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* With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association
of the Women of Afghanistan, by Anne E. Brodsky
Routledge
* Subversive Southerner, Anne Braden and the
Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South, by Catherine Fos
lPalgrave MacMillan
* Into the Buzzsaw, Leading Jounalists Expose the Myth of a
Free Press, edited by Kristina Borjesson
Prometheus
* Iraq Under Siege, The Deadly Impact of Sanctions
and War, edited by Anthony Arnove
South End Press
* Remedios,
by Aurora Levins Morales
South End Press
* Power Politics,
by Arundhati Roy
South End Press
* Feminism & Antiracism: International Struggles for Justice, edited by France Winddance Twine & Kathleen M.
Blee
New York University Press
* Propaganda and the Public Mind, by Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian
South End Press
* Sweatshop Warriors, Immigrant Women Workers
Take On the Global Factory, by
Miriam Ching Yoon Louie
South End Press
* Coming Home To Jerusalem, A Personal
Journey, by Wendy Orange
Simon & Schuster
* The Gender & Consumer Culture Reader, edited by Jennifer Scanlon
New York University Press
* Perverse Spectators: the
practices of film reception, by
Janet Staiger
New York University Press
* Eat First--You Don't Know
What They'll Give You, The Adventures of an Immigrant Family and
Their Feminist Daughter, by Sonia
Pressman Fuentes
Xlibris Corp
* Feminism Is for Everybody:
Passionate Politics, by bell hooks
South End Press
* Voicework, by Edith Poor
Montemayor Press
With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary
Association of the Women of Afghanistan,
by Anne E. Brodsky (2003)
With a foreword from RAWA
With All Our Strength chronicles the history of RAWA and their battle for women's rights in Afghanistan. Through interviews with more than 100 members and supporters of RAWA, Brodsky reveals the principles behind their enormous success. With All Our Strength tells how RAWA's innovative structure and strong spirit of community have allowed this remarkable organization to survive. With All Our Strength is an ode to the resilience of Afghan women and a model for all human rights organizations. As RAWA says in their foreword, "This is the only book that uses firsthand experiences to accurately portray Afghan women not as silent victims under the burqas but warriors who have bravely resisted all oppressive regimes and have changed their lives and the lives of many others."
Arundhati Roy writes:
"Anne Brodsky's book gives us a ring side view of this extraordinary women's movement that is as doggedly committed to democracy as it is to dreaming of another, better world. Each of us needs a little RAWA."
Katha Pollit says:
"Anne Brodsky goes behind the headlines to look closely at a unique organization that according to popular stereotypes of Afghan women should not exist."
Ahmed Rashid calls it "A powerful story."
With All Our Strength is available in bookstores throughout the U.S., through a link on RAWA's website, from Amazon.com, and is coming to English language bookstores throughout the world.
All author proceeds go directly to RAWA
=====================================================
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
Mailing Address: RAWA, P.O.Box 374, Quetta, Pakistan
Mobile: 0092-300-8551638
Fax: 001-760-2819855
E-mail: rawa@rawa.org
Home Page: http://www.rawa.org
Mirror site: http://rawa.fancymarketing.net
Subversive Southerner, Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South
By Catherine Fosl
Reviewed by Martha Allen
WIFP Director
November, 2002
Anne had given us an early account about a portion of her life and the struggle for justice in The Wall Between. Released in 1958, The Wall Between describes the upheaval that took place in Louisville after she and Carl sold a home to a black family in 1954. In 1999, The Wall Between was re-released. In 2003, it is still a gripping story and contains valuable lessons about our history.
Now added to that, we have Fosl's biography of Anne Braden. While not an autobiography, many of Anne's words and writings are included, allowing her to speak for herself. Fosl covers a period of our history where segregation and racism was entrenched and blatent. It was also a time when anti-communism was used to divide people and extinguish progressive change. While both of these continue to this day, understanding of racism and anti-communism is more sophisticated. This is due to the movement for civil rights & civil liberties that fought hard-won battles and still struggles today. Anne Braden's life provides a fascinating history of much of this struggle for justice. Catherine Fosl also brings in other issues such as feminism, in the context of these times. Unfortunately, she does not bring a media analysis to the story she tells, although there is plenty of evidence provided throughout the biography. The anti-communist hysteria could not have happened as it did if the mass media had not given it the headlines it did and attack individuals. The media's role in keeping white opposition to integration stirred up is described in the book. Other media issues are documented but the overall issue of media democracy is not taken up. The book, however, is still outstanding in what it does achieve.
Anne Braden is a dedicated, life-long activist, that has gained the love and utmost respect from those who have worked with her and know her. She has inspired many individuals, myself included. I had the privilege to work with her in the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF), beginning in 1969. My parents had known Anne in the fifties through shared movement work, and it was my mother, Donna Allen, who had urged me to go south after college to work with the Bradens. Reading Fosl's book was a very moving experience for me as I am grateful that such a well-written book will share these stories with more people.
I highly recommend Subversive Southerner. It is a book that you will want to keep, so in this case, don't wait until your library obtains a copy.
(NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002)
Into the Buzzsaw
Leading Jounalists Expose the Myth of a
Free Press
Edited by Kristina Borjesson
Kristina Borjesson has been an independent producer and writer for almost twenty years. Besides editing this volume, she currently produces and co-hosts the Expert Witness Radio Show on WBAI in New York City. Before that, she produced for two CNN Newsstand magazine shows, Fortune and Entertainment Weekly, and worked at CBS network where she won an Emmy and a Murrow Award for her investigative reporting on "CBS Reports: Legacy of Shame" with Dan Rather and Randall Pinkston. The following year she was the producer and co-writer for "CBS Reports: The Last Revolutionary," a film biography of Cuba's Fidel Castro that was nominated for an Emmy.
Borjesson also contributed her findings on the TWA Flight 800 disaster to CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes. Prior to producing for CBS, Borjesson was field producer for "Showdown in Haiti," an Emmy-nominated investigative documentary for PBS's Frontline.
(March 2002, $26. ISBN 1-57392-972-7 Published
by Prometheus Books, 59 John Glenn Drive, Amherst, NY 14228-2197. http://www.prometheusbooks.com)
Into the buzzsaw refers to what happens when writers attempt to expose events that media owners prefer to keep hidden. The book documents evidence of the self-censorship that goes on, as well as the attacks on journalists who do not submit to self-censorship.
These are powerful stories that have found their way into print. Bravo! These narratives build a strong indictment of media businesses purporting to be professional, objective, journalism.
By the second half of the book, as you read about the CIA's involvement in the war on drugs and the media role, you are likely to be calling up your colleagues to urge them to obtain a copy of the book right away. Those who teach journalism classes may start adjusting their curriculum to include this text.
Into the Buzzsaw is a gripping collection of narratives that no one, inside or outside of media, will want to miss.
-- Martha Leslie Allen
Quotes from Into the Buzzsaw:
"When Black Becomes White"by Philip Weiss (Journalist and novelist)
"For me, the role of the corporate media is one of the most compelling ideological / political questions of our time. But the publications that pay don't care for me to write about it. Though God knows they are happy for me to do celebrity profiles." (p. 187)
"The Story No One Wanted to Hear"
by J. Robert Port (Investigative reporter for the New York Daily News)
After describing his investigative reporting, Port wrote: "Yet before the series had hit the wire, I, the editor who had launched the project, nurtured it, and become its relentless proponent within the AP's executive news staff, found myself out of a job. My position and my department were dissolved. Not sure that the AP would ever run the story, I resigned in June 1999. I had been transferred to the AP's communications department. I was demoted to a position that could best be described as chief computer repairman for the newsroom." (p. 207)
"A Dream Job"
by April Oliver (Former investigative reporter for CNN and MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour; currently attending George Mason University's School of Law)
"I am ashamed to say that CNN was a willing accomplice in those veterans' campaign to crush the story. CNN management cut and ran at the first sign of heat." (p. 217)
---
"Ultimately, my coproducer [Jack Smith] and I were fired. Our names dragged through the mud, we were branded journalistic felons by a Wall Street Journal editorial. Yet, my coproducer and I stand by the story. We continue to receive strong leads about nerve gas use and a policy of killing defectors during the Vietnam War. Yet, CNN's goal, in the words of one manager, is to 'kill this thing, drive a stake through its heart and bury it -- so it's gone' [The manager said this during a staff meeting the day CNN retracted the story]. That's a strange position for a newsgathering operation." (p. 218)
"Verdict First, Evidence Later, The Case for Bobby Garwood"
by Monika Jensen-Stevenson (Former producer for 60 Minutes)
"For me, it was a hard lesson to learn that the medium to which I had dedicated myself often used its tremendous power to which I had dedicated myself often used its tremendous power to destroy ordinary citizens whose only currency was the constitutional guarantee of inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and whose only protection of those rights was the truth made public." (p. 224)
"Let's Blow Up Our Brand, The Dangerous Course of Today's Broadcast Newsrooms"
by Karl Idsvoog (Former broadcast journalist)
"For the good of the country, isn't it time the FCC becomes something other than a rubber stamp for the industry? A broadcast license should be more than a license to print money." (p. 254)
"Mainstream Media, The Drug War's Shills"by Michael Levine (Hosts Expert Witness radio show on WBAI in NY; author)
". . . when mainstream media hasn't been directly shilling us into supporting drug-war monte, as they do to this day, they have helped perpetuate it via their censorship, or conscious omission of scandalous events that -- had they been reported with the fervor the Washington Post showed during the Watergate era -- could have brought the whole deadly and costly charade to the ground three decades ago. I know this firsthand because I personally participated in some of the most significant of these scandalous events either as a federal agent, and/or a court-qualified expert witness, and/or a journalist." (p. 259)
---
"On the evening of December 20, 1989, I watched with a mixture of horror and wonder as Noriega's fortress of a home was blown to smithereens along with Chorillo, Panama City's entire inner-city area. It was the opening shot of America's first full-scale, drug-war invasion. Hundreds, perhaps thousands (depending on whom you believe), of Panamanians died. Women, children, and tiny babies were burned, shot, and mutilated by our finest and most advanced weaponry. It was a great opportunity to try out our Stealth Bombers and fighter planes. I could not help but be reminded of the Nazi bombing of Guernica, Spain.
"I guess the stuff really works.
"Twenty-six American soldiers died, many of them shot by friendly fire. All this awesome firepower and death to arrest a man whose drug dealing the CIA had been protecting for almost two decades. How, I wondered, were the drug war generals and the CIA going to hide the truth behind this grotesque atrocity?
"Media shills to the rescue. Within months, the media coverage had omitted and obliterated and/or minimized Manuel Noriega's true history and reputation with the CIA and DEA, and has turned the even into a major drug-war 'victory.' So effective was the media shilling that instead of being indicted as a coconspirator, George Bush Sr. enjoyed a massive surge in his popularity ratings. (pp. 281-282) . . .
"It was only through alternative media and the then-nascent Internet that the truth surfaced, but who paid any attention to that?" (p. 282)
---
"A new level of the drug-war monte con game began when President Clinton and Republican House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich raised each other's hands in victory to announce a new billion-dollar, 'Say-No-To-Drugs' style ad campaign. The money would be paid directly into the coffers of every Hollywood and mainstream media entity on Wall Street's big board for ads, shows, and articles exhorting Americans to 'just say no.' The first $60 million would go to Disney Studios. All the full-page 'antidrug' ads you see in the New York Times (for instance) are paid for from this taxpayer-funded pot." (p. 286)
---
"A lone article in Brand Week (April 27, 1998), the highly respected Madison Avenue trade magazine, pointed out that the full amount of taxpayer dollars that the Partnership for a Drug Free America was about to give away was $2 billion, making them the biggest advertisers on Madison Avenue. It called the giveaway 'very suspect.' My own DEA source pointed out that the $2 billion would have been enough to buy up every coca leaf produced in South America that year. It could have replaced all law enforcement and military operations in effectiveness." (p. 287)
"The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On"by Gary Webb (Former investigative reporter San Jose Mercury News)
"Do we have a free press today? Sure we do. It's free to repport all the sex scandals it wants, all the stock market news we can handle, every new health fad that comes down the pike, and every celebrity marriage or divorce that happens. But when it comes to the real down and dirty stuff -- stories like Tailwind, the October Surprise, the El Mozote massacre, corporate cvorruption, or CIA involvement in drug trafficking -- that's where we begin to see the limits of our freedoms. In today's media environment, sadly, such stories are not even open for discussion." (pp. 309-310)
"Crimes and Silence, The CIA's Criminal Acts and the Media's Silence"
by John Kelly (Former editor and senior writer for National Reporter; currently an independent investigative producer/author)
"One swallow does not a summer make, but one hundred thousand extremely serious crimes a year makes the CIA a criminal organization. Even if it did not, a suspension of the Constitution exempting the CIA from observing all international treaties and agreements screams for press coverage. So does Congress's sanctioning of CIA crimes against humanity under the well-worn 'national security' banner. In fact, there is next to no meaningful coverage ever of the CIA in the mainstream media, let alone analysis. The few exceptions prove the rule, and when they occur, the rest of the media gang up on the exception, side with the CIA, and obliterate the story often before it's published." (p. 326)
"What Happened to Good Old-Fashioned Muckraking?"
by Carl Jensen (Founder and director emeritus of Project Censored, a research project on news media censorship; professor emeritus of Communications Studies at Sonoma State University)
"Another factor that does not bode well for the future of investigative journalism is the growing censorship of sensitive or controversial subjects resulting from the monopolization of the media. As the publishing and broadcast industries are inreasingly owned and controlled by conglomerates, there will be fewer by conglomerates, there will be fewer and fewer media available to reformers. Media scholar Ben Bagdikian points out in The Media Monopoly (Beacon Press, 1997) that there were fifty major media corporations in 1993, and now there are only about half a dozen. It would be a truly naive journalist at NBC who would expect his network to air a report on the hazards of low-level radiation by nuclear reactors built by General Electric, which also owns NBC." (p. 341)
---
"In the final analysis, it is the media's bottom line -- the profit and loss statement -- that causes the greatest concern for the future of investigative journalism. Corporate media executives perceive their profits for the next quarterly statement and not, as some observers would have it, to inform the public. This attitude is not lost on journalists. An April 2000 survey of nearly three hundred journalists and news executives conducted by the Pew Research Center and the Columbia Journalism Review revealed that more than a quarter of the journalists surveyed admitted that they avoid going after important stories that might affect the financial interests of their news organizations or advertisers. Altogether, 41 percent of the respondents said that they either purposely avoid newsworthy stories and / or soften the tone of stories to benefit the interests of their news organizations." (p. 343)
---
". . . this lengthy puff piece [32-page report in the May/June 2001 issue of Columbia Journalism Review] on mainstream media organizations and journalists fails to acknowledge the existence of a thriving alternative press in America. There are more than 250 alternative media ranging from the Boston Phoenix to the Village Voice to the San Francisco Bay Guardian where much of the investigative reporting that does occur takes place." (p. 346)
"The Rise and Fall of Professional Journalism"
by Robert McChesney (Author and research professor at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois)
"It was in the cauldron of controversy, during the Progressive era, that the notion of professional journalism came of age. Savvy publihers understood that they needed to have their journalism appear neutral and unbiased, notions entirely foreign to the journalism of the era of the Founding Fathers, or their businesses would be far less profitable. Publishers pushed for the establishment of formal 'schools of journalsim' to train a cadre of professional editors and reporters. None of these schools existed in 1900; by 1915, all the major schools such as Columbia, Northwestern, Missouri, and Indiana were in full swing." (p. 367)
---
"Even at its best, professionalism was biased toward the status quo. The general rule in professional journalism is this: If the elite, the upper 2 or 3 percent of society who control most of the capital and rule the largest institutions, agree on an issue then it is off-limits to journalistic scrutiny. Hence, the professional news media invariably takes it as a given that the United States has a right to invade any country it wishes for whatever reason it may have. While the U.S. elite may disagree on specific invasions, none disagrees with the notion that the U.S. military -- and the U.S. military alone, unless it deputizes some nation -- needs to have a 007 (as in James Bond) right to intervene worldwide. Similarly, U.S. professional journalism equates the spread of 'free markets' with the spread of democracy, although empirical data show this to be nonsensical. To the U.S. elite, however, democracy tends to be defined by their jability to maximize profit in a nation, and that is, in effect, the standard of professional journalism. In sum, on issues such as these, U.S. professional journalism, even at its best, serves a propaganda function similar to the role of Pravda or Izvestia in the old USSR." (pp. 369-370)
---
"To give some sense of proportion, in 2000, AOL purchased Time Warner in the biggest media deal ever, valued at around $180 billion. That was more than five hundred times greater than the value of the largest media deal in history that had been recorded by 1979. The nine or ten largest media conglomerates -- few of which even esisted in their current form in the mid-1980's -- now almost rank among the 300 largest firms in the world; in 1965, there were barely any media firms among the five hundred largest companies in the world.
"The consolidation and conglomeration of media ownership have ramifications that touch on every facet of media behavior. For example, the largest ten media firms own all the U.S. television networks, most of the TV stations in the largest markets, all the major film studios, all the major music companies, nearly all of the cable TV channels, much of the book and magazine publishing, and much, much more." (p. 372)
(Prometheus Books, 59 John Glenn Drive, Amherst,
NY 14228-2197. http://www.prometheusbooks.com)
Iraq Under Siege, The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War
Edited by Anthony Arnove
Review by Martha Allen
WIFP Director
Essays by: Ali Abunimah, Dr. Huda S. Ammash, Anthony Amove, Naseer Arui, Barbara Nimri Aziz, David Barsamian, Phyllis Bennis, George Capaccio, Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, Denis J. Halliday, Kathy Kelly, Rania Masri, Dr. Peter L. Pellett, John Pilger, Sharon Smith, Voices in the Wilderness, Howard Zinn
This second edition, published in 2002 (first edition, 2000), is timely in contributing to the dialogue about the impending war being pursued by President Bush and his administration. While many essays touch on the role of the mass media in the policies toward Iraq, one in particular takes on this issue. "The Media's Deadly Spin on Iraq" by Ali Abunimah and Rania Masri states: "Media coverage of Iraq in the United States and United Kingdom still over-whelmingly ignores the devastating effects of United Nations sanctions and bombing on civilians; provides skewed reporting of major issues, such as weapsons inspections; and fucuses almost exclusively on the opinions of those aligned with US policy." (p.101)
The authors refer to U.S. government manipulation of the media (p.102) but corporate mass media owners know and choose what they cover in their media. They are not being "manipulated" -- they simply have similar economic and political interests. They have the power to make or break politicians. Corporate media owners can "expose" or keep quiet about what is being done by individuals and agencies in the government.
The authors note that "portrayals of Iraq continue to reflect the U.S. media's routine misrepresentation and denigration of Arab and Muslim culture." (p. 102) They identify "six deadly media sins." These are:
* Ignoring or downplaying the effects of UN sanctions on the Iraqi people
* Ignoring or discrediting reports of civilian victims from bombing
* Personifying Iraq as Saddam Hussein
* Speaking with the voice of the government
* Creating an artificial "balance" in coverage
* Using a narrow selection of "experts"
These media sins are then each discussed. This is followed by strategies for activism relating to the issue of Iraq and the media.
The other chapters of the book are also informative and vital contributions to the dialogue of what must be done about the U.S. position on Iraq as it evolves. If you haven't yet read this book, I suggest you do so in this critical time of impending war.
(Cambridge: South End Press, 2002)
Remedios, by Aurora Levins Morales
Reviewed by Lydia Carey
WIFP Associate
" We were never still, our hands were always busy. Making soap. Making candles. Holding children. Making beading. Sewing clothing. Our stitches held sleeve to dress and soul to body." Thus begins Aurora Levins Morales' captivating history of her people the Puertorriqueñas. The book, Remedios: Stories of Earth and Iron from the History of Puertorriqueñas, takes its reader on a historical and personal journey through the jungles of Africa, the coffee fields of Puerto Rico, and the jazz-laden streets of New York City. Remedios is a story of a multicultural, multifaceted nation whose ancestors spread out like fingertips on a hand through Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. Intertwined in this feminist version of the Puerto Ricans history is the author's own painful story. Morales' love of her country and its women is more than evident as she rediscovers the names, families, and professions of many great women overlooked in the traditional account of their history. A unique facet of this book is the way it incorporates the herbs, medicines, and staple foods used by this diverse group of Central Americans. Each plant seems to have its own story to tell about the people it serves; the people as well have their own story.
The ancestral tale begins in the desert of Sub-Saharan Africa. The author refers to the first mother, the Eve of culture as "the one woman we all hold in common out of that band of a thousand ancestors from whom humanity came, rising like a dust storm out of the heart of Africa." Wild yam, banana peel, potatoes, tobacco, olive oil, and pomegranates are the foods and fruits used to flavor these early ancestor's lives. Remedios describes the lineage of the people of Puerto Rico emerging from across the entire planet. Spain, Yuca, the Andes, Upper Amazon, Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, Mexico, the Arabian Peninsula and the Canary Isles are simply a few of the places that Puerto Ricans can viably call their motherland. The beginning of their civilizations saw people coming together to form tribes, the discovery of fire, goddess worship, the beginning of genital mutilation, and the first agriculturists of the world. Poems and stories scattered throughout villages and families find their place in this artfully crafted novella.
We call her to us with her own body.
We call her with bones.
We decorate her body with borrowed antlers.
We seal her into the womb of the earth.
So she will give birth to herself.
So she will give birth to us.
Accounts of the spread of Islam, the 1487 witch trials in Germany, and the conquering of lands display the shift in the position of power held by the women of these indigenous cultures. "Invading armies rape their way through the villages of the conquered. The English in Ireland. The Mongols in India. The Cossacks among the Jews. Whoever they want to keep, they take with them." This devastating time not only buried great numbers of women but buried their stories as well. Morales has made it a point to begin the revisiting of the tales of these lost heroines.
"There is no distance between conquest and abuse, battering and war," is the opening assertion of the book's section on the discovery of the Americas and the effect it had on the native peoples there. The first chapter, aptly entitled "penetration," provides the details of the conquering peoples rape of the land, resources, and the women of this "virgin" land. The most prominent aspect of this era of discovery is the slanted historical view provided by the people invading and sequestering the new world. Their perspective envisions natives as an ignorant and uncivilized people in need of the direction and assistance of their assumingly more advanced brothers and sisters in the global community. Morales sarcastically remarks it was, "[a]s if an entire continent of civilizations had been waiting, idle for millennia, for this ultimate moment of fulfillment." In response to this imagined need, schools were set up, missionaries sent, and the mutilation of a people's culture began. "Captivity was the second skin, a skin she [Puerto Rico] changed over and over again, being what was needed, hiding her heart under the diamond patterns of the rattlesnake." Women who never before thought of being unmarried, sexual, and independent as a sin were bombarded with a new moral code they were required to live by. Sickness began to take its toll on the indigenous people, slavery was begun, and families were torn apart. Stories of heritage were passed down from mother to child like the author's own story retold to her by aunts and grandmothers. Morales helps readers to discover the countless herstories of women forgotten and lost in the conquerors' cleansing of those women's society. Queen Nzinga, Dona Gracia, Sor Juana, Teresa de Avila, Catalina Erauso, Ana de Lanzos, Maria Barbanera, and Maria Bibiana are the writers, poets, mothers, and heroines unknown even to their own descendants. These women worked for the economic, social, and political freedom of their countrywomen and men. The road they traversed was long and often littered with the bodies and souls that had already lost the fight for rights and recognition of a nation. "The women run together, eddy at street corners, push on. The heavy moisture rises and clouds gather. The women are talking, and not in whispers."
The colonization Remedios describes continues through the beginning of the 1900's, including the demolition of thousands of Native Americas and Africans. Puerto Rico struggled to raise itself above poverty level and gain rights and independence for its people. The onset of World War II saw the formation of unions for the women of Puerto Rico who were the force behind the war effort. These women where washing, sewing, and making the uniforms of men fighting for freedom. Rose Pesotta was writing as a labor union organizer and women were coming together all over to improve working conditions. This time saw a rapid increase of immigration to the United States. The Puerto Rican population in New York City skyrocketed as people searched for opportunity and happiness.
"Girls from San Juan and Aguadilla, Ponce and Mayaguez, Yauco and Arecibo go to work sewing clothing. After the long day of stitching, their mothers expect them home. But tired as they are, they linger on the streets to listen. All the big band masters have been to Cuba, have played the casinos in San Juan. The rhythms and riffs blend in the streets of Harlem and set tired feet twitching to something both familiar and breathtakingly new."
Even in the United States, the author's own grandparents were on the brink of starvation but remained dedicated to their decision to be United States citizens, if only to find a "half-measure of freedom." The author tells of women in this time like Jane Speed and Pura Belpre, living in the US, searching for ways to educate the Puerto Rican people and at the same time maintain their heritage. Morales recognizes the advantages she has comparatively to these foremothers of feminism. "I live in a far more generous life, created for me by the labor of countless women, thirty years of collective agitation, thirty years of wrestling with the culture and consciousness of women and men." In many ways the author offers herself as a comparison for her country. Both the woman and the nation were broken and long for a chance to be healed.
Remedios, in English, means remedies, and despite this connotation, this book does not offer simple prescriptions for the wounds and ailments that hundreds of years of conquest has wrought. It is, however, an intelligent and beautifully crafted history of the women and culture that have had no voice. So much of the Puerto Rican heritage captured in Remedios has been lost in the strive for technology and advancement. This book not only allows one woman to begin her road to wholeness, but allows for an entire population's recognition for their participation in the story of life. I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to be drawn into an unexplored tale of the devastating beauty and captivating struggle that is the story of the Puertorriqueñas.
(Cambridge: South End Press, 2001)
Power Politics, by Arundhati Roy
Reviewed by Ann Keller
WIFP Associate
Arundhati Roy's Power Politics is a superb
collection of essays commenting on many important political issues
in India and the world today. Roy discusses development in India,
especially of Big Dam projects and foreign corporations' attempts
to take over and privatize many of life's necessities, such as
water and electricity. She also gives a fresh perspective on the
events of September 11th and the war in Afghanistan, discussing
more than what we see on the news or in the daily paper.
Power Politics delves into the core of Indian politics, questioning
the social paradigms that exist, in large part, because of a corrupt
government. She gives examples of how government officials accept
bribes from huge (most often American) corporations in exchange
for the right to set up shop in India and dominate industries
under the guise of technological advancement. Roy explains quite
frankly, in response to the Western world's ideas of globalization,
that "the only thing worth globalizing is dissent. It's India's
best export" (33).
Roy reveals to her readers how she has displayed her own dissent
against corrupt politics through her writing and participation
in peaceful demonstrations. Roy includes her statement from a
court appearance in India where she was on trial for contempt
of court after participating in a peaceful rally outside of the
courthouse. In her statement, she says, "This fear of harassment
[of being charged with contempt] will create a situation in which
even before a writer puts pen to paper, she will have to anticipate
what the court might think of her work. It will induce a sort
of enforced, fearful self-censorship" (98).
The last two essays that Roy includes in Power Politics are particularly
eye-opening. In Power Politics, she talks about the U.S. government's
involvement with the Taliban before September 11th and gives a
reaction to the events of September 11th and following. She offers
an extraordinarily unbiased depiction of the American government's
actions internationally and discloses information that is extremely
difficult to find in our own newspapers.
Power Politics is a thought-provoking book that deals with hard
issues. While the information may seem overwhelming at times,
it is information that people should have access to and should
want to learn about. Because we cannot trust the mass media to
paint an accurate picture of events for us, it is necessary to
seek out other sources of information to complete the picture.
Arundhati Roy is one of those trustworthy sources.
(Cambridge: South End Press, 2001)
Feminism & Antiracism: International Struggles for Justice, edited by France Winddance Twine & Kathleen M. Blee
By Francesca Harding
WIFP Associate
This very insightful anthology introduces us to the relationship between anti-racism and feminism. Composed of a number of country-specific articles, each piece examines existing social problems in various regions, and the struggle of different organizations and individuals to rectify gender and race based inequality. By illuminating the specific dynamic that both racism and sexism assumes in a given society, the anthology unearths the human face to the situations and atrocities that occur throughout the globe.
Through this compilation, our knowledge of "feminism" expands beyond the stereotypical view that feminist ideology is warranted solely in western settings. This presumption is false; as these writers demonstrate, throughout a variety of different nations, women are taking a pro-active stance to secure their right to live in non-oppressive and safe environments. Moreover, Feminism & Antiracism illustrates the need for topics specifically relevant to women to be approached from a more universal standpoint. Rather than being labeled "women's" issues, these writers deconstruct them as national issues, helping us realize that gender discrimination poses a threat to society as a whole. In the same vein, race prejudice must be viewed as a collective concern for all peoples. As both Cathleen Armstead's Memorializing Racist Massacres, and Ellen Kaye Scott's, From Race Cognizance to Racism Cognizance show, it is dangerous to reflect upon racial discrimination as an outside occurrence, one which rarely finds a home within our own minds and practices. In order to eradicate incidents of racism, we must critically examine our own beliefs and conceptions of other peoples, and how our daily actions may very well perpetuate the legacies of oppression.
In addition to making very poignant connections between the inter-relatedness of all forms of intolerance, the articles also focus on constructive methods to deal with these problematic issues. Yoshiko Nozaki's Feminism, Nationalism, and the Japanese Textbook seizes on the methods of education that are needed to inform the public about the real lives that women lead, and the abhorrent conditions that many are forced to suffer. Nozaki--indeed, all contributing authors --recognize the dire need for intolerance of all types to be made public. Educating society will enable people to form the necessary connections for them to realize that oppressive practices that target women and people of color are unacceptable. In today's world, education remains the most effective manner with which to end widespread bigotry.
All in all, Feminism & Antiracism: International Struggles for Justice brings to light an array of antiracist and feminist struggles, and provides compelling accounts of various coalitions that challenge all forms of injustice. Most importantly, the articles within the volume exemplify a common link that societies the world over share. By reading each article, we move beyond our self-centered worldviews to realize that, as we ourselves continue to battle injustice, others are fighting similar conflicts. The volume is a must read, and will lend its readership the type of insight needed for a better understanding of the importance of feminist and anti-racist movements.
(NY: New York University Press, 2001)
Propaganda and the Public Mind, by Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian
Reviewed by Ann Keller
WIFP Associate
Propaganda and the Public Mind contains an illuminating collection of interviews with Noam Chomsky. David Barsamian, producer of Alternative Radio, has compiled his interviews with Chomsky from 1998 to 2000. While the interviews span a wide variety of topics, incuding both current and historical world events, there is a common theme that the reader can draw from the words of Chomsky, who reiterates in many different contexts that the media, particularly in the United States, is lacking. Chomsky, who has made it his job over the years to watch media with a meticulous eye, points out that the American people are clueless as to many of the actions of our own government. He has documented instances of American military actions being covered extensively by the international press, but having little or no mention in our own.
Chomsky advocates an informed American constituency to hold the government accountable for its actions. He explains that this is a difficult goal to attain because it takes significant time--which many people just do not have--and great amounts of effort to become adequately informed about the actions and agenda of our government. Chomsky points to events such as the 1999 protest of the World Trade Organization in Seattle as victories for the voice of the public. Enough people felt passionate about the issue to do something about it, in turn inspiring others to take action regarding issues that concern and interest them.
In Propaganda and the Public Mind, Chomsky touches on many points concerning corporate monopolies over products, services, and our government officials. When questioned by Barsamian about newly created Internet conglomerates, Chomsky replies, "The megamergers like AOL and Time Warner offer technical possibilities to ensure that getting on the Internet will draw you into what they want you to see, not what you want to see. That's very dangerous. The Internet is a tremendous tool for information, understanding, organizing, and communication. There is no doubt at all that the business world, which has been given this public gift, intends to turn it into something else. If they're able to do it, that will be a very serious blow to freedom and democracy" (137).
Barsamian's interviews with Chomsky in Propaganda and the Public Mind certainly give the reader much food for thought.
(Cambridge: South End Press, 2001)
Sweatshop Warriors, Immigrant Women Workers Take On the Global Factory, by Miriam Ching Yoon Louie
Miriam Ching Louie's timely account of the lives of women sweatshop workers inform and inspire others who also want to see changes in these conditions. The immigrant women challenge expectations and confront outrageous conditions. In telling their stories they expose gender, class, and race injustices. They organize and share their knowledge and experiences. "Listening to the Women, the Real Experts," Miriam Ching Louie titles her introduction. We applaud this valuable contribution of bringing women's own voices, contributions, and analysis to the forefront.
(Cambridge: South End Press, 2001)
Coming Home To Jerusalem, A Personal Journey, by Wendy Orange.
Now also out in paperback!!
Reviewed by Martha Leslie Allen
WIFP
Wendy Orange's personal story of events in the Middle East is riveting. From the moment the book arrived at our office, I knew I would set aside my piles of work to examine this book. I found I could hardly put it down. I am particularly appreciative of hearing the first-hand stories of the peace and rapprochement movement. Orange, an American who worked in Israel as a journalist in the nineties, includes descriptions of experiences and perspectives that have been omitted by or distorted in the mass media. The book contains powerful examples of how mass media distorts and misrepresents people and events. She discovers that despite having first-hand knowledge to the contrary, she is also affected by the media stereotypes.
"It's a week since the deportation crisis began as I watch CNN," she writes. "There, to my surprise, the expelled Hamas leaders revert to one-dimensional stick figures in my mind. I see their beards and makeshift tents, hear them spouting angry anti-Israel rhetoric; they seem simply enemies of our state. The mainstream media don't help any of us hold onto complexity. In between our two cultures' tragic pasts, members on both sides . . . are valiantly trying to create a space in between, an opening for dialogue. But this does not appear on television. Through the eyes of the media, the Palestinian narrative evaporates for me, while the Israeli plight grows more vivid."
Orange's book lets us hear voices that need to be heard. A Palestinian working for peace talks about the about the "lies" of the mass media: "The whole world is hooked to CNN," he says to gathered peace activists, "They slant all their stories toward you Israelis. But they remain deaf to our reality. That's most maddening. To live a story that no one in power emphasizes while Israeli distortions and pain always make world headlines. Do they ever show the soldiers or settlers taunting or killing our people? They describe a settler who kills a 'seminary student,' but if a single Israeli is killed, we're all branded as 'terrorists'; all of us go unnamed; all of us are suspect."
Wendy Orange agrees. "I'm thinking of the Hebron massacre in 1994. Walking around that city after the slain were buried, I had watched the 450 downtown settlers dancing in celebration of their killer, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, [a settler doctor who had massacred 29 Muslims] while hundreds of Hebron's Palestinians were locked inside their homes for four weeksthe Hebron that I committed myself to dialogue precisely because I agree with this man's point. The Palestinian story is the one less broadcast, the one underreported."
"In the evening we turn on the TV," she later writes. "Each young Palestinian face looks dark with hatred. This is selective journalism. Just to make sure we get the point, the telecast repeats Hamas bulletins warning of more reprisals."
"We need media attention focused on what we represent," Uri Avnery, a veteran of peace work, told the other activists, "instead of continually broadcasting scenes that feed hopelessness." (p. 286) Coming Home to Jerusalem is a fascinating, valuable account which shares not only these voices, but the complexity of the lives of so many living in the region.
(NY: Simon & Schuster, 2000)
The Gender & Consumer Culture Reader, edited by Jennifer Scanlon.
Reviewed by Rita Deng
WIFP
"In the generally agreed-upon formula, women are nondescript housewives or man-dependent young women who either unwittingly or obsessively spend the money they or their men earn; men, conversely, are either reluctant consumers who must be offered women's bodies as product accessories or eager advertising agents or retailers targeting the purses of female shoppers." Jennifer Scanlon points out this gender stereotype in the introduction of her new book, The Gender and Consumer Culture Reader. Throughout this anthology, all aspects of consumer culture, including its societal realms, identities/genders involved, advertising, and issues found during the process of consumption are included. By offering related images ranging from Playboy apartments to American Indians' advertising posters, the book offers various insights into the world of American consumer culture. Yet, the woman's role inside consumer culture serves as the most revealing and problematic trait appearing in the anthology.
The fashion industry, perhaps the most repulsive to all women ever since the start of advertising, constantly trigger the woman consumer into obsessively mending over her body to reach the industry's motto of possessing beauty and youth. Susan J. Douglas cringes at the industry in "Narcissism as Liberation", "They jutted out at us from the new, high-cut, split-'em-in-two bathing suits and exercise outfits, challenging us and humbling usThey insisted that the rest of us should feel only one thing when we put on a bathing suit: profound mortification." When setting up an example on the feverish crave in the 1980s for perfect thighs, Douglas emphasizes, "So here we have one of the media's most popular-and pernicious-distortions of feminism: that ambitious women want, or should want, to be just like men." Throughout the article, anger and frustration from women are revealed toward the industry's manipulation, to lower one's self-respect and alienate one's physical confidence, in order to search for "the latest, unattainable, physical ideal."
Other than the consumers, the female workers' role inside the advertising industries have been wrongly perceived by mass media. Scanlon comments in "Advertising Women", "Women who worked in the advertising business have been overlooked by historians of women, historians of advertising, and historians of consumer culture." She also corrects the general perceptions from the public, "women did not accept jobs in advertising with the intention of exploiting other women and subsequently getting ahead of themselves"
The Gender and Consumer Culture further explores other women's perspectives, including lesbian consumers, exploration of sexuality among women throughout history, as well as Jewish women's progressive influence in the consumer industry.
(NY: New York University Press, 2000)
Perverse Spectators: the practices of film
reception, by Janet Staiger.
Reviewed by Rita Deng
WIFP
In her new book, Perverse Spectators, Janet Staiger explores selected films such as A Clockwork Orange, The Silence of the Lambs, as well as Blonde Venus to discover connection between film and society, including topics of violence, horror, history and sexual identities. One of the aspects that Staiger concentrates on, female character development, contains stereotypes which will lead to future resolutions.
"Blonde Venus was obviously to be in the general grouping of fallen women stories," Staiger observes. She further provides a figure which portrays the "fallen women" status' development throughout history. As the films of the 1800 bring out women's roles like white slaves or prostitutes, films of the 1900s include working-class prostitutes, women as desiring objects and the maternal woman.
As for the controversial A Clockwork Orange, the author reveals that early feminist critic, Beverly Walker "concluded that Kubrick 'has made an intellectual's pornographic film'." The female characters are redesigned to serve as building blocks for an ultimately sexually designed environment, which leads to intensely destructive sexual abuse. Walker also criticizes that the film presented "an attitude that is ugly, lewd and brutal toward the female human being: all of the women are portrayed as caricatures; the violence committed upon them is treated comically; the most startling aspects of the décor relate to the female form."
As Staiger continues to seek gender issues in film, it appears that the female character constantly lack a sense of "individualism" that tend to only belong to male characters. Some plots purposely resists the woman from interacting with her environment and other characters, which consequently push the female role toward inferiority. These existing problems caused by societal flaws cannot be overlooked.
(NY: New York University Press, 2000)
Eat First--You Don't Know What They'll Give You, The Adventures
of an Immigrant Family and Their Feminist Daughter, by Sonia Pressman Fuentes.
This book may be ordered in paperback or hardback from the publisher, Xlibris Corp. The book will be published shortly in the U.K. by Planetree Publishing, Ltd., and is in development as a film. Further information may be found on Sonia Pressman Fuentes' website. The e-book edition (for downloading or on a disk) may be ordered from the e-book publisher Word Wrangler Publishing.
Written with warmth and humor, this is the story of Sonia Pressman
Fuentes, one of the pioneers of the Second Wave of the women's
movement and her family. Fuentes, who was born in Berlin, Germany,
came to the US as a child with her immediate family to escape
the Holocaust. Her memoirs reveal how this five-year-old immigrant
in 1934 grew up to become the first woman attorney in the Office
of the General Counsel at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
(EEOC) in 1965, one of the founders of the National Organization
for Women (NOW) in 1966, the highest-paid woman at the headquarters
of two multinational corporations--GTE and TRW, and an international
speaker on women's rights for the US Information Agency.
The story begins with the wedding of Fuentes' parents, Hinda and
Zysia Pressman, in Piltz, a town in Poland. It goes on to the
adventures of the Pressmans and Fuentes in Berlin, Antwerp, the
Bronx, the Catskills, Miami Beach, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Stamford
(Connecticut), and Washington, DC. Along the way, Fuentes had
encounters with Pat Ward (a notorious call girl in the '50s),
Betty Friedan, Harry Golden, Dr. Cecil Jacobson (a prominent geneticist
convicted on fifty-two counts of perjury and fraud), and many
others. At 42, she married a handsome Puerto Rican and one and
a half years later, her Puerto Rican Jewish daughter was born.
She tells about it all in Eat First.
Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, by bell hooks.
In Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, hooks introduces a popular theory of feminism rooted in common sense and the wisdom of experience. hooks applies her critical analysis to the most contentious and challenging issues facing feminists today, including reproductive rights, violence, race, class, and work.
With her customary insight and unsparing honesty, hooks calls for a feminism free from divisive barriers but rich with rigorous debate. hooks speaks to all those in search of true liberation, asking readers to take a look at feminism in a new light, and to see that it touches all lives. Issuing an invitation to participate fully in feminist movement and to benefit fully from it, hooks shows that feminism-far from being an outdated concept or one limited to an intellectual elite-is indeed for everybody.
"We are told again and again by patriarchal mass media, by sexist leaders, that feminism is dead, that it no longer has meaning," hooks wrote. "In actuality, females and males of all ages, everywhere, continue to grapple with the issue of gender equality, continue to seek roles for themselves that will liberate rather than restrict and confine; and they continue to turn towards feminism for answers." (p. 117)
South End Press
ISBN 0-89608-628-3 paper $12.00
ISBN 0-89608-629-1 cloth $40.00
Voicework: Women, Men, and Public Speaking, by Edith Poor
Edith Poor explores the issue of how women can effectively use
their voices in public speaking. At the same time, she discusses
the bias of listeners in favor of male voices. Listeners are distracted
by the higher pitch, tension, and tentativeness in many women's
voices. She indicates that women can sound more powerful and effective
by relaxing their voices, not ending sentences with a questioning
tentative lift, but to project the voice in a relaxed pitch that
is lower. At the same time, she encourages us to find ways to
encourage listeners to be aware of the bias against women's voices
so we can focus on hearing what they are saying rather than being
distracted by what is going on with the voice.
This small book tackles an important topic -- not only for women in media, female speakers, but all of us who want to be heard and taken seriously. Edith Poor is also the author of The Executive Writer: A Guide to Managing Words, Ideas, and People (Grove Weidenfeld,1992).
Voicework is published by Montemayor Press, P.O. Box 526, Milburn, NJ 07041. www.MontemayorPress.com ISBN: 0-9674477-1-2 Price: $6.00 2001.
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