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The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom (Lesbian & Gay Studies)

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Since the mid-1970s, Barbara Smith has been one of the United States' most productive and distinctive public intellectuals. As a critic, essayist, editor, and publisher, she has made available some incisive analyses and explorations of the paradoxes of American culture. And she has always written boldly and confidently from her own perspective as an African-American lesbian and feminist.

"The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom" brings together Smith's own non-fiction prose writings from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. In this collection we can see her development as a thinker. The pieces include her groundbreaking 1977 essay "Toward a Black Feminist Criticism," her tribute to James Baldwin, and much, much more.

Smith discusses the work of such Black women writers as Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. Particularly interesting is her exploration of the work of other Black lesbian writers like Pat Parker and Audre Lorde. She also writes about such volatile political issues as Black-Jewish relations, the Rodney King verdict, and the police brutality case involving Haitian immigrant Abner Louima. And she doesn't shy away from taking on other critics and public intellectuals. Smith doesn't discriminate on the basis of race, gender, or sexual orientation in her feisty quarrels with such figures as Darwin Turner, Elaine Showalter, and Andrew Sullivan.

As I write this review, I can hear the cynics and scoffers sneering, "Hey, if she wasn't Black, gay, and female, she wouldn't have anything to write about." To such a statement I would reply: Read Smith's writings with an open yet critical mind, and with an appreciation for the historical context of each piece. I believe that she has important insights for all people, regardless of our own ethnic or sexual self-identification.

In her tribute to James Baldwin, Barbara Smith writes that she loved him "because he made me want to shape prose with a clarity and fire that gave it the power to make people change." I believe that, in the course of her remarkable career, Smith has indeed changed our world for the better with her passionate writings. Read "The Truth That Never Hurts" and experience her own "clarity and fire."

I encourage everyone to read this new collection by Barbara Smith. She is one of the greatest writers of our time, and this new book will not disappoint.

In this anthology of essays from her political career, Smith challenges America and the social science fields to recognize the multi-layered experience of queer women of color whose histories have been marginalized and erased in every single way imaginable. Better yet, she emphasizes that this struggle (through whatever means) is by nature hard, long and certainly not glamorus.

The best political organizing is not done for material or financial gratification, it is done for the betterment of all segments in the same society.

But it simmultaneously attacks it's own strong points through oversimplification of the facts regarding queer organizing in the late 20th and early 21st century.I feel that she is too quick to dismiss the contributions of groups such as HRC to the public policy table in favor of a romanticized version of policy making where radicals are the only ones doing any type of work to stop prejudice.

The HRC has attained and sustained numerous criticisms from people who believe the group's policies are a form of "sanitized" politics: because the group tends to court the more moderate politicians, it constructs a narrow context of gay rights suggesting that GLBT Americans are no different from their straight counterparts and can fit into the existing structures of society, only if they are allowed to.

In the fall of 2001, I worked on a local campaign that sought to halt passage of a ballot initiative prohibiting the Houston City council from even considering the offering of domestic partner benefits to GLBT municipal employees. The group I was with was a multicultural coalition of activists whose strategizing embraced the very radicalism Smith claims will bring true change.

Furthermore, HRC sent their representatives down to follow the agenda that we had already confirmed-although I realize much of the strategies and tactics differed from what they would have done in a similar situation without an existing radical coalition.

Even though I am personally more in line with Smith's idelogy, I also recognize that moderate civil rights groups provide a stepping stone for people new to political organizing---those who remain content with the level of analysis will stay with the organization, whereas the more politically assertive will look for other organizations who can fulfill their needs and address their issues in an appropriate manner as they begin to make deeper connections between their lot in life and the very structure of society itself.