MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewCollins-Dexter compellingly ties her engaging assessments of the Black skinheads’ artistic output to a broader political critique, often drawing on the history of media and labor movements and social justice ... Each essay reflects deep research, passion and respect for her subject ... There are holes in Collins-Dexter’s theory. She mentions that younger Black voters show more interest in socialism than their elders; by her definition, would they not also be considered Black skinheads? Are Black-led L.G.B.T.Q. movements also Black skinheads, standing on the margins and attempting to move the center? ... The thing is, this ideology is not as new as the author makes it out to be ... The book downplays the demonstrable influence of Black leftist thought and principles in a moment when such \'radical\' ideas as police and prison abolition and more robust union organizing are seeing more airtime than they have in decades ... My heart wants the same thing Collins-Dexter’s does, and maybe that’s the place to start: an acknowledgment and honoring of those on the margins. Perhaps her point is that we are actually all Black skinheads, conforming in some ways and not in others — all just trying to reconcile our inner Kanye West.
Alex S. Vitale
PositiveThe New RepublicVitale’s book does not give a comprehensive history of the police but rather examines the implications of that history for American police today ... These are the kinds of societal reforms that could make America less dependent on police. To get there would require a shift in public opinion and a marshaling of the political will ... Unless Americans can reconceptualize safety, taking away its racist connotations and recognizing that we are safer not with more guns and violence but with adequate food, clothing, housing, education, health care, jobs, and income for all, we are doomed to continue calling the police for rescue from every conceivable threat, real or imagined.
DeRay Mckesson
PanBookforum...Mckesson has traveled to demonstrations around the country, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to his native Baltimore, and documented them in real time via social media. He is, at the moment, the most visible spokesperson of a certain part of the movement: the protest ... In twelve chapters covering organizing, identity, activism, and more, Mckesson sets out to provide an \'intellectual, pragmatic political framework for a new liberation movement.\' But he doesn’t move much beyond poetic rhapsodizing about protest, which he romanticizes to the exclusion of most other aspects of resistance. Indeed, he’s outright dismissive of some ... Mckesson is, it must be said, a master of the tweet...but long-form writing generally requires qualities such as specificity, meaningful examples, evidence, and storytelling, and many of the powerful, pithy statements made in Mckesson’s book turn flat in the absence of evocative description and context.
Brian Platzer
PanThe New York Times Book ReviewTo say that Bed-Stuy Is Burning is ambitious would be like saying Taylor Swift is popular. Platzer takes on topics as big as God, money, parenthood, marriage, gentrification and police violence. But this level of ambition can leave a story unfocused, or worse, focused in the wrong direction ... What black characters we do encounter never fully emerge past their plainly drawn biographical sketches ... The descriptions of nonwhite characters range from lazy and stereotypical ('She was Asian and very skinny') to outright offensive ('The man was Indian. Dot not feather,' the extortionist notes). Worse than that is how many characters go without description. These are the black residents of Bed-Stuy ... The most generous reading of Bed-Stuy Is Burning takes its inadequate interest in its black characters as a larger comment on the way these kinds of stories typically sideline black people’s narratives. But the earnestness with which the white characters are portrayed frustrates that generosity ... this is ultimately a novel about black people happening to white people.
