Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights |  | Author: Kenji Yoshino
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy Used: $3.00
as of 9/9/2010 19:46 CDT details
You Save: $12.95 (81%)
New (34) Used (73) from $3.00
Seller: nettextstore
Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 51,677
Media: Paperback
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 0375760210
Dewey Decimal Number: 305
EAN: 9780375760211
ASIN: 0375760210
Publication Date: February 20, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In this remarkable and elegant work, acclaimed Yale Law School professor Kenji Yoshino fuses legal manifesto and poetic memoir to call for a redefinition of civil rights in our law and culture.
Everyone covers. To cover is to downplay a disfavored trait so as to blend into the mainstream. Because all of us possess stigmatized attributes, we all encounter pressure to cover in our daily lives. Given its pervasiveness, we may experience this pressure to be a simple fact of social life.
Against conventional understanding, Kenji Yoshino argues that the demand to cover can pose a hidden threat to our civil rights. Though we have come to some consensus against penalizing people for differences based on race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, and disability, we still routinely deny equal treatment to people who refuse to downplay differences along these lines. Racial minorities are pressed to “act white” by changing their names, languages, or cultural practices. Women are told to “play like men” at work. Gays are asked not to engage in public displays of same-sex affection. The devout are instructed to minimize expressions of faith, and individuals with disabilities are urged to conceal the paraphernalia that permit them to function. In a wide-ranging analysis, Yoshino demonstrates that American civil rights law has generally ignored the threat posed by these covering demands. With passion and rigor, he shows that the work of civil rights will not be complete until it attends to the harms of coerced conformity.
At the same time, Yoshino is responsive to the American exasperation with identity politics, which often seems like an endless parade of groups asking for state and social solicitude. He observes that the ubiquity of the covering demand provides an opportunity to lift civil rights into a higher, more universal register. Since we all experience the covering demand, we can all make common cause around a new civil rights paradigm based on our desire for authenticity–a desire that brings us together rather than driving us apart.
Yoshino’s argument draws deeply on his personal experiences as a gay Asian American. He follows the Romantics in his belief that if a human life is described with enough particularity, the universal will speak through it. The result is a work that combines one of the most moving memoirs written in years with a landmark manifesto on the civil rights of the future.
“This brilliantly argued and engaging book does two things at once, and it does them both astonishingly well. First, it's a finely grained memoir of young man’s struggles to come to terms with his sexuality, and second, it's a powerful argument for a whole new way of thinking about civil rights and how our society deals with difference. This book challenges us all to confront our own unacknowledged biases, and it demands that we take seriously the idea that there are many different ways to be human. Kenji Yoshino is the face and the voice of the new civil rights.” -Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed
“Kenji Yoshino has not only given us an important, compelling new way to understand civil rights law, a major accomplishment in itself, but with great bravery and honesty, he has forged his argument from the cauldron of his own experience. In clear, lyrical prose, Covering quite literally brings the law to life. The result is a book about our
public and private selves as convincing to the spirit as it is to the
mind.” -Adam Haslett, author of You Are Not A Stranger Here
“Kenji Yoshino's work is often moving and always clarifying. Covering elaborates an original, arresting account of identity and authenticity in American culture.”
-Anthony Appiah, author of The Ethics of Identity and Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor Of Philosophy at Princeton University
“This stunning book introduces three faces of the remarkable Kenji Yoshino: a writer of poetic beauty; a soul of rare reflectivity and decency; and a brilliant lawyer and scholar, passionately committed to uncovering human rights. Like W.E.B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk and Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, this book fearlessly blends gripping narrative with insightful analysis to further the cause of human emancipation. And like those classics, it should explode into America's consciousness.”
-Harold Hongju Koh Dean, Yale Law School and former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights
“Covering is a magnificent work - so eloquently and powerfully written I literally could not put it down. Sweeping in breadth, brilliantly argued, and filled with insight, humor, and erudition, it offers a fundamentally new perspective on civil rights and discrimination law. This extraordinary book is many things at once: an intensely moving personal memoir; a breathtaking historical and cultural synthesis of assimilation and American equality law; an explosive new paradigm for transcending the morass of identity politics; and in parts, pure poetry. No one interested in civil rights, sexuality, discrimination - or simply human flourishing - can afford to miss it.”
-Amy Chua, author of World on Fire
“In this stunning, original book, Kenji Yoshino demonstrates that the struggle for gay rights is not only a struggle to liberate gays---it is a struggle to free all of us, straight and gay, male and female, white and black, from the pressures and temptations to cover vital aspects of ourselves and deprive ourselves and others of our full humanity. Yoshino is both poet and lawyer, and by joining an exquisitely observed personal memoir with a historical analysis of civil rights, he shows why gay rights is so controversial at present,
why “covering” is the issue of contention, and why the “covering demand,” universal in application, is the civil rights issue of our time. This is a beautifully written, brilliant and hopeful book, offering a new understanding of what is at stake in our fight for
human rights.”
-Carol Gilligan, author of In a Different Voice
From the Hardcover edition.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 28
 Simply. revolutionary January 22, 2006
James Hiller (Beaverton, OR)
65 out of 78 found this review helpful
Revolutionary is not a word that I often or easily apply to the books that I read. Some books, while entertaining, do not adjust my world view or even how I view myself. Some books which set out to adjust my world view or self-preception, don't, because of a wealth of technical jargon or a "so out there" premise that I can't wrap my brain around it. However, some books are written so that they are simply stunning, beautiful, and true, revolutionary; that after you finish them, you see yourself, the world, and your thinking dramatically changed. This is one such book, written by law professor Kenji Yoshino, called "Covering".
"Covering" is essentially a book about Civil Rights, its past, present, and future, and what role the law has played in this epic American struggle. In a stroke of brilliance, Yoshino intertwines his own personal coming-out story in between the pages; in a beautiful and quite amazing blend of memoir and history and jurisprudence.
Yoshino traces the movements of the struggle of civil rights by suggesting there are three phases that groups transverse through to attain their place "at the table". The first, conversion, suggests that the member of the group needs to not be themselves but "convert" to the norm. The second phase, "passing", suggests that we accept ourselves, but do not acknowledge it to others. Finally, after becoming public, "covering" is the phase in which we purposefully steer away from things that are related to our group so as not to fall into stereotypes of our group. Yoshino not only suggests that individuals travel through these phases, which he so wonderfully illustrates with episodes from his own poignant life, but the larger groups as a whole travel through these phases as they seek for identity.
Laced through all of this is Yoshino's passion for law, in which he describes the legal systems ability and inability to grapple with such issues; in places where they have shined and in places where they have fallen down. As a complete legal novice, I found Yoshino quite accessible as he made his arguements. In fact, when I reread this book, I plan to do so with a notebook in hand, ready to take notes as I follow his line of thinking.
And as if the content of the book weren't enough, Yoshino, being a former English major and poet, writes with a painful beauty that is not often seen in the harsh literature of today. He constructs each sentence so eloquently and beautifully, you stop to slow down to inhale the crispness of his words. The moment he realizes he is in love with his friend Brian is one such part; it is complete lexigraphically pure. Of course, a legal professeur, he drops the prose and addresses us more scholarly, but I ached for more of his words, which he gave us so selflessly through the book.
Because of "Covering" I see myself, my country, and my struggle in a new, different, and exciting light. Do not pass up this opportunity. Buy this book today and get ready for your own transformation.
An extraordinary book January 30, 2006
Natasha (Carbondale, IL United States)
31 out of 37 found this review helpful
In this extraordinary and beautiful book, Kenji Yoshino contends that covering (the term is borrowed from Erving Goffman) is the civil rights issue of our age. Drawing on actual cases, he persuasively illustrates that the courts fail to protect men and women who refuse to "cover," mute, or conceal those aspects of their identities that are socially stigmatized (i.e. their gayness, their status as mothers, their racial identities). If this were all the book did, it would be significant enough. But Yoshino combines his legal and historical arguments with a memoir in which he "uncovers" his various selves--his lawyer self, his gay self, his Asian American self, and his poetic self. In doing so, he empowers his readers to do the same and to think about the connection between living one's own life honestly and the larger project of human emancipation.
A Most Eloquent and Personal Plea for Upholding Individual Civil Liberties February 1, 2006
Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA)
20 out of 23 found this review helpful
In lucid terms that escape the legalese that burdens related books, Yale Law School professor Kenji Yoshino discusses a topic that I never really knew had a formal definition. He describes "covering" as the purposeful act of toning down a "disfavored identity" to fit into the mainstream. Since notions of disfavored identities can get subjective, anyone can cover, whether people are members of ethnic minority groups hiding specific cultural behaviors or even white males hiding less discernible problems such as depression, alcoholism or backgrounds that embarrass them. Consequently, given the pervasiveness of such behavior, covering would seem comparatively innocuous, but Yoshino provides ample evidence that covering is a hidden assault on our civil rights. Moreover, it is becoming more of a civil rights issue as the nation's courts struggle with an increasingly multi-ethnic America.
His penetrating book is a hybrid between a revelatory memoir and a level-headed treatise on the unacceptability of the current legal doctrine around our civil rights. Toward the latter point, Yoshino discusses covering within the broader context of often egregious civil rights injustices. As he explains it, the courts are mired in group-based identity politics and driven by calls for equality. For example, to sue successfully under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, a group claiming discrimination has one of two options. First, the group could argue that it has been denied a fundamental right, like the right to vote. Alternatively, it can contend that the law in question employs a suspect classification, i.e., that the law unjustly singles out a particular group. To argue successfully that it has been penalized by a suspect classification, a group must show that its members have historically been victimized and deserve greater protection from the courts. Given these options, Yoshino describes the increasing wariness about identity politics in a country continually spawning new identities. The current legal trend shows the courts to be veering increasingly toward protecting only the immutable aspects of identity.
The legal aspects are surprisingly fascinating in Yoshino's hands, but the more personal parts of his book are the most illuminating, in particular, Yoshino's journey out of the closet. Using his own history as a touch point, he explains the three distinct phases of gay history - conversion, passing, and covering - each defined by various pressures that enforce conformity. During the conversion phase (recreated in films like Todd Haynes's "Far From Heaven" and James Ivory's "Maurice"), gays were pressured to become heterosexual through electro-shock treatments or aversion therapy. During the passing stage, gays were relegated to the closet since mental health professionals were not providing a cure for mainstream acceptance, and having a hidden identity was the only viable way to be tolerated in society. Yoshino contends we are currently in the third phase, covering, where being gay is passively acceptable as long as people offended by it do not have to witness such an alternative lifestyle.
From one perspective, one can consider it progress that covering even occurs even though the religious right still makes an emphatic effort to convert gays or keep them out of jobs that could pass such supposedly deviant behavior to susceptible children. This is where Yoshino's personal struggles to cover inform the book. His bracing honesty is refreshing in showing how coming out is despite the dramatic convention of TV-movies, not a declaration that liberates one in a single moment, but a far more gradual process where defining what it means to be gay becomes even more nebulous within the constant ambiguity around gay legal issues. Yoshino eloquently clarifies how the pervasiveness of societal pressures can waylay a person caught in the crossfire between acceptance and personal liberation.
The best way to make progress, Yoshino concludes, is to move beyond the legal issues. According to Yoshino, civil rights lawsuits should focus on individual rights, which unify all groups around common values. Instead of focusing on marginalized groups clamoring for special status, courts would ideally say that all people have a right to be who they want to be. As a precedent, Yoshino points out the 2003 case, Lawrence vs. Texas, in which the court decriminalized same-sex sodomy not based on equality rights of gays but because it violated the fundamental rights of all people to control what they do in the bedroom. It's a powerful idea which could lead to a new jurisprudence of liberty, but there is a challenging road toward realizing such legislation. One could argue that the unequal treatment of minority groups is what makes us realize what our liberties actually are.
Though he doubts the continuing usefulness of equal protection law, Yoshino might underestimate how much his contentions based on personal freedoms will continue to depend on equality arguments. However, what's exciting about the covering paradigm of civil rights is that it's universal. Yoshino hopes that the direction that courts are moving in is happening in a world where the notion of mainstream is fracturing. In the final analysis, Yoshino dares to put the law aside. He argues that we should leave behind equality doctrine for a new, radical focus on personal liberties that the Supreme Court may be unlikely to pursue beyond Lawrence. He argues that law generally should take a backseat to cultural change. Litigation should give way to conversation to confront covering. This is superb, groundbreaking thinking eloquently presented.
Best Popular Book By a Law Professor Since "Democracy and Distrust" March 9, 2006
David Schraub (Bethesda/Northfield MD/MN)
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
It's unfortunate that I only get to say that Professor Yoshino's book is the "best book I've read in a year." That, if anything underestimates how pathbreaking this memoir/proposal is, but unfortunately for the good professor I read Democracy and Distrust last year, and it's tough to top that.
In any event, Professor Yoshino's book is powerfully written and intellectual engaging. Perhaps its greatest contribution is its noble endeavor to show how Covering affects ALL of us, not just the marginalized or disenfranchised. Everybody covers, and everybody is harmed by it. Far from diluting his claim, this frank admission offers a way out from traditional civil rights discourse, which is increasingly viewed as provincial, dogmatic, and overly combative. Even people who are sympathetic to traditional (and more radical) civil rights efforts recognize this problem--the "race to the bottom" by which anybody who wants to comment on marginalization has to show how S/he personally has been suppressed by the system. But oppression is cross-cutting: the population of black third-world atheist lesbian disabled midgets is rather small, but the number of people who are forced in some ways to deny who they are is much larger. Yoshino, as one unsympathetic commentator pointed out, is in many ways a child of privilege--getting to attend elite private schools and teaching at a top university. But on the other hand, he clearly has faced his share of marginalization--Asian-American homosexuals are not exactly at the pinnacle of social acceptance. By offering a way to incorporate everybody into the fight for the authentic self, Yoshino can help bring back into the fold those oft-maligned "children of privilege" who are sympathetic to the goal of social equality, but have been left unsure of their status in the fight for that goal.
I salute his efforts, and admire his erudite contribution to this critical conversation.
This Poet Has Done It Well March 30, 2008
John Michael Albert (Dover NH)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The Publisher's Weekly review says it all, but I cannot let the opportunity pass to add my voice to those honoring this book. Yes, it's a simple concept, elaborated over 200 pages, but there is nothing monotonous about it. The academic monotony characteristic of similar monographs is thwarted through the simplest of means: the scholar-author is also a poet. He writes on the minutiae of civil rights law with the compression and unexpected image that make strong poetry memorable. I heard the author speak on the concept of Covering on the Maine Public Radio broadcast of the Chataqua Program. The discussion was interesting enough, but when he read the Epilogue, I immediately thought, "I have to have that in my Commonplace Book." As a politically active gay man and 15-year conductor of a gay men's chorus, I've often meditated on the meaning of cultural appropriation, assimilation, and accommodation and the resulting effect on actualization and abnegation of the individual. So, Kenji Yoshino's orderly discussion of coversion, passing, and covering is immediately attractive to me. But it is not my habit to read 'brainiac' books. I'm put off by the customary tone, talking down to me, especially when the subject of the discussion is, by inference, me and the people I know and love. This one is the exception. I feel like Yoshino and I have just spent a long evening, with a wide variety of friends, talking about something of immediate concern to all of us. And then there's that Epilogue. Talk is one thing, but how we live it out is usually quite another. And it's never simple. That's why it's best left to the hands of a poet, and this poet has done it well.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 28
|
|
|
