Nonfiction about prosecutors, black fashion and gay rights

THE CHICKENSHIT CLUB: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives by Jesse Eisinger looks back at the glory days of the late 20th century when the Justice Department and the SEC accomplished several successful prosecutions for corporate fraud, culminating early in this century with the prosecution of Enron and its accounting firm, Arthur Anderson. Unfortunately that triumph proved a pyrrhic one: the collapse of Arthur Anderson was held up as proof some firms were too big to fail and many of the tools the feds used, like pressuring companies not to pay executives’ legal fees, were eventually tossed out. Firms pay inconsequential fines for criminal behavior ($10 million, say, is large in itself but not to a billion-dollar corporation); nobody goes to jail.

Eisinger shows it’s a mix of factors, including prosecutors afraid to take on cases they might not win (the “chickenshit club” of the title), lobbyists, judges and government officials who come from the world of business, prosecutors who hope to get jobs with corporate counsel (several hardcase prosecutors found their job opportunities in the private sector vanishing) and a government that has no problem with a double standard: it’s fine to seize a suspected drug dealer’s assets so he’s unable to pay an attorney but doing that to rich CEOs? Unthinkable!BLACK IVY: A Revolt in Style by Jason Jules argues that before the 1970s, black leaders embraced “Ivy” League style not out of conformity but to prove they were the equals of white America. The book, however, simply shows endless photos of prominent blacks in suits (Thelonius Monk, James Baldwin, MLK, Gordon Parks) and discusses their style; possibly if I had more interest in fashion this would have been more interesting but I don’t. I also don’t see how Richard Roundtree as Shaft, above, fits into the same style, though he certainly is stylish.

WE ARE EVERYWHERE: Protest, Power and Pride in the History of Gay Liberation by Matthew Reimer and Leighton Brown is a myth-busting book that argues making Stonewall the origin of gay liberation ignores decades of earlier “homophile” organizing, and that rather than the arc of the universe bending towards justice, the past century was a grim slog marked by small triumphs. Informative, and like March, it does a good job showing the movement’s internal issues. Gay men dismissing lesbian feminists. Lesbians dismissing trans women (“trans-exclusionary” is not a new thing). Complaints that AIDS is so important, questions of discrimination against POC or women are now just distractions. And should the end game be a world where gays are happily accepted as normal or where freaks and nonconformists have the freedom to be outside the mainstream without hassles (the authors side with option B).

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