represents as well a reaction to the increasing secularization of public life—which does little to resolve the confusion endemic since the collapse of Communism and the rise of global commercialism. Sociologist Juergensmeyer offers five possible solutions. First, the terrorists are destroyed. Second, the terrorists are deterred by violent reprisal. Third, the terrorists win—as, for example, by replacing Israel with Palestine. Fourth, religion is taken out of politics by mutual agreement, reprising Europe’s situation after the Thirty Years’ War. Finally, religion is integrated into politics, providing healing sacral functions in a secular world. He finds the last outcome the most promising. That it also seems the least likely does not detract from the scholarship and reasoning offered in this provocative work. —Dennis
E. Showalter 09-4-0415 Lee, Essie E. Nurturing Success: Successful Women of Color and Their Daughters. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood/Praeger, 2000. 312 pp. ISBN 0-275-96033-1, $65.00. Seventeen successful American women of color and 19 of their daughters were interviewed for this work. Many had to overcome adversity to achieve success. Each segment provides historical information regarding the women’s particular ethnic background and also deals with customs and norms for their background. The ethnic groups represented are African American, Haitian, Asian Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipina, Korean, Japanese, Cuban, Dominican, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Native American. Common themes uniting the interviews are strong family values and a belief in a spiritual being. Many times a great deal of sacrifice had to be made. One woman had to leave her children in the United States and return to the Philippines to care for her sick mother because she was the eldest daughter and this was her responsibility. These successful women are doctors, lawyers, judges, scientists, businesspersons, and educators. Many still hold to their cultural traditions. For example, even though these women work outside the home, many still feel it is the woman’s duty to take care of the children and maintain the home. These women have been successful in their careers while fulfilling these duties. When the daughters of these women were interviewed, they did not always view their mothers as great role models. Many of the daughters express a desire not to be like their mothers, yet they all appear to love and respect their mothers. This is a solid, often inspiring book that is easy to read and understand. It provides enough background information on the various cultures so that readers can see how these successful women were raised. This work also portrays a positive and nuanced image of nonwhite cultures. Highly recommended. —Charlie
Spencer Lackey 09-4-0416 Macedo, Donaldo and Bartolomé, Lilia. Dancing with Bigotry: Beyond the Politics of Tolerance. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. 175 pp. ISBN 0-312-21608-4, $35.00. Despite its title, which alludes to a general study of covert racism in society, this book focuses almost exclusively on the field of education. Macedo and Bartolomé argue that teachers’ emphasis on "tolerance" and respecting differences does little to eliminate institutionalized racism in the schools. As a result, students living in poverty, African-American students, and students who do not speak English as a first language fare worse in the schools both academically and socially. The authors point to the influence of the mass media on teachers as well as the institutional climate of the school. Interviews with noted educational theorists Paolo Freire and Henry Giroux identify problem areas and propose solutions. The authors call for a school environment where the students’ culture and language are not only respected but also incorporated into the pedagogy and curriculum. The book urges teachers to become aware of their own assumptions based on race, class, gender, and language and to examine critically the images present in books and the mass media. The writing is dense and the focus almost entirely theoretical, making this work more suited to graduate students and faculty in schools of education rather than preservice and practicing teachers. However, teachers who are interested in critical approaches to their profession will find much to ponder in this volume. —Lyn Miller-Lachmann 09-4-0417 Prashad, Vijay. The Karma of Brown Folk. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2000. 248 pp. ISBN 0-8166-3438-6, $24.95. Prashad presents and attempts to defend his argument that immigrants to the United States of Asian Indian ancestry (desis) are racists, specifically anti-black. He points out that the U S. government, through its immigration policies, "selects" people of this origin to immigrate to the United States. In choosing immigration to the United States, these immigrants accept a societal contract with inherent racist policies—socially, structurally, and institutionally. These policies, according to the author, expect the Asian Indian immigrants to work hard, be models of ethnic minority success, but socialize only among themselves. A twin argument of the main one in the book is that in doing so, these immigrants are used by white society as weapons against African Americans. The roots of these anti-black sentiments are derived from white society’s supremacy, judging certain people greater than others by white standards, according to the author. Asian Indian immigrants are thus considered "the perpetual solution" to what is seen as the crisis of black America. This book is well documented and biting, if not bitter, in its assessment of a narrow aspect of the lives of a newer immigrant group to the United States. The notes at the end of each chapter are exhaustive. The usefulness of this book will be limited, however, because it is poorly edited and badly written; it reads like a convoluted diatribe of the ultra-left. The author takes the reader into winding roads of leftist rhetoric, and the reader then has to wend his own way back to make sense of it. It is a very difficult read. This is regrettable; the book could have been a useful addition to collections in the areas of social and race relations in the United States, as well as to collections on an immigrant group for which there is not too much information easily available. Not recommended. —Hemwatie
Jaipershad 09-4-0418 Schell, Orville. Virtual Tibet: Searching for Shangri-La from the Himalayas to Hollywood. New York: Henry Holt, 2000. 352 pp. ISBN 0-8050-4381-0, $26.00. Illusions captivate the mind, and when those illusions become embroidered through the cultural and artistic machinery of Hollywood, the mind needs to be watchful lest its dreams become its prison. This is the basic message of Schell’s Virtual Tibet, which describes Westerners’ fascination with Tibet. Schell does not describe Tibet and its people so much as he describes Hollywood and its actors, directors, public relations agents, set designers, and costumers. Virtual Tibet is the ethereal concoction wrought by those who use cameras instead of meditation, and film scripts instead of Buddhist sutras, to explore what is valuable about Tibet. Schell traces the origin of Hollywood’s love affair with Tibet to late-_nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century accounts by adventurers who entered Tibet’s borders by stealth or force. Closed to Westerners for centuries, Tibet became known as a mysterious, spiritual place—unlike any in the West. According to Schell, it is a relatively easy step from these adventurers’ accounts of Tibet to Hollywood’s more glamorous version of it. Virtual Tibet discusses the Chinese oppression of Tibet’s people and how the Chinese have destroyed Tibet’s Buddhist monasteries, schools, and temples. But because the book is not about the real Tibet, these facts receive only passing mention. Readers who are interested in what is actually happening in Tibet or interested in the religious values that Tibetan Buddhism has preserved will look for other books about the country. Nonetheless, this is a valuable book for what it seeks to do and what it accomplishes. —Linda
E. Patrik 09-4-0419 Shawcross, William. Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. 447 pp. ISBN 0-684-83233-X, $27.50. Journalist Shawcross sees the post–_Cold War world as being one of hurt. Mirabile dictu, little of it is the direct fault of the United States. Instead Shawcross indicts the by-now usual suspects: warlords, ethnic cleansers, genocidal local hostilities. His reportage is first-rate, including both vivid pictures of specific situations from Sarajevo to Rwanda and perceptive capsule explanations of their causes. His principal sympathies are with a United Nations denied by its members both the physical power and the moral standing to make more than minimal efforts to stop the bloodshed. He scores telling critical points against the emotional humanitarianism he perceives as shaping Western discourse on the subject of regional conflict outside the West. He argues that good will without power, and power without understanding, are both near-guarantees of making specific problems worse. He warns that comity, to say nothing of reconciliation, is a long-term process at best and cautions against falling prey to a desire for quick-fix miracles. Like most of his counterparts on the left, Shawcross ignores the effects of a half-century’s demonizing the West while sentimentalizing the ideas, individuals, and cultures that, left to their own devices, admittedly created the Third World hellholes he so eloquently describes. But one cannot expect full insight immediately. Deliver Us from Evil is at least a step in the right direction. —Dennis
E. Showalter 09-4-0420 Yang, Philip Q. Ethnic Studies: Issues and Approaches. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 2000. 314 pp. ISBN 0-7914-4479-1, $59.50 (cl); 0-7914-4480-5, $19.95 (pb). Yang’s is a timely book on a timely topic, not just because of the census but because the projected ethnic makeup of this country calls into question whether these are truly "united" states. Tracing the academic concern with ethnic studies back to the turbulent sixties, Yang accepts the broad definition of an ethnic group as one that is "socially distinguished, by others or by itself, on the basis of its unique culture, national origin, or racial characteristics." This is an expansive topic, and it is handled admirably in this volume. As a primer to the subject, Ethnic Studies provides a clear-cut outline of the evolution of the discipline, offers concise definitions of the parameters that scholars and researchers incorporate in their studies, and suggests paths for further digression and research on the topic of ethnicity in general or various ethnic groups specifically. The book is clearly U.S.-centered and provides insight, both historically and currently, about the economic, social, and political development of this country based on our ever-evolving ethnic complexity. Ethnic Studies would serve as an excellent basic text for a course on the topic. For the uninitiated or the merely confused, Yang presents the topic clearly and logically without being dogmatic. An additional bonus is the excellent list of reference sources, which includes the classics (Beyond the Melting Pot) and the more recent (A Different Mirror). Years from now our view of ethnic studies will no doubt have evolved into varying theories and different approaches. As we wrap up the first census of the twenty-first century, however, this volume suggests a way of giving texture to mere data. —Catherine
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