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Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality?

Paul Alan Fahey (Goodreads Author) (Editor & Contributor),

Barbara Abercrombie (Goodreads Author) (Contributor),

Anne R. Allen (Goodreads Author) (Contributor),

Christopher Bra (Contributor),

'Nathan Burgoine (Goodreads Author) (Contributor),

Rob Byrnes (Contributor),

David Congalton (Contributor),

Larry Duplechan (Contributor),

more…

4.58 · Rating details · 12 ratings · 5 reviews

In the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Stride Toward Freedom and Malala Yousafzai’s, I Am Malala, Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality? presents thought-provoking and compelling personal essays that probe a concept professed to be the very foundation of our democracy—a concept that may even be more vital today than in the past.

From internatio ...more

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Paperback, 200 pages

Published January 15th 2017 by Vine Leaves Press

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2017 Rainbow Awards

44 books — 11 voters

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Feb 12, 2017 'Nathan Burgoine rated it it was amazing · (Review from the author)

Shelves: my-writing, anthologies, nonfiction

One of the nice things about being in a collection or an anthology is the ability to discuss the other pieces in the book, and to rub elbows—if in a nonliteral but literary way—with authors both known and unknown to me.

Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality? is a collection of short nonfiction pieces by twenty five essayists, and I’m lucky enough to find myself among them. Equality has been my “coffee shop project” book for the last few weeks.

My what? Right. The coffee shop One of the nice things about being in a collection or an anthology is the ability to discuss the other pieces in the book, and to rub elbows—if in a nonliteral but literary way—with authors both known and unknown to me.

Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality? is a collection of short nonfiction pieces by twenty five essayists, and I’m lucky enough to find myself among them. Equality has been my “coffee shop project” book for the last few weeks.

My what? Right. The coffee shop project is where my husband and I go to a coffee shop on Sundays and sit and read without any electronic devices on-hand, for at least half an hour. I have a tea or a white hot chocolate, he has a coffee, and we reconnect with physical reading, a skill that we’ve both realized can suffer when we’re both given easy access to the ‘net. I finished it this morning, having read a few essays each time.

There are twenty five answers to this question, and although there’s some overlap, for the most part, each essayist took a different approach to the discussion, and left me with something new to consider and ponder.

It would take me ages to go through each of the twenty-five pieces (well, twenty-four, as I never talk about my own entry when discussing collections or anthologies) but a few echoed over the course of the last couple of months.

“The Last Acceptable Prejudice,” by Barbara Abercrombie gave me pause as I found myself nodding along with the words on the page, and Larry Duplechan’s “Have You Met My Husband?” was familiar one moment and then a completely different point of view the next. In fact, all the pieces that touched on marriage equality or queerness were ones that I found myself most captured by (for obvious reasons) and it was fascinating to see the same desires mirrored in other places, other times (Canada was about a decade ahead of the US with marriage equality), and some of the experiences.

Should it have surprised me so very much that Jeff Mann’s “Two Mountain Weddings,” had less impediments to them than my own wedding? Maybe not, but my own prejudices about what to expect from the Southern states certainly had me assuming the worst—and being surprised by the tale he told.

Many of the stories did that: delivered a tale I wasn’t expecting. The closing piece, “Body Language: The Naked Truth,” by Eldonna Edwards—a woman who donated a kidney and later learned the kidney was given to a man who has politics diametrically opposed to her own liberal, pro-queer ones—were full of such compassion for those to whom I will admit I struggle to be compassionate. My first thought in the face of someone spouting anti-queer rhetoric is rarely as polite as some of those who speak in the pages of Equality.

Other standouts? “Equality in High Def,” by Jewelle Gomez (though it has a painful bittersweetness to it now the election is over), “Ambiguously Ever After,” by Jeffrey Ricker (who I speak of often, and whose piece in this collection left me thoughtful and maudlin for days), and “On Equality,” by Rob Byrnes, who managed to level his wit at the topic and put such a wry smile on my face even as he painted so perfect a picture with his words.

As I said, I walked out of the coffee shop—and this collection—with a lot to ponder. And while the general consensus of all the pieces in the book was pretty clear: Equality is a goal, not a destination we’re likely ever to truly reach, like all goals, it’s often forward progress that’s more important.

We might never get there, but that’s the last reason not to get closer. ...more

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Apr 19, 2017 Theresa Milstein rated it it was amazing

Buzz about this book began right around the time of the election, and I thought this type of book was probably more important than ever. Now that I've read it, I know this book IS more important than ever. The first pages grabbed me from the biography of an activist to an analysis of the phrase "all men are created equal." The variety of time, place, subject, voice, and perspective kept my interest high. I have too many favorites to mention. We are living in troubling times for so many reasons, ...more

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Apr 09, 2017 Ann Epstein rated it it was amazing

Paul Fahey has assembled a unique, diverse, and often surprising collection of essays on the meaning of equality. Unique because it’s rare for so many angles on equality to be examined in one book. Diverse because the writers represent a wide range of ages, races, regions, religions, gender and sexual identities, and occupations and preoccupations. Surprising because of the honesty with which they recount their personal experiences, shortcomings, attempts at self-improvement, and cautious optimi ...more

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Jun 16, 2017 D.J. Adamson rated it it was amazing

A review on the essays could never merit the words on the pages in this simple but powerful contemplation of equity—or lack thereof.
Edited by Paul Fahey. A MUST READ!

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Dec 04, 2017 Elisa Rolle rated it it was amazing

2017 Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention: Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality?
1) "Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality?" consists of essays describing different meanings of equality. Sometimes it's about LGBTQ rights, sometimes it's about understanding people and their various problems. This collection showed me that I still have a lot to do, because even though I fight about equal rights for everyone, there are still issues that I do not think about ...more

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Oct 28, 2016 Baxter Trautman marked it as to-read · (Review from the author)

Shelves: non-fiction

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About Paul Alan Fahey

Paul Alan Fahey

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PAUL ALAN FAHEY writes for JMS Books. He is the author of the Lovers and Liars series and the editor of the 2013 Rainbow Award-winning anthology, The Other Man: 21 Writers Speak Candidly About Sex, Love, Infidelity, &Moving On. His first LGBT novella,
The View From 16 Podwale Street, published by JMS
Books, won a 2012 Rainbow Award. Over the years, his writing has appeared in numerous literary jou ...more