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asianamlitfansI wrote up a quick endorsement of Kenji Yoshino's Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights for my school's Common Text program. I don't really say much, but I thought I'd post it here. Y'all should go out and read it! It's beautiful and brilliant! I cried. I swooned. I cheered.
Kenji Yoshino, Covering
This book is a wonderful blend of memoir and legal argument. The passages in which Yoshino reflects on his past are beautifully poetic. While the specifics of Yoshino's discussions about anti-discrimination laws might be beyond first-year college students, the general tenor of his treatment is easily graspable, and the range of cases he describes offers much room for thoughtful engagement.
Yoshino writes that US equal protection laws regarding sexual orientation, race, and gender focus on protecting immutable qualities in protected, special class of persons. He argues that such an approach lends itself to some protection from bias but enforces assimilation to mainstream norms in other ways. He describes three types of assimilation -- demands for conversion, passing, and covering -- as a historical progression for gays and racial minorities, focusing ultimately on "covering" as a type of assimilation demand that remains outside the reach of current understandings of civil rights. Covering is when a person downplays some attribute of herself -- usually a behavior or affectation seen as part of one's culture -- in order not to offend the sensibilities of the mainstream.
What I think would be most important for the Common Text program is Yoshino's turn in the final part of the book towards considering what kind of anti-discrimination law would be most effective in the future to address issues of coerced covering. He becomes rather utopian in a call for "human liberties" and "universal human rights" as the basis for future laws to protect against bias rather than equal protection claims. I think these claims might resonate strongly with students or challenge them to consider what it means to face diversity in a constantly changing world.
Despite the certain outcry that would accompany its selection, I think the English department should seriously consider choosing this book as a Common Text for Fall 2008. At the very least, I think the committee should make it one of the short listed choices for the rest of the department to consider.
(I should also note that I had thought about nominating this book as a Common Text but didn't get around to finishing it earlier this year.)
Kenji Yoshino, Covering
This book is a wonderful blend of memoir and legal argument. The passages in which Yoshino reflects on his past are beautifully poetic. While the specifics of Yoshino's discussions about anti-discrimination laws might be beyond first-year college students, the general tenor of his treatment is easily graspable, and the range of cases he describes offers much room for thoughtful engagement.
Yoshino writes that US equal protection laws regarding sexual orientation, race, and gender focus on protecting immutable qualities in protected, special class of persons. He argues that such an approach lends itself to some protection from bias but enforces assimilation to mainstream norms in other ways. He describes three types of assimilation -- demands for conversion, passing, and covering -- as a historical progression for gays and racial minorities, focusing ultimately on "covering" as a type of assimilation demand that remains outside the reach of current understandings of civil rights. Covering is when a person downplays some attribute of herself -- usually a behavior or affectation seen as part of one's culture -- in order not to offend the sensibilities of the mainstream.
What I think would be most important for the Common Text program is Yoshino's turn in the final part of the book towards considering what kind of anti-discrimination law would be most effective in the future to address issues of coerced covering. He becomes rather utopian in a call for "human liberties" and "universal human rights" as the basis for future laws to protect against bias rather than equal protection claims. I think these claims might resonate strongly with students or challenge them to consider what it means to face diversity in a constantly changing world.
Despite the certain outcry that would accompany its selection, I think the English department should seriously consider choosing this book as a Common Text for Fall 2008. At the very least, I think the committee should make it one of the short listed choices for the rest of the department to consider.
(I should also note that I had thought about nominating this book as a Common Text but didn't get around to finishing it earlier this year.)
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Date: 2007-08-21 11:25 pm (UTC)maybe for the 2nd book? that is, if i write any book
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Date: 2007-08-21 11:38 pm (UTC)