New York Times
contributing writer Strausbaugh (Black Like You
) is fed up with the “sissies” of America. His distaste for our growing culture of “fat, soft, stupid, fearful, whiny, infantile, narcissistic, fatalistic, group-thinking victims” emanates from every page. Tracking the movement’s origins to the conformist 1950s and its maturation during the Vietnam War-saturated 1960s and ’70s, Strausbaugh satirically highlights what he perceives to be the major factors contributing to today’s unmasculine man: conformity, religious fundamentalism and “victimology.” Strausbaugh seems to relish making politically incorrect and often crude analyses of America’s cultural failures. His most provocative material concerns the treatment of real victims and grieving 9/11 families (his advice to alleged overmourners: “Get over yourselves”). His solution for ending the “sissy” epidemic is that offenders should simply stop their whining. Strausbaugh is too slap-happy at times, but effectively hammers home his point. (Feb.)
