The Ninja Reader

"The person who really needs the psychotherapy (...) is not the homosexual youngster who gets dragged to the psychiatrist's office by his mother, but the mother, to releive her anxieties about his homosexuality." - Frank Kameny, 1972"Gay Power!" is a historical account of the gay rights movement in America, focusing on the Stonewall Protests of 1969. It shows the events before and how they led up to the riot, how the riot acted as a turning point and how the movement changed along the way. Now, I have a confession to make - while I love history very much, my atrocious attention span makes it nearly impossible to groove out to a read that is harder than a novel. That said, this book was fantastic, not only because of its subject matter, but also because of how it is presented. The writing combines historic facts with witness accounts, which makes up for a smooth, easy to follow narrative and it allows the reader to understand the author analysis of the events. I found myself fascinated by the story, not just because it statles me how everything progressed in the last century or so, but also because of the social picture it painted. The story of Bayard Rustin, for example, really made me stop and reconsider how homosexuals were treated in the fifties and sixties. From the viewpoint of someone who has had almost zero knowledge of actual events, I thought minorities were equal in the opression, and was shocked and humbled to realize that this was not the case. Rustin, a black man, was the best strategist out there at the time, helped the Montgomery boycott and advised Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Yet his fellow activists feared that his homosexuality and his previous arrest would somehow damage the credibility of the protest. It was an incredible experience even to read about this, because it showed me that some prejudices ran (and still run) deeper than others, and how people tend to use these prejudices in their favor.All in all, it is a fabulous book, one that, in my student opinion, you can enjoy whether you study the subject in depth or are looking for an accessible account of the events. If you are like me, and think that we need to know our history to understand our present, then I highly recommend this.Note: I received a review copy from the publishers via NetGalley.