In my new essay for AlterNet, I offer a wide ranging take on America’s history of racist, sexual oppression, using as a springboard, the brilliant book, Policing Sexuality by Jessica Pliley. Pliley is a historian at Texas State University, and her book should become mandatory reading for every high school history student in America.
From the beginning of my essay:
For anyone willing to look right in the face of America’s sexual repression, sexist assumptions, and racist fears, Policing Sexuality: The Mann Act and The Making of the FBI by Jessica R. Pliley, is at once a magnifying glass and flashlight. It is an indispensable history of all the American anxieties, hang ups, and priggish obsessions in one neat, little package.
David Masciotra 