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Nonfiction Views: Ernest Owens' Case for Cancel Culture, plus the week's notable new nonfiction [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-28
I can’t believe it has only been a week.
The onslaught of horrors, evil, stupidity, racism, misogyny and fascism that has erupted from Trumps White House has been exhausting and dispiriting. The ICE raids; the withdrawal from the Paris Accords and the World Health Organization (and declaring that US government health agencies must cut off communication with WHO); the shutting down funding from government health entities; the blocking funds for infrastructure and for clean energy; the blatantly illegal firing of Inspector Generals and Justice Department civil servants; framing the border as a national emergency to allow him more leeway in deploying the military; suspending refugee programs and declaring an end to birthright citizenship; the scrubbing of health information, women’s health, climate change and gun violence web pages from the government; declaring the government will recognize only two genders: appointing unqualified, criminal, white supremacists and traitors to head vital executive offices; pressuring government workers to be compliant or face consequences; screwing veterans, seniors, and children and more out of the benefits of already-authorized Congressional funds; putting a Nazi billionaire who feeds at the trough of government contracts in charge of slashing spending; renaming the Gulf of Mexico; pardoning the J6 seditionists and cop batterers.
And that’s just some of the stuff that floated up from my overwhelmed mind as I sat down to write this. There’s more. There’s so much more.
But we will regroup, cope and fight back. Different groups will choose different battles, and all of us will promote, publicize and give our vocal support to these multiple actions. Because we will not be driven into submission by this avalanche of anti-democratic actions, and we will not be silenced.
Which brings me to my focus for the evening: Trump’s racist push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. a move celebrated by white supremacists everywhere. I picked up a copy of the 2023 book The Case for Cancel Culture: How This Democratic Tool Works to Liberate Us All, by Ernest Owens, a Black and gay journalist and podcaster. The book is currently out of stock, though not definitively out of print, as far as I can tell, and was never issued in paperback.
While there were occasional things I might quibble about, for the most part I found it an inspiring and interesting book, though that mention on page 2 that “in the end, it was Trump, and not America, that was canceled” made my heart drop. In 2023, when the book was published, it was still possible to believe that was true. Owens offers a deep history of the idea of what today is tagged ‘cancel culture,’ defends it as a vital tool to speak truth to power, and examines the right-wing co-option of the idea to use it as a bludgeon against minorities and liberals. He himself has been caught up in several cancel culture tempests.
In Owen’s telling, for most of history it has been those in power who did the canceling. Joan of Arc was canceled by being burned at the stake, the Conquistadors canceled the Aztecs, the Crusades aimed to cancel Islamic culture, the Lewis and Clark expedition sought to cancel indigenous habitation of the US West.
He goes of to present a book filled with examples of the ways of speaking back to the powerful can be seen as versions of cancel culture. The Boston Tea Party was in essence a boycott against the British and an example of cancel culture. The nascent National Organization of Colored People (NAACP) in 1915 sought to convince theaters to not show the racist film The Birth of a Nation, with its celebration of the Ku Klux Klan and derogatory depictions of Blacks. They were mostly unsuccessful in the effort, but it was still notable because
it wasn’t simply about a particular law or direct physical harm that an institution had caused. This was about the implication of the film. Unlike British tea and slave-produced sugar, The Birth of a Nation was being called out by the NAACP for how it made a community feel and how it would influence the way the world perceived Black people. Whereas previous boycotts, like the boycott against slave-produced sugar, were rooted in economics, this was rooted in something based largely on moral judgment and the impact on human dignity.
The book manages to bring in such diverse stories as the 1969 Stonewall riots to fight back against police oppression against the gay bar, which, despite getting little attention in the mainstream press at the time, managed through word of mouth to ignite the LGBTQ+ movement. Indeed, that violent action led directly to 1970s actions that today we would be more likely to label as ‘cancel culture/” the boycotts against ant-gay spokespeople like Anita Bryant of the Florida Orange Growers Association and Joseph Coors; head of the beer company. He takes us through the #MeToo movement, Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority, and so much more. Owens is not afraid to delve into some of the excesses of our social media cancel culture excesses or teapot tempests, and the accusations of censorship., but in the end he feels that this movement in its ever-varying styles is important, powerful and vital.
Despite how critics have tried to represent it, cancel culture is not cyberbullying or doxing. Cancel culture gives us the chance to engage in new and exciting ways—civically, culturally, and politically. What could we change in the world if we used cancel culture as the tool that it is. Answer: choose a cause you care about and get involved. There is no longer a major barrier to civic participation, and you don’t have to boil the ocean. Like all forms of protest, cancel culture can be cumulative….Although there are still many more hurdles to overcome and social barriers to cross, the demand for accountability, just like our ability to cancel, will never die.
The right-wing is seeking to gain total control of the idea cancel culture, painting the left as intolerant and censorious. But it is they who are doing the book banning, they who rolling back decades of progress for minorities, women and LBGTQ+ citizens, and it is they who through years of racist repetition have turned DEI into a villainous idea that must be eradicated.
Over the weekend, the news broke that the Air Force was removing couse material about the Black Tuskagee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II in order to "ensure compliance" with Trump's DEI ban in the military. Outrage exploded on social media, and by the end of the weekend victory was achieved as it was announced that the material was being reinstated (at least that’s what they say; we have to watch what they do.) Even white supremecist Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, lying though his teeth, was moved to pronounce about the ban: “This will not stand.”
We must refuse to be canceled. We must resist. We must fight back.
x Usually Republicans are opposed to the government telling corporations how they should run their business, but they are eager to make an exception to allow the government to order companies to become white supremacists. — The Literate Lizard (@theliteratelizard.bsky.social) 2025-01-28T22:30:08.965Z
x Hey, @paramountpictures.bsky.social ! When Trump demands that you edit all the non-white characters from the Top Gun movies, whatcha gonna do? Asking for over 100 million people not interested in living under a fascist oligarchy. apnews.com/article/air-... — The Literate Lizard (@theliteratelizard.bsky.social) 2025-01-25T21:56:55.787Z
x This week's post at Black Kos/@dailykos.com of books published this week of special interest to Black readers...but also recommended for ALL readers! www.dailykos.com/comments/229... Authors and illustrators I've found on Bluesky will follow in the comments below. 🧵 — The Literate Lizard (@theliteratelizard.bsky.social) 2025-01-25T20:51:40.855Z
x You know what else makes me angry? They’re destroying everything and they’re not even big, eloquent, smart villains; they’re a bunch of dull fascists someone ordered from Wish. — Gabino Iglesias (@gabino.bsky.social) 2025-01-26T23:41:25.353Z
THIS WEEK’S NOTABLE NEW NONFICTION
The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource, by Chris Hayes . We all feel it—the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they’re us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed utterly: for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, “With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade.” Hayes argues that we are in the midst of an epoch-defining transition whose only parallel is what happened to labor in the nineteenth century: attention has become a commodified resource extracted from us, and from which we are increasingly alienated. The Sirens’ Call is the big-picture vision we urgently need to offer clarity and guidance. As Hayes writes, “Now our deepest neurological structures, human evolutionary inheritances, and social impulses are in a habitat designed to prey upon, to cultivate, distort, or destroy that which most fundamentally makes us human.” The Sirens’ Call is the book that snaps everything into a single holistic framework so that we can wrest back control of our lives, our politics, and our future. “Chris Hayes sees around corners—not just naming and explaining but also solving problems that the rest of us are only starting to sense. The Sirens’ Call is his biggest idea yet, and his most urgent. Reading it has made me change the way I work and think. Brilliant book.” —Rachel Maddow
The Sirens’ Call The Sirens’ Call The Sirens’ Call Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, by Peter Beinart . I n Peter Beinart’s view, one story dominates Jewish communal life: that of persecution and victimhood. It is a story that erases much of the nuance of Jewish religious tradition and warps our understanding of Israel and Palestine. After Gaza, where Jewish texts, history, and language have been deployed to justify mass slaughter and starvation, Beinart argues, Jews must tell a new story. After this war, whose horror will echo for generations, they must do nothing less than offer a new answer to the question: What does it mean to be a Jew?
Beinart imagines an alternate narrative, which would draw on other nations’ efforts at moral reconstruction and a different reading of Jewish tradition. A story in which Israeli Jews have the right to equality, not supremacy, and in which Jewish and Palestinian safety are not mutually exclusive but intertwined. One that recognizes the danger of venerating states at the expense of human life. “At this painful moment, Peter Beinart’s voice is more vital than ever. His reach is broad—from the tragedy of today’s Middle East to the South Africa he knows well to events centuries ago—his scholarship is deep, and his heart is big. This book is not just about being Jewish in the shadow of today’s war, but about being a person who cares for justice.”
—Adam Hochschild, author of American Midnight and King Leopold’s Ghost
I Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People, by Imani Perry. Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been remarkably intertwined with another color: blue. In daily life, it is evoked in countless ways. Blue skies and blue water offer hope for that which lies beyond the current conditions. But blue is also the color of deep melancholy and heartache, echoing Louis Armstrong’s question, “What did I do to be so Black and blue?” In this book, celebrated author Imani Perry uses the world’s favorite color as a springboard for a riveting emotional, cultural, and spiritual journey—an examination of race and Blackness that transcends politics or ideology.
Perry traces both blue and Blackness from their earliest roots to their many embodiments of contemporary culture, drawing deeply from her own life as well as art and history: “One of those books that slips the boundaries . . . . ‘Ask the right questions,’ [Perry] insists, ‘and you’ll move toward virtue and truth.’ Words to live by, especially in a nation where a large swatch of the population seems intent on disavowing the better angels of our nature.” — Los Angeles Times
Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been remarkably intertwined with another color: blue. In daily life, it is evoked in countless ways. Blue skies and blue water offer hope for that which lies beyond the current conditions. But blue is also the color of deep melancholy and heartache, echoing Louis Armstrong’s question, “What did I do to be so Black and blue?” In this book, celebrated author Imani Perry uses the world’s favorite color as a springboard for a riveting emotional, cultural, and spiritual journey—an examination of race and Blackness that transcends politics or ideology. Perry traces both blue and Blackness from their earliest roots to their many embodiments of contemporary culture, drawing deeply from her own life as well as art and history: “One of those books that slips the boundaries . . . . ‘Ask the right questions,’ [Perry] insists, ‘and you’ll move toward virtue and truth.’ Words to live by, especially in a nation where a large swatch of the population seems intent on disavowing the better angels of our nature.” — From These Roots: My Fight with Harvard to Reclaim My Legacy, by Tamara Lanier . Tamara Lanier grew up listening to her mother’s stories about her ancestors. As her mother’s health declined, she pushed her daughter to dig into those stories. "Tell them about Papa Renty," she would say. It was her mother’s last wish.
Her discovery of a nineteenth-century daguerreotype at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, one of the first-ever photos of enslaved people from Africa, reveals a dark-skinned man with short-cropped silver hair and chiseled cheekbones. The information read “Renty, Congo.” All at once, Lanier knew she was staring at the ancestor her mother told her so much about—Papa Renty.
In a compelling account covering more than a decade of her own research, Lanier takes us on her quest to prove her genealogical bloodline to Papa Renty’s that pits her in a legal battle against Harvard and its army of lawyers. The question is, who has claim to the stories, artifacts, and remnants of America’s stained history—the institutions who acquired and housed them for generations, or the descendants who have survived? “From These Roots gives us a powerful
Tamara Lanier grew up listening to her mother’s stories about her ancestors. As her mother’s health declined, she pushed her daughter to dig into those stories. "Tell them about Papa Renty," she would say. It was her mother’s last wish. Her discovery of a nineteenth-century daguerreotype at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, one of the first-ever photos of enslaved people from Africa, reveals a dark-skinned man with short-cropped silver hair and chiseled cheekbones. The information read “Renty, Congo.” All at once, Lanier knew she was staring at the ancestor her mother told her so much about—Papa Renty. In a compelling account covering more than a decade of her own research, Lanier takes us on her quest to prove her genealogical bloodline to Papa Renty’s that pits her in a legal battle against Harvard and its army of lawyers. The question is, who has claim to the stories, artifacts, and remnants of America’s stained history—the institutions who acquired and housed them for generations, or the descendants who have survived? “From These Roots gives us a powerful heroic saga, at once haunting and inspiring, with an institutional villain as dark as any monster found in classic myth.” —Dr. David Harris, Emeritus Managing Director, Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School
Plundered: How Racist Policies Undermine Black Homeownership in America, by Bernadette Atuahene . When Professor Bernadette Atuahene moved to Detroit, she planned to study the city’s squatting phenomenon. What she accidentally found was too urgent to ignore. Her neighbors, many of whom had owned their homes for decades, were losing them to property tax foreclosure, leaving once bustling Black neighborhoods blighted with vacant homes. Through years of dogged investigation and research, Atuahene uncovered a system of predatory governance, where public officials raise public dollars through laws and processes that produce or sustain racial inequity—a nationwide practice in no way limited to Detroit.
In this powerful work of scholarship and storytelling, Atuahene shows how predatory governance invites complicity from well-meaning people, eviscerates communities, and widens the racial wealth gap. Using a multigenerational narrative, Atuahene tells a riveting tale about racist policies, how they take root, why they flourish, and who profits. "By telling two family stories—the Bucci’s and the Browns’—in one American city, Bernadette Atuahene puts a face on the pain of racist policies that have impoverished our democracy. Plundered is a compelling achievement of groundbreaking scholarship that you can imagine playing out on a movie screen."— Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, author of White Poverty and cochair of the Poor People's Campaign
A Rage to Conquer: Twelve Battles That Changed the Course of Western History, by Michael Walsh. In A Rage to Conquer , Walsh brings history to life as he considers a group of courageous commanders and the battles they waged that became crucial to the course of Western history. He looks first at Carl Von Clausewitz, the seminal thinker in the Western canon dealing with war. He then moves on to Achilles at Ilium, Alexander at Gaugamela, Caesar at Alesia, Constantine at the Milvian Bridge, Aetius at the Catalaunian Plains, Bohemond at Dorylaeum and Antioch, Napoleon at Austerlitz, Pershing at St.-Mihiel, Nimitz at Midway and Patton at the Bulge with a final consideration of how the Battle of 9/11 was ultimately lost by the U.S. and what that portends for the future.
Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World, by Dorian Lynskey . As Dorian Lynskey writes, “People have been contemplating the end of the world for millennia.” In this immersive and compelling cultural history, Lynskey reveals how religious prophecies of the apocalypse were secularized in the early 19th century by Lord Byron and Mary Shelley in a time of dramatic social upheaval and temporary climate change, inciting a long tradition of visions of the end without gods.
With a discerning eye and acerbic wit, Lynskey examines how various doomsday tropes and predictions in literature, art, music, and film have arisen from contemporary anxieties, whether they be comets, pandemics, world wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Y2K, or the climate emergency. Far from being grim, Lynskey guides readers through a rich array of fascinating stories and surprising facts, allowing us to keep company with celebrated works of art and the people who made them. "[Lynskey] has the kind of omnivorous sensibility for a project like this. He has immersed himself in pulpy sci-fi, gloomy poetry, the literary criticism of Susan Sontag and the Book of Revelation. . . . A terrifically entertaining writer, with a requisite sense of gallows humor. . . . Lynskey moves smoothly from apocalyptic tales about comets and asteroids to killer robots and infected zombies." —Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times
As Dorian Lynskey writes, “People have been contemplating the end of the world for millennia.” In this immersive and compelling cultural history, Lynskey reveals how religious prophecies of the apocalypse were secularized in the early 19th century by Lord Byron and Mary Shelley in a time of dramatic social upheaval and temporary climate change, inciting a long tradition of visions of the end without gods. With a discerning eye and acerbic wit, Lynskey examines how various doomsday tropes and predictions in literature, art, music, and film have arisen from contemporary anxieties, whether they be comets, pandemics, world wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Y2K, or the climate emergency. Far from being grim, Lynskey guides readers through a rich array of fascinating stories and surprising facts, allowing us to keep company with celebrated works of art and the people who made them. "[Lynskey] has the kind of omnivorous sensibility for a project like this. He has immersed himself in pulpy sci-fi, gloomy poetry, the literary criticism of Susan Sontag and the Book of Revelation. . . . A terrifically entertaining writer, with a requisite sense of gallows humor. . . . Lynskey moves smoothly from apocalyptic tales about comets and asteroids to killer robots and infected zombies." The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir, by Edmund White . I'm at an age when writers are supposed to say finally what mattered most to them-for me it would be thousands of sex partners .
The 85-year-old “paterfamilias of queer literature” ( New York Times ) recounts the sixty-plus years of sexual escapades that have inspired his many masterpieces. He explores the sex he had with other closeted boys of the 50s Midwest, with women as a young man trying to be straight, the sex he's paid for and been paid for, sex during the Stonewall and HIV eras, and in the age of the apps. Through tales of transactional sex, mutual admiration, open relationships, domination, submission, love, and loss, he paints an indelible portrait of queer history in America and abroad in a way only someone who has lived through it can.
Written with White's signature honesty, irreverence, and wit, The Loves of My Life is the culmination of a legend's life and work, a delightful and moving tour of over seventy years of being unabashedly gay and in love with love in all its forms.
I'm at an age when writers are supposed to say finally what mattered most to them-for me it would be thousands of sex partners New York Times The Loves of My Life Pretend We're Dead: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Women in Rock in the ’90s, by Tanya Pearson. From the founder of the Women of Rock Oral History Project, an exploration of women in the '90s rock scene, featuring original interviews with Liz Phair, Shirley Manson, Kristin Hersh, Donita Sparks, Tanya Donelly, members of Hole, Luscious Jackson, Veruca Salt, Babes in Toyland, and many more.
In 2018, during an interview with journalist Tanya Pearson, Shirley Manson lamented: "It’s a blanket fact that after September 11th, nonconformist women were taken off the radio.” This comment echoed a reality Pearson had personally witnessed as a musician and a fan, and launched her into a quest to figure out just what happened to these extraordinary female figures.
Pretend We're Dead seeks to answer two big questions: First, where did all these wildly different, politically conscious, and supremely talented women in rock come from in the 1990s? And second, after their unprecedented breakout, why did they vanish from the mainstream by the early aughts? Through thought-provoking conversations, these women explore how they fell in love with music and started bands; fought labels, their coverage in the media, and sexism; and wrote deeply political and feminist music. Readers also learn about the effects of Woodstock ’99, the corporatization of the music industry, the rise of Clear Channel and its ties to the Bush administration, and finally the nationalist sentiment after 9/11. "A vibrant account of the golden age of women’s rock music and the forces that capsized it. . . . a hopeful call for a new generation of fans and musicians to revive the transgressive spirit of the ’90s. . . . [a] stirring blend of oral history and sharp cultural insight [that] opens a fascinating window into a dynamic chapter in music history."—Publishers Weekly
All book links in this diary are to my online bookstore The Literate Lizard. If you already have a favorite indie bookstore, please keep supporting them, but If you’re able to throw a little business my way, that would be truly appreciated. I would love to be considered ‘The Official Bookstore of Daily Kos.’ Use the coupon code DAILYKOS for 15% off your order, in gratitude for your support (an ever-changing smattering of new releases are already discounted 20% each week). I’m busily adding new content every day, and will have lots more dedicated subject pages and curated booklists as it grows. I want it to be full of book-lined rabbit holes to lose yourself in (and maybe throw some of those books into a shopping cart as well.)
We also partner Libro.fm for audiobooks. Libro.fm is similar to Amazon’s Audible, with a la carte audiobooks, or a $14.99 monthly membership which includes the audiobook of your choice and 20% off subsequent purchases during the month. Note that the DAILYKOS coupon code is only for the bookstore, not for the audiobook affiliate.
I’m adding more books every week to my RESIST! 20% off promotion. The coupon code RESIST gets you 20% off any of the books featured there.
READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE
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