McWhorter (philosophy and women's studies, Univ. of Richmond) has written an important book on the study of race and sexuality studies. The use of historical context and the theoretical examination of terminology are significant. The author clarifies the issues that arise when parties contend that sexual preference discrimination is different from discrimination based on race. The historical discussion of race and the issues of racial discrimination followed by cultural events such as the Civil Rights Movement establish a much-needed context for the study of discrimination issues. By using definition, theory, and discussion of 'normality' and 'abnormality' as put forth by Foucault, McWhorter is able to highlight issues of sexual discrimination within the Anglo-American world. This text offers many insights into the topic of homophobia and discrimination in the US. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level philosophy and gender studies, as well as a reference for professors. -Choice

Although Foucault did not undertake a genealogy of race or racism, his work contains fragments of such a genealogy and important conceptual resources for constructing one. In particular, his concepts of biopower and normalization can help us expose and analyze how race shifted in meaning from lineage (in the seventeenth century) to morphology (in the eighteenth century) and then to biology, and thus how racist beliefs, attitudes, and practices emerged, developed, and adapted. The history of scientific racism and the eugenics movement still informs institutions and practices of discrimination against, and oppression of, racialized groups.

Engages Foucault in dismantling norms and destabilizing sexual identities.

In the face of ecological crisis, economic injustice, and political violence, the moral demands of being a good person are almost too much to bear. In Unbecoming Persons, Ladelle McWhorter argues that this strain is by design. Our ideas about personhood, she shows, emerged to sustain centuries of colonialism, slavery, and environmental destruction. We must look elsewhere to find our way out. This history raises a hard question: Should we be persons at all, or might we live a good life without the constraints of individualism or the illusion of autonomy? In seeking an answer, McWhorter pushes back on the notion of our own personhood—our obsession with identity, self-improvement, and salvation—in search of a better way to live together in this world. Although she finds no easy answers, McWhorter ultimately proposes a new ethics that rejects both self-interest and self-sacrifice and embraces perpetual dependence, community, and the Earth.