Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

In this collection, a diverse group of authors focuses on concrete and practical forms of redress and accountability, assessing existing practices and marking paths forward. They use a variety of forms--from toolkits to personal essays--to delve deeply into the "how to" of transformative justice, providing alternatives to calling the police, ways to support people having mental health crises, stories of community-based murder investigations, and much more. At the same time, they document the history of this radical movement, creating space for long-time organizers to reflect on victories, struggles, mistakes, and transformations.… (meer)

I read this as part of my Crips on Couches Quarantine Book Club; it was a perfect pick. This book is largely about the disability justice movement, the lives of disability activists, and an analysis of ableism. But the core of it is intersectionality; an understanding of the overlapping identities and struggles that people face. If you are a queer and disabled femme of color (as the author is) very few activist spaces are really safe for you: homophobia, racism, sexism. ableism, are all rampant across the entire political spectrum.

This book is a collection of essays, focusing on various components of these issues. It's a great exploration of underappreciated labor and activism, in a field of under-recognized issues. The tone is inconsistent (a common issue with essay collections that vary formatting often), and not all of the conclusions feel as ground-breaking as others, especially reading it as a member of the disabled community.

However, when the essays are good, they're great. Some of these are worth hanging up on your wall.

It took about a month to read, off and on, but as my first real "quarantine" book it certainly delivered.… (meer)