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Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service
In nine daring essays, essayist and award-winning voice actor Tajja Isen explores the absurdity of living in a world that has grown fluent in the language of social justice but doesn’t always follow through.
Some of My Best Friends examines the cartoon industry’s pivot away from colorblind casting, the pursuit of diverse representation in the literary world, the law’s refusal to see inequality, and the cozy fictions of nationalism. In the spirit of Zadie Smith, Cathy Park Hong, and Jia Tolentino, Isen interlaces cultural criticism with her lived experience to explore the gaps between what we say and what we do, what we do and what we value, what we value and what we demand.
Some of My Best Friends examines the cartoon industry’s pivot away from colorblind casting, the pursuit of diverse representation in the literary world, the law’s refusal to see inequality, and the cozy fictions of nationalism. In the spirit of Zadie Smith, Cathy Park Hong, and Jia Tolentino, Isen interlaces cultural criticism with her lived experience to explore the gaps between what we say and what we do, what we do and what we value, what we value and what we demand.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published April 19, 2022
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8966 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 110 reviews
July 13, 2022
Starting with what I appreciated: Tajja Isen writes about interesting and important topics such as the racial privilege white women hold and the grace we extend to them, the masked racism that occurs in Canada, tokenization of people of color in book publishing, and more. She has varied life experiences such as working as a voice actor and going to law school which added a sense of novelty to these essays. This book’s main premise, about the lip service or shallow efforts people invest in actually addressing serious issues such as systemic racism, merits thought and attention in this age of convenient social media announcements and questionable commitments to tangible change toward justice.
Other components of this collection did not work for me as much. I felt that the integration of Isen’s personal life and her analysis of texts, media, and current events did not ever feel fully smooth or effective. Some parts of certain essays felt tangential to me – like in her essay about white women/feminism she moves from Taylor Swift to Ellen DeGeneres to Lana Del Ray, all white women who deserve critical analysis/some critique, yet I’d rather she go in-depth about one or two of these women and make a more thought-provoking argument as opposed to provide a more surface-level analysis/summary of each. Finally, I wanted these essays to draw stronger main points and conclusions. Isen does a great job of highlighting how certain practices are problematic, and at the same time I wanted more tangible recommendations for change, or bolder takeaways even if those takeaways were not change-oriented. I’m not saying the topics she writes about have easy or simple solutions, and still I think firmer solutions or insights would have made these essays more memorable. Despite these critiques, I’m glad folks like Isen are dedicating space and effort to dissect these nuanced issues.
Other components of this collection did not work for me as much. I felt that the integration of Isen’s personal life and her analysis of texts, media, and current events did not ever feel fully smooth or effective. Some parts of certain essays felt tangential to me – like in her essay about white women/feminism she moves from Taylor Swift to Ellen DeGeneres to Lana Del Ray, all white women who deserve critical analysis/some critique, yet I’d rather she go in-depth about one or two of these women and make a more thought-provoking argument as opposed to provide a more surface-level analysis/summary of each. Finally, I wanted these essays to draw stronger main points and conclusions. Isen does a great job of highlighting how certain practices are problematic, and at the same time I wanted more tangible recommendations for change, or bolder takeaways even if those takeaways were not change-oriented. I’m not saying the topics she writes about have easy or simple solutions, and still I think firmer solutions or insights would have made these essays more memorable. Despite these critiques, I’m glad folks like Isen are dedicating space and effort to dissect these nuanced issues.
January 29, 2024
Interesting and funny!!
Full length review here: https://sunnythoughts.binderybooks.co... :)
Full length review here: https://sunnythoughts.binderybooks.co... :)
December 3, 2022
Teacher friends - Read this book!
This collection fucked me up so much that it ruined book stores for me (at least for now), pushed me towards restarting my writing practice, which has been dormant since the summer of 2020, and informed much of my thinking in the first essay that I crafted, titled, "Why I Read." The ultimate conclusion of my first written work in years? "I am realizing that perhaps I don’t get as much Knowledge from reading books by authors with very different life experiences from me. I get a story that is interesting to me, both artistically and as a window into a different perspective, but I’m not sure it’s actually making me a smart person, I think it’s just building empathy. I think the moral of the story is that if I want to gain actual Knowledge, if I want to be a Smart Person, I am going to have to start reading a lot more nonfiction."
I think the idea that messed me up the most was when Isen talked about how white people read and respond to novels by minoritized writers on terms of what those novels can teach them about the experience of being minoritized, rather than the actual quality of the writing. For example, this year I reread Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney, a white woman, because I love her writing and the way she tells stories, not because I wanted to learn something about Irish Identity. In contrast, I read the book Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud, a Trinidad and Tobago-born writer, because I wanted to learn more about the Trinidadian experience. Isen argues that asking novels to teach us things in this way (rather than books that are nonfiction and are literally written for the purpose of educating people) is racist. I agree. Beyond that, if the only thing I have to say at the end of a book is something like, "I learned about the Trinidadian experience," I definitely wasn't listening or thinking deeply about what I read. It's kind of like when my students tell me the theme of their book is "love." Ok... And?
This made me think of the African American Lit class that I took in college which was, you guessed it, taught by a white, female professor. On the syllabus were works such as Twelve Years a Slave, Ann Petry's The Street, Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin, Fences by August Wilson, and Get Out directed by Jordan Peele. Besides our discussion of the movie, I don't think we had a single conversation about these author's craft or expertise as master storytellers. How could we have made it through a work by Baldwin without talking about his WRITING? Instead, we spent the entire class discussing the Black Experience and what we can learn about it through these novels (and one memoir.) What I learned with Isen's logic as my guide is that my education seriously failed me when it came to teaching me how to think about what I read. The good news is that I don't seem to be passing this absence of knowledge on to my students, as the vast majority of conversations we have about our fiction reading are related to author's craft (at least this year.)
Here's a quote that fully called me out: "Maybe here's where I should admit how uncomfortable I am with the way the word identity gets used to describe personal writing, or any creative work at all. I've often heard people say that an essay or book is 'about identity,' the way you'd say that a text is 'about millennials having bad sex in Brooklyn' or 'about life in the endgame of climate apocalypse.' Those other examples tell you something about the subject matter. Not so with identity. Identity isn't a description but a judgment. It's an unfair bit of shorthand that filters a work's contents - which may or may not engage with subjects like race and class and gender - through a tiny keyhole: the ways in which its writer has been marginalized. It doesn't matter what they say, or how they say it - what they're really talking about is who they are" ("This Time It's Personal" 84).
Later, Isen continues: "An entire alternative critical vocabulary has mushroomed up in order to avoid talking about how minoritized writers use craft or style. Such language - words like urgent, raw, and visceral are commonly called upon - tends to emphasize how great of a job the work is doing simply by existing, rather than how successful it is (or is not) in accomplishing its goals. These appraisals grade works on a scale of political efficacy rather than aesthetic merit, where 'political efficacy' means something like 'is by or about someone who isn't white' and 'makes me feel like a better person for having read'" ("This Time It's Personal" 89-90). I could go on and on about this essay; it is obviously excellent.
"A legal career seemed premised on a worthy central bargain, albeit not the one that forms the punchline of lawyer jokes. I mean a bargain where you trade in less essential parts of yourself - casual hobbies, spare time, a few minor feelings - in exchange for a heightened ability to think and write and argue. This may be a fancy way of saying I was attracted to overwork (I was), or that I vibrated at a frequency that harmonized with the punishing tones of lake capitalism (I did, and I still do). But the proposed trade seemed pure and more severe, even mystical. It wasn't about profit but about training to master a powerful system of argument" ("Barely Legal" 120-1). I think a comparison can certainly be made to teaching here, a job that you can feel morally superior for doing and for which you are expected to work yourself to the bone for.
This collection reminded me a little bit of Jia Tolentino's Trick Mirror for three reasons: 1.) the way both authors blend memoir with cultural criticism and research, 2.) their mastery of the sentence, and 3.) the way that both authors made me feel like a newborn baby after each essay - I went out into the world with eyes wide open, questioning everything I thought I knew.
This collection fucked me up so much that it ruined book stores for me (at least for now), pushed me towards restarting my writing practice, which has been dormant since the summer of 2020, and informed much of my thinking in the first essay that I crafted, titled, "Why I Read." The ultimate conclusion of my first written work in years? "I am realizing that perhaps I don’t get as much Knowledge from reading books by authors with very different life experiences from me. I get a story that is interesting to me, both artistically and as a window into a different perspective, but I’m not sure it’s actually making me a smart person, I think it’s just building empathy. I think the moral of the story is that if I want to gain actual Knowledge, if I want to be a Smart Person, I am going to have to start reading a lot more nonfiction."
I think the idea that messed me up the most was when Isen talked about how white people read and respond to novels by minoritized writers on terms of what those novels can teach them about the experience of being minoritized, rather than the actual quality of the writing. For example, this year I reread Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney, a white woman, because I love her writing and the way she tells stories, not because I wanted to learn something about Irish Identity. In contrast, I read the book Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud, a Trinidad and Tobago-born writer, because I wanted to learn more about the Trinidadian experience. Isen argues that asking novels to teach us things in this way (rather than books that are nonfiction and are literally written for the purpose of educating people) is racist. I agree. Beyond that, if the only thing I have to say at the end of a book is something like, "I learned about the Trinidadian experience," I definitely wasn't listening or thinking deeply about what I read. It's kind of like when my students tell me the theme of their book is "love." Ok... And?
This made me think of the African American Lit class that I took in college which was, you guessed it, taught by a white, female professor. On the syllabus were works such as Twelve Years a Slave, Ann Petry's The Street, Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin, Fences by August Wilson, and Get Out directed by Jordan Peele. Besides our discussion of the movie, I don't think we had a single conversation about these author's craft or expertise as master storytellers. How could we have made it through a work by Baldwin without talking about his WRITING? Instead, we spent the entire class discussing the Black Experience and what we can learn about it through these novels (and one memoir.) What I learned with Isen's logic as my guide is that my education seriously failed me when it came to teaching me how to think about what I read. The good news is that I don't seem to be passing this absence of knowledge on to my students, as the vast majority of conversations we have about our fiction reading are related to author's craft (at least this year.)
Here's a quote that fully called me out: "Maybe here's where I should admit how uncomfortable I am with the way the word identity gets used to describe personal writing, or any creative work at all. I've often heard people say that an essay or book is 'about identity,' the way you'd say that a text is 'about millennials having bad sex in Brooklyn' or 'about life in the endgame of climate apocalypse.' Those other examples tell you something about the subject matter. Not so with identity. Identity isn't a description but a judgment. It's an unfair bit of shorthand that filters a work's contents - which may or may not engage with subjects like race and class and gender - through a tiny keyhole: the ways in which its writer has been marginalized. It doesn't matter what they say, or how they say it - what they're really talking about is who they are" ("This Time It's Personal" 84).
Later, Isen continues: "An entire alternative critical vocabulary has mushroomed up in order to avoid talking about how minoritized writers use craft or style. Such language - words like urgent, raw, and visceral are commonly called upon - tends to emphasize how great of a job the work is doing simply by existing, rather than how successful it is (or is not) in accomplishing its goals. These appraisals grade works on a scale of political efficacy rather than aesthetic merit, where 'political efficacy' means something like 'is by or about someone who isn't white' and 'makes me feel like a better person for having read'" ("This Time It's Personal" 89-90). I could go on and on about this essay; it is obviously excellent.
"A legal career seemed premised on a worthy central bargain, albeit not the one that forms the punchline of lawyer jokes. I mean a bargain where you trade in less essential parts of yourself - casual hobbies, spare time, a few minor feelings - in exchange for a heightened ability to think and write and argue. This may be a fancy way of saying I was attracted to overwork (I was), or that I vibrated at a frequency that harmonized with the punishing tones of lake capitalism (I did, and I still do). But the proposed trade seemed pure and more severe, even mystical. It wasn't about profit but about training to master a powerful system of argument" ("Barely Legal" 120-1). I think a comparison can certainly be made to teaching here, a job that you can feel morally superior for doing and for which you are expected to work yourself to the bone for.
This collection reminded me a little bit of Jia Tolentino's Trick Mirror for three reasons: 1.) the way both authors blend memoir with cultural criticism and research, 2.) their mastery of the sentence, and 3.) the way that both authors made me feel like a newborn baby after each essay - I went out into the world with eyes wide open, questioning everything I thought I knew.
May 11, 2022
3.5 stars
Some of My Best Friends is a collection of lucid, accessible essays on the many contexts in which the concept of "lip service"--talk that's not backed up by action--manifests. The contexts Isen looks at here are wide-ranging, and a lot of them are, to varying degrees, inspired by her own personal experiences. The first essay, "Hearing Voices," for example, draws on her time working as a child voice actor in order to explore how recent discourses around race and representation have stymied (or overlooked) the kind of creative potential that voice acting has an art. Another particularly personal essay is "Barely Legal," where Isen talks about how law school changed her relationship to the written word and the ways in which it could (or was expected to) enact change.
More broadly, Some of My Best Friends explores a lot of topics with clarity and sensitivity. That said, what you get out of these essays is really going to depend on your level of familiarity with their respective topics of focus. As someone who spends a lot of time in bookish circles, for example, I found that the ideas in Isen's essay on representation in the publishing industry weren't particularly new to me. The essays that I was more drawn to, then, were the ones that were more unfamiliar to me--namely, "Barely Legal," which was the one on law school; "Some of My Best Friends," which is about white feminism (not a topic that's new to me, necessarily, but which I think Isen really deftly explored); and "This Time It's Personal," which looks at the role that the personal essay plays in today's digital publishing (and political) landscape.
Isen has worn a lot of hats--child voice actor, law school student, author, editor--and I think this is reflected in the kind of flexible, multifaceted approach that she brings to all her topics, regardless of subject matter. Her writing is also more conversational than academic or formal in tone, which makes these essays very digestible and easy to get into. And though I appreciated this, I think I also wanted a bit more from these essays--specifically, more critical analysis. I enjoyed reading these essays, and I found a lot of them really interesting, but on the whole I can't say that any of them really delivered any insights that I personally found especially memorable or striking. That's not to say that I am super well-versed in these topics or anything, but more that the nature of Isen's essays--short, survey chapters that tend to take a broader, more top-down approach to their topics--meant that they couldn't go into as much detail as I perhaps wanted them to.
That being said, I still think Some of My Best Friends is an engaging and well written collection of essays, great if you're looking for something that's quick but still analytical; conversational, but with a critical bent.
Thanks so much to Penguin Random House Canada for providing me with a review copy of this in exchange for an honest review!
Some of My Best Friends is a collection of lucid, accessible essays on the many contexts in which the concept of "lip service"--talk that's not backed up by action--manifests. The contexts Isen looks at here are wide-ranging, and a lot of them are, to varying degrees, inspired by her own personal experiences. The first essay, "Hearing Voices," for example, draws on her time working as a child voice actor in order to explore how recent discourses around race and representation have stymied (or overlooked) the kind of creative potential that voice acting has an art. Another particularly personal essay is "Barely Legal," where Isen talks about how law school changed her relationship to the written word and the ways in which it could (or was expected to) enact change.
More broadly, Some of My Best Friends explores a lot of topics with clarity and sensitivity. That said, what you get out of these essays is really going to depend on your level of familiarity with their respective topics of focus. As someone who spends a lot of time in bookish circles, for example, I found that the ideas in Isen's essay on representation in the publishing industry weren't particularly new to me. The essays that I was more drawn to, then, were the ones that were more unfamiliar to me--namely, "Barely Legal," which was the one on law school; "Some of My Best Friends," which is about white feminism (not a topic that's new to me, necessarily, but which I think Isen really deftly explored); and "This Time It's Personal," which looks at the role that the personal essay plays in today's digital publishing (and political) landscape.
Isen has worn a lot of hats--child voice actor, law school student, author, editor--and I think this is reflected in the kind of flexible, multifaceted approach that she brings to all her topics, regardless of subject matter. Her writing is also more conversational than academic or formal in tone, which makes these essays very digestible and easy to get into. And though I appreciated this, I think I also wanted a bit more from these essays--specifically, more critical analysis. I enjoyed reading these essays, and I found a lot of them really interesting, but on the whole I can't say that any of them really delivered any insights that I personally found especially memorable or striking. That's not to say that I am super well-versed in these topics or anything, but more that the nature of Isen's essays--short, survey chapters that tend to take a broader, more top-down approach to their topics--meant that they couldn't go into as much detail as I perhaps wanted them to.
That being said, I still think Some of My Best Friends is an engaging and well written collection of essays, great if you're looking for something that's quick but still analytical; conversational, but with a critical bent.
Thanks so much to Penguin Random House Canada for providing me with a review copy of this in exchange for an honest review!
February 17, 2022
I could not put this book down. Isen has had such an interesting and layered life as a law student, a journalist, and a voice actor (many on cartoons I have watched with my kids!) Her writing sparkles, and her insight on so many different topics is both cutting and poignant. I learned a lot from the essays and her perspective, especially on Canadian people and the society there that many in the US think is just "north north America."
May 16, 2022
*This book shook me up and woke me right the fuck up. It made me uncomfortable and at certain points I felt myself getting defensive and I had to stop myself and ask myself why I was getting defensive and work through it to realize I was feeling that way because everything Isen was saying was true and I was guilty of doing the things she so eloquently and concisely spoke about. I clearly have a lot of learning and working on myself to do and this book was an invaluable tool and will continue to be towards changing my way of thinking and acting. Isen is unapologetic throughout this book and the way she writes is so accessible and real. She speaks about her experiences as a Black woman throughout and she truly opened my eyes to things I had never seen or considered or thought about before. This book is a game changer and everyone should be reading it!
*Thank you Simon Schuster Canada for the free review copy. This in no way changes or affects my review.
*Thank you Simon Schuster Canada for the free review copy. This in no way changes or affects my review.
August 21, 2022
A critical collection of essays from Black Canadian voice actor, Tajja Isen about race, representation and the failures of modern diversity efforts. Perfect for fans of books like Do Better by Rachel Ricketts or The skin we're in by Desmond Cole. I really enjoyed this book that was great on audio read by the author. Not afraid to pull punches, this was an unflinching look at media representation of Black voices and the shortcomings in the publishing industry. Highly, highly recommended!!!
![Profile Image for laurel [the suspected bibliophile].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1645808644i%2F7494844._UX200_CR0%2C6%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
February 10, 2023
Like other reviewers have said, there are a lot of tone shifts from light and poppy to dry and academic, and some of the essays are better than others.
Overall, a lovely collection.
Overall, a lovely collection.
July 16, 2022
3.5 - This was good. The writing is sharp, effortless, funny. My favourite essays were “Hearing Voices,” about the complicated efforts at diversity and equity in the voice acting industry, and “Some of My Best Friends,” which takes the well-trod territory of white femininity and pairs it with the third-wave feminist motto “the personal is political,” which I thought was pretty interesting:
Other essays were fine but sometimes either lacked an overarching point or the point itself was framed as fresher than it actually was. We know by now that the publishing industry is overwhelmingly white, that legal reasoning cannot encapsulate lived complexity, and that Black writers’ work is read as moral instruction while white writers’ work is read as literature (even if it’s Toni Morrison). But within the essays are well-selected examples and more specific insights encased in a prose that I personally found pleasurable to read.
“[Audrey] Wollen would take photos of herself in states of vulnerability, lying in a field or crying in the mirror, and post them on Instagram alongside the language of protest. This was what she called ‘sad girl theory’: ‘Political protest,’ she told Dazed, ‘is usually defined in [the] masculine terms’ of march, riot, or occupation. ‘But I think that this limited spectrum of activism excludes a whole history of girls who have used their sorrow and their self-destruction to disrupt systems of domination.’ . . . There is nothing inherently wrong with crying, or photographing it while crouched in a sink. Nor is it a sin to skip the uprising. . . . But where it gets weird is when those acts of sitting out become evidence of ethical and political superiority.”
Other essays were fine but sometimes either lacked an overarching point or the point itself was framed as fresher than it actually was. We know by now that the publishing industry is overwhelmingly white, that legal reasoning cannot encapsulate lived complexity, and that Black writers’ work is read as moral instruction while white writers’ work is read as literature (even if it’s Toni Morrison). But within the essays are well-selected examples and more specific insights encased in a prose that I personally found pleasurable to read.
April 1, 2024
Full disclosure: I won a free copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
The single line from the USA Today review that graces the top edge of the front cover haunts me. “Relevant … Covers loaded topics in a lighthearted way.” Because no matter how I try to come up with my own summary, theirs is just so much better.
I liked this book more than I expected to. The essays generally deal with social justice issues–but coming at them from unexpected directions–and the inadequate strategies that we as a society tend to apply to them. As a cis white male, I expected to be uncomfortable.
But Isen writes with such wit and sincerity that it's a joy to read. It helps that her initial essay deals with the current moves by the animation industry to cast voice actors whose race, gender, and so on more accurately match the characters they portray. I've been a fan of cartoons all my life and was more than happy to read about a subject so firmly in my wheelhouse. Rather than treat the reader as someone to be lectured to, Isen approaches them as a co-conspirator. As one would expect, this makes a huge difference. Her approach is not frivolous, but it is friendly. She has that way of writing that assumes the reader is as smart as she is. And, to my surprise and delight, it felt like I was.
Definitely recommended!
The single line from the USA Today review that graces the top edge of the front cover haunts me. “Relevant … Covers loaded topics in a lighthearted way.” Because no matter how I try to come up with my own summary, theirs is just so much better.
I liked this book more than I expected to. The essays generally deal with social justice issues–but coming at them from unexpected directions–and the inadequate strategies that we as a society tend to apply to them. As a cis white male, I expected to be uncomfortable.
But Isen writes with such wit and sincerity that it's a joy to read. It helps that her initial essay deals with the current moves by the animation industry to cast voice actors whose race, gender, and so on more accurately match the characters they portray. I've been a fan of cartoons all my life and was more than happy to read about a subject so firmly in my wheelhouse. Rather than treat the reader as someone to be lectured to, Isen approaches them as a co-conspirator. As one would expect, this makes a huge difference. Her approach is not frivolous, but it is friendly. She has that way of writing that assumes the reader is as smart as she is. And, to my surprise and delight, it felt like I was.
Definitely recommended!
January 26, 2022
SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS |
Is absolutely fantastic. Isen writes about a range of topics in 10 essays on how people or businesses pay "lip service," saying they'll do better as a purely performative pre-meditated measure, knowing full well that they will not follow through with anything beyond the performance.
In the first essay, Hearing Voices, Isen discusses the tight box that POC voice actors get put into. For instance, she recounts how many times she was told to sound "more street," because the character should be fiesty and fierce. In effect she must exaggerate a stereotype to supposedly be "more authentic" to play out the expectation for a white audience.
From Diversity Hire, What We Want and When We Want It and Do You Read Me (about #publishingsowhite) she goes into the emptyness with which certain words have lost any value (diversity, anti racism) as people and businesses bandy them about in attempt to gain virtue points.
She raises the good question of can we actually use language to make any substantive change? Epistemologically, when we talk we are attempting to express deeper truths and meanings, but how hard are we thinking about what these words mean, what the words' definitions mean, especially if we've never truly carried out the true definitions to fruition. What use is talking, signaling the right words or posting your beautiful words into an IG post without changing anything of substance? Especially when the whole thing is rotten to the core and systemically broken?
There's the hypocrisy of publishers saying that they are committed to substantially changing how they hire and what books they'll publish, then turning around and announcing a book by Breonna Taylor's murderer. In the end, they are committed to continuing to make profits and wherever and whenever that aligns with "doing better," there will be a cost benefit analysis to determine by how much and by what means.
The eponymous essay is about white women capitalizing on their power and on their lesser power with respect to white men to bemoan how they can empathize a lower station yet continuously exploit everything that gets celebrated as white feminity. It's to such a point that it's as Isen says mimetic, "sad white women looking at other sad white women looking at themselves in the mirror."
Strongly recommend (5)
Is absolutely fantastic. Isen writes about a range of topics in 10 essays on how people or businesses pay "lip service," saying they'll do better as a purely performative pre-meditated measure, knowing full well that they will not follow through with anything beyond the performance.
In the first essay, Hearing Voices, Isen discusses the tight box that POC voice actors get put into. For instance, she recounts how many times she was told to sound "more street," because the character should be fiesty and fierce. In effect she must exaggerate a stereotype to supposedly be "more authentic" to play out the expectation for a white audience.
From Diversity Hire, What We Want and When We Want It and Do You Read Me (about #publishingsowhite) she goes into the emptyness with which certain words have lost any value (diversity, anti racism) as people and businesses bandy them about in attempt to gain virtue points.
She raises the good question of can we actually use language to make any substantive change? Epistemologically, when we talk we are attempting to express deeper truths and meanings, but how hard are we thinking about what these words mean, what the words' definitions mean, especially if we've never truly carried out the true definitions to fruition. What use is talking, signaling the right words or posting your beautiful words into an IG post without changing anything of substance? Especially when the whole thing is rotten to the core and systemically broken?
There's the hypocrisy of publishers saying that they are committed to substantially changing how they hire and what books they'll publish, then turning around and announcing a book by Breonna Taylor's murderer. In the end, they are committed to continuing to make profits and wherever and whenever that aligns with "doing better," there will be a cost benefit analysis to determine by how much and by what means.
The eponymous essay is about white women capitalizing on their power and on their lesser power with respect to white men to bemoan how they can empathize a lower station yet continuously exploit everything that gets celebrated as white feminity. It's to such a point that it's as Isen says mimetic, "sad white women looking at other sad white women looking at themselves in the mirror."
Strongly recommend (5)
May 12, 2022
would give this five stars anyway cause she voiced jane the dragon but this was SO good
November 21, 2024
I liked a lot of these essays; Isen's comments on reading through the lens of identity are useful and well-made, and I like a lot of her reflections on the subgenre of the personal essay. But the last essay in the collection really annoyed me. She starts by asserting the inanity of the old Joe Canada Molson ad ("I am Canadian!"), which seems like an old and very dead horse to still be kicking, then lambastes Canadians for their smugness and reluctance to confront the ugly complexities of our history--again, all true but hardly revelatory--then goes on at length about the limitations on success (by which she means apparently only a certain sort of success in certain culture and entertainment fields) in Canada and the irresistible lure of the States. By Canada she means Toronto (her idea of getting out of Toronto apparently doesn't involve going beyond the expensive bedroom communities around Toronto), and since Toronto is basically just a lesser New York, why not go to New York? Everything about that essay annoyed me. Would she in her editorial capacity have accepted an essay this sloppy and insular and unreflective? I hope not. It's just a rant--or rather an extended whine--and, being the last essay in the collection, soured my response to the whole collection.
March 29, 2022
What a fantastic essay collection! Isen explores the idea of lip service—words not backed up with action—and the social and cultural implications. Tackling different industries—including animation, publishing, and law—these essays engage with conversations that are timely and necessary, while also being a pleasure to read.
August 17, 2024
“lt is more favorably looked upon for institutions to demand actions of individuals (pay taxes, pay tuition, don't ask questions) than for us to revolt and reject those terms. But, as history has shown, sometimes civil disobedience is the best course of action.”
3/5- I felt like this is one of those books that grabs you with strong promise, and maybe the expectation that follows when you see such a title makes it unfair to the author, because of how difficult it would be to measure up.
I wanted this collection of short essays, as advertised, to provide a narrative of the authors experiences surrounding tokenism, the socio-legal dimension of EDI initiatives, and being a marginalized individual in the Canadian landscape where identity politics is ever-present.
What I got, however, was a loose thread tying together a few personal stories to bigger social themes, with little to back up either end. Her anecdotes were not well-described enough to be memorable, and the grander commentary on what this means for areas in society was lacklustre because just as it was getting good, she moved on to a completely different subject matter.
This is not to say, though, that the book itself was not at times poignant and hard-hitting. I think the downfall of writing like this is that it leaves so much to be desired because you get snippets of real journalistic substance. Her experience in law school turning her, counterintuitively, against the legal system as a whole (when she had sought to change the status quo from within), could have shined as the collection’s magnum opus, had it been further developed.
It was also useful to get familiar with spaces I would not gain access to otherwise, like being a person of color in the film or radio industry. Niches like these being infiltrated by racism (or better put, not yet evolved by a society that at this stage should know better), came as a surprise to me, having never given it too much thought. It served as a stark reminder of the hidden ways that our “lip service” and faux dedication to progress is often hindered by our promises to do better while changing little on a practical level.
I thoroughly enjoyed her commentary on the importance of civil disobedience, student movements, and other acts of revolution, given the current relevance of such events which have in turn made me hypersensitive to such themes. The ever-present need to challenge what was put into place not by neutral or objective legal parties (how can a social matter ever claim to be subjective?) continues to prove its relevance and, despite other qualms I had with the writing, I hope to carry along those sentiments from this work forward.
3/5- I felt like this is one of those books that grabs you with strong promise, and maybe the expectation that follows when you see such a title makes it unfair to the author, because of how difficult it would be to measure up.
I wanted this collection of short essays, as advertised, to provide a narrative of the authors experiences surrounding tokenism, the socio-legal dimension of EDI initiatives, and being a marginalized individual in the Canadian landscape where identity politics is ever-present.
What I got, however, was a loose thread tying together a few personal stories to bigger social themes, with little to back up either end. Her anecdotes were not well-described enough to be memorable, and the grander commentary on what this means for areas in society was lacklustre because just as it was getting good, she moved on to a completely different subject matter.
This is not to say, though, that the book itself was not at times poignant and hard-hitting. I think the downfall of writing like this is that it leaves so much to be desired because you get snippets of real journalistic substance. Her experience in law school turning her, counterintuitively, against the legal system as a whole (when she had sought to change the status quo from within), could have shined as the collection’s magnum opus, had it been further developed.
It was also useful to get familiar with spaces I would not gain access to otherwise, like being a person of color in the film or radio industry. Niches like these being infiltrated by racism (or better put, not yet evolved by a society that at this stage should know better), came as a surprise to me, having never given it too much thought. It served as a stark reminder of the hidden ways that our “lip service” and faux dedication to progress is often hindered by our promises to do better while changing little on a practical level.
I thoroughly enjoyed her commentary on the importance of civil disobedience, student movements, and other acts of revolution, given the current relevance of such events which have in turn made me hypersensitive to such themes. The ever-present need to challenge what was put into place not by neutral or objective legal parties (how can a social matter ever claim to be subjective?) continues to prove its relevance and, despite other qualms I had with the writing, I hope to carry along those sentiments from this work forward.
June 28, 2022
Whip-smart, thoughtful, witty, and compelling, Tajja Isen’s ‘Some Of My Best Friends: Essays On Lip Service’ was a book I won’t soon forget.
Her essays are incisive and well-researched, sharing fascinating perspectives, and taking you on a journey that often forces you to reckon with something you’d never considered before.
The essays cover wide-ranging topics, but you can pull fascinating tidbits, relatable reflections, and quotable passages from all of them. Essay after essay after essay was a hit for me, and my highlighter’s probably going to run out soon, because i couldn’t stop highlighting or underlining my favourite passages.
‘Do You Read Me’ explores the unbearable whiteness of the publishing industry; “Tiny White People” digs into the ways [we] as people of colour have so often had to cater (or pander) to white folks in the art [we] create —- and it challenges the way we talk about or consume books by racialized (especially Black) authors. ‘Some Of My Best Friends’ is a razor sharp essay about white women and the allowances they are given in society. ‘This Time Its Personal’ was a fascinating excavation of the personal essay industrial complex, and those are just my favourites.
I hope I can one day write half as well as Tajja Isen, because 🥵🥵
This collection is perfect for fans of Jia Tolentino & Roxane Gay, and honestly for anyone who wants to read a book that challenges & inspires them, and makes them wish they were smarter (lol). I’m calling it now, this one is one of my favourites of the year.
I’m incredibly grateful to the publisher (Doubleday Canada) for sending me a copy of this book when it published, in exchange for my honest feedback… I probably won’t shut up about it for a while!
Isen is an incredibly talented writer, a voice to watch out for, and I for one ✨can’t wait✨ to read what she writes next.
Her essays are incisive and well-researched, sharing fascinating perspectives, and taking you on a journey that often forces you to reckon with something you’d never considered before.
The essays cover wide-ranging topics, but you can pull fascinating tidbits, relatable reflections, and quotable passages from all of them. Essay after essay after essay was a hit for me, and my highlighter’s probably going to run out soon, because i couldn’t stop highlighting or underlining my favourite passages.
‘Do You Read Me’ explores the unbearable whiteness of the publishing industry; “Tiny White People” digs into the ways [we] as people of colour have so often had to cater (or pander) to white folks in the art [we] create —- and it challenges the way we talk about or consume books by racialized (especially Black) authors. ‘Some Of My Best Friends’ is a razor sharp essay about white women and the allowances they are given in society. ‘This Time Its Personal’ was a fascinating excavation of the personal essay industrial complex, and those are just my favourites.
I hope I can one day write half as well as Tajja Isen, because 🥵🥵
This collection is perfect for fans of Jia Tolentino & Roxane Gay, and honestly for anyone who wants to read a book that challenges & inspires them, and makes them wish they were smarter (lol). I’m calling it now, this one is one of my favourites of the year.
I’m incredibly grateful to the publisher (Doubleday Canada) for sending me a copy of this book when it published, in exchange for my honest feedback… I probably won’t shut up about it for a while!
Isen is an incredibly talented writer, a voice to watch out for, and I for one ✨can’t wait✨ to read what she writes next.
January 1, 2023
Really great collection. The essays are well-researched and analytical about broader social justice subjects, while still incorporating elements of personal memoir that tie them into the author's life. It's clear that Isen's time in law school, an experience she writes about in two different pieces, had an effect on her writing because all the essays are well-argued with tons of evidence to back them up. I enjoyed all the pieces, but the two middle essays "This Time It's Personal," about the personal essay boom of the mid-2010s, and the titular "Some of My Best Friends," about the ways white women weaponize their identity, were especially strong and compelling. Going to be thinking about the "innocent/tough/wounded/deviant" matrix for the rest of my life.
August 22, 2022
(3.5/5)
June 24, 2022
Tajja Isen is an author that truly makes you think about the world around us today. She makes you question what true social justice and diversity really mean, and what we have to do in order to be able to get there. She has done phenomenal work in exposing the kind of surface-level, fake wokeness, we see all around us today, especially as it's so prevalent on social media. I would strongly recommend this read to anyone who's interested in genuine social justice and change.
May 1, 2022
I'm always looking for a good book to recommend to people that I feel like effectively touches on how I feel about a topic. Tajja Isen has written this fabulous collection of essays about the limits and flaws of "representation" and "diversity" as the end all be all of modern social justice movements. She shows excellently how ineffective so much of this "lip service" is at actually making a difference and how it does fundamentally nothing to change the world, all while leaving minoritized people in an uncomfortable bind. It's a very personal and powerful collection of essays, commenting on all kinds of different cultural discourses. It's approachable, accessible, and doesn't beat around the bush. I highly highly recommend this for most of the people in my life.
May 23, 2022
Tajja Isen's essay collection is about "lip service," "performative activism," "virtue signaling," whatever term you might prefer to describe the constant cycle of companies, people, and institutions co-opting social justice terms to signal that they're "woke" without actually putting in the meaningful work to change those institutions and the white, patriarchal, capitalist norms that underlie them. I found it to be interesting, certainly a topic I've thought about before, but a bit niche and lacking some of the critical analysis or takeaways I would have wanted to leave this book with.
In terms of it being niche, Isen discusses the circles that she runs in and knows best, such as how diversity has emerged in voice acting (e.g., the Netflix show Big Mouth getting flak for having a biracial character voiced by Jenny Slate), law school on-campus interviews and "diversity" cultures of big law firms, and the death of the personal essay and how this claim harms writers of color who often write personal essays about their own lived experiences. Of course, these are the spheres that Isen knows best, but on the other hand, it makes it hard to empathize with the (righteous) anger with which Isen talks about the injustices in these communities if you have very little exposure to these issues in the first place. Of course, I want to learn about injustice in all sorts of communities, not just the ones I live in, but I wasn't able to connect these essays with wider topics because of my second point...
The lack of critical analysis and solid takeaways within the essays prevented the points from really sticking with me. Even after reading a given essay one or two times, I can't really summarize it in a few sentences, telling you what the issue is, why it's a problem, and what can be done to fix it. Perhaps that's a fault of my own reading comprehension, but I also think it's the job of the author to help you get there, to lay out the points in a clear way that gives you the facts and gets you fired up about the problem. I know the problem with lip service and performative activism in general, but I can't exactly tell you how that lip service relates to the niche topics covered in each essay.
Overall, this was a solid read on the topic of social justice, but I wish it gave me just a little bit more than it did. Thank you to Atria Books for the ARC via Netgalley.
In terms of it being niche, Isen discusses the circles that she runs in and knows best, such as how diversity has emerged in voice acting (e.g., the Netflix show Big Mouth getting flak for having a biracial character voiced by Jenny Slate), law school on-campus interviews and "diversity" cultures of big law firms, and the death of the personal essay and how this claim harms writers of color who often write personal essays about their own lived experiences. Of course, these are the spheres that Isen knows best, but on the other hand, it makes it hard to empathize with the (righteous) anger with which Isen talks about the injustices in these communities if you have very little exposure to these issues in the first place. Of course, I want to learn about injustice in all sorts of communities, not just the ones I live in, but I wasn't able to connect these essays with wider topics because of my second point...
The lack of critical analysis and solid takeaways within the essays prevented the points from really sticking with me. Even after reading a given essay one or two times, I can't really summarize it in a few sentences, telling you what the issue is, why it's a problem, and what can be done to fix it. Perhaps that's a fault of my own reading comprehension, but I also think it's the job of the author to help you get there, to lay out the points in a clear way that gives you the facts and gets you fired up about the problem. I know the problem with lip service and performative activism in general, but I can't exactly tell you how that lip service relates to the niche topics covered in each essay.
Overall, this was a solid read on the topic of social justice, but I wish it gave me just a little bit more than it did. Thank you to Atria Books for the ARC via Netgalley.
August 7, 2022
Tajja Isen's collection of essays is fantastic. Through her exploration of 'lip service', Isen relays her personal experiences as a Black woman in the entertainment industry, law school, the publishing industry, and growing up in Canada, coupled with astute observations and witty analysis. I especially liked her final essay, where she discussed Canadian moral superiority. Overall I found this book hard to put down and very engaging! Isen also provided lots of great references to other books and articles that I look forward to reading. Great for fans of "Trick Mirror" by Jia Tolentino!
Thank you Atria books and #NetGalley for the advanced copy!
Thank you Atria books and #NetGalley for the advanced copy!
August 11, 2022
Personal essays that felt like a memoir of the various industries the author has worked in, plus a lot of information about Canada.
February 9, 2023
In this collection of essays, Isen develops a cultural commentary on acts of lip service, or making statements of change and intention without any actual action to back that up. Isen’s essays focus primarily on race and it’s intersection with gender in a number of areas, including the world of voice acting, writing and publishing, diversity hiring policies, white women and sadness, the legal system, and Canada. In each essay, she explores the ways in which that industry or group pays lip service to being more diverse while failing to actualize any of their promises.
I appreciated the seamless weaving of personal experience, research, and historical context that Isen incorporated into each essay. Isen has a knack for ending her essays with final lines that might seem somewhat abrupt but for the fact that they pointedly refer back to previous anecdotes or comments within the essay. She also created really beautiful comparisons to illustrate her point. The most poignant essay for me was probably “Diversity Hire.” While the other essays were also good, I found myself drawn to the way Isen painted the picture of discrimination and performative acts by companies to “address” that discrimination in this essay. If you like cultural commentary and/or essay collections and want one that touches on issues prevalent today, this book is a great fit.
“Naming the flaws in a world that nurtured me is part of growing with and within it, of loving some things vigorously and well” (“Hearing Voices”).
“I find it hard to balance volunteer firefighting with the urge to watch the world burn… Putting out fires isn’t my job. Acting like it is will mean that I’ll burn out, too, but pretending I have no duty to act is unconscionable” (“Diversity Hire”).
“Does diversity, with the starry-eyed naïveté the word has come to connote even express the goal of equity anymore? Isn’t the catch-all BIPOC kind of choked and gross? Anti-racism, too, has had a hell of a watering down these last few years. These words are so easy to circulate, it’s hard to make real meaning stick to them. How do you achieve positive change if the language describing it has also been used, in some cases deliberately, to stop that same change from occurring?” (“Diversity Hire”).
“More meaningfully, it clarified all the times I’d been pulled into a room to talk about diversity as both physician and cure, and it shaped my attitude toward all the rooms left to come. The institute is not your home. It does not care about you. It’s not your job to fix it” (“Diversity Hire”).
“Several linked premises scaffold the persistence and popularity of these pieces: that a once personal story should bloom around suffering, that suffering is inextricable from being alive and minoritized, that giving such pain a platform is inherently moral, and, perhaps most significantly, that consuming it is evidence of a higher goodness” (“This Time It’s Personal”):
“You can only get to neutral at all by stripping away individuating factors, otherwise known as denying large segments of reality” (“Barely Legal”).
“This, and no more, feels like the appropriate role for nationalism — a line edit, a correction, but never substantive enough to be elevated to thesis or theme” (“Dead or Canadian”).
I appreciated the seamless weaving of personal experience, research, and historical context that Isen incorporated into each essay. Isen has a knack for ending her essays with final lines that might seem somewhat abrupt but for the fact that they pointedly refer back to previous anecdotes or comments within the essay. She also created really beautiful comparisons to illustrate her point. The most poignant essay for me was probably “Diversity Hire.” While the other essays were also good, I found myself drawn to the way Isen painted the picture of discrimination and performative acts by companies to “address” that discrimination in this essay. If you like cultural commentary and/or essay collections and want one that touches on issues prevalent today, this book is a great fit.
“Naming the flaws in a world that nurtured me is part of growing with and within it, of loving some things vigorously and well” (“Hearing Voices”).
“I find it hard to balance volunteer firefighting with the urge to watch the world burn… Putting out fires isn’t my job. Acting like it is will mean that I’ll burn out, too, but pretending I have no duty to act is unconscionable” (“Diversity Hire”).
“Does diversity, with the starry-eyed naïveté the word has come to connote even express the goal of equity anymore? Isn’t the catch-all BIPOC kind of choked and gross? Anti-racism, too, has had a hell of a watering down these last few years. These words are so easy to circulate, it’s hard to make real meaning stick to them. How do you achieve positive change if the language describing it has also been used, in some cases deliberately, to stop that same change from occurring?” (“Diversity Hire”).
“More meaningfully, it clarified all the times I’d been pulled into a room to talk about diversity as both physician and cure, and it shaped my attitude toward all the rooms left to come. The institute is not your home. It does not care about you. It’s not your job to fix it” (“Diversity Hire”).
“Several linked premises scaffold the persistence and popularity of these pieces: that a once personal story should bloom around suffering, that suffering is inextricable from being alive and minoritized, that giving such pain a platform is inherently moral, and, perhaps most significantly, that consuming it is evidence of a higher goodness” (“This Time It’s Personal”):
“You can only get to neutral at all by stripping away individuating factors, otherwise known as denying large segments of reality” (“Barely Legal”).
“This, and no more, feels like the appropriate role for nationalism — a line edit, a correction, but never substantive enough to be elevated to thesis or theme” (“Dead or Canadian”).
May 17, 2022
This was such an interesting and excellent collection. Isen has experience in a wide array of industries - from voice acting, to law and publishing - and offers unique looks into the shortcomings of these areas.
There were definitely some sections I enjoyed more than others. This book is SO 2022, with many of the essays referencing extremely recent pop culture moments, political events, and television shows. I found that the sections that contained references I was more familiar with were a lot more engaging for me. The fact that I had watched Big Mouth and Schitt's Creek, for example, helped all of her analogies become that much stronger.
My favorite essays were the first one, the last one, and the one about the publishing industry. I also loved her insight on the fact that, too often, writing by black authors is evaluated only as activism, instead of as art.
**Special thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing a free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review**
There were definitely some sections I enjoyed more than others. This book is SO 2022, with many of the essays referencing extremely recent pop culture moments, political events, and television shows. I found that the sections that contained references I was more familiar with were a lot more engaging for me. The fact that I had watched Big Mouth and Schitt's Creek, for example, helped all of her analogies become that much stronger.
My favorite essays were the first one, the last one, and the one about the publishing industry. I also loved her insight on the fact that, too often, writing by black authors is evaluated only as activism, instead of as art.
**Special thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing a free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review**
May 17, 2022
“Isen’s forte in Some of My Best Friends is taking these first-hand experiences and following them with sharp, clear-eyed, often funny analysis. Her writing makes you take stock — almost with a breath of relief — of not just the harm of racism, but its awkwardness, its absurdity, its ludicrousness.
Some of My Best Friends will also shake off any residual neoliberal fantasies readers have about how woke Hollywood treats its actors; how publishing edits its post-summer 2020 slew of Black writers; and how the law in 2022 views and shapes society, to name just a few examples.”
I interviewed Tajja and reviewed this book for thetyee.ca! Check it out here:
https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2022/05/04...
Some of My Best Friends will also shake off any residual neoliberal fantasies readers have about how woke Hollywood treats its actors; how publishing edits its post-summer 2020 slew of Black writers; and how the law in 2022 views and shapes society, to name just a few examples.”
I interviewed Tajja and reviewed this book for thetyee.ca! Check it out here:
https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2022/05/04...
May 16, 2022
In "Some of My Best Friends", Tajja Isen explores a number of her own personal experiences growing up as a Black female in Canada in a series of essays, but takes them all an additional step further - citing legal cases, literary examples, studies in media and history, to support her perspectives. There are a number of weighty and complicated issues covered in her writing, including race, gender, femininity and toxic masculinity, and representation - topics that are extremely relevant today, and can be easily glossed over.
Isen has clearly had a breadth of experiences, many of which she pulls from in her writing. From a childhood of being a voice actor, which gave her an opportunity to voice white characters; to studying and being accepted into law school; to being an established writer and editor - she's able to use her own history as a starting point to segue into more critical arguments and studies. There's a number of thought-provoking points she's able to make, and she utilizes a number of different sources to further explore and support her perspectives. While I enjoyed her writing and prose, there were times I had a hard time keeping track of the various tangents she went on. Her experiences are also quite specific and niche, so for those of us who don't have similar backstories, they can be hard to fully understand.
Thank you Atria/One Signal Publishers for the advance copy of this book!
Isen has clearly had a breadth of experiences, many of which she pulls from in her writing. From a childhood of being a voice actor, which gave her an opportunity to voice white characters; to studying and being accepted into law school; to being an established writer and editor - she's able to use her own history as a starting point to segue into more critical arguments and studies. There's a number of thought-provoking points she's able to make, and she utilizes a number of different sources to further explore and support her perspectives. While I enjoyed her writing and prose, there were times I had a hard time keeping track of the various tangents she went on. Her experiences are also quite specific and niche, so for those of us who don't have similar backstories, they can be hard to fully understand.
Thank you Atria/One Signal Publishers for the advance copy of this book!
December 20, 2024
4.25 stars. Really interesting collection of essays, mostly about racism and its impact in a variety of industries, with a random-feeling one about Canadian identity at the end. I think the pink cover does this book a disservice as it’s a very thoughtful and serious work. I particularly enjoyed her essays on the legal industry and publishing, but her perspective is interesting and worth reading across all of them.
May 13, 2022
i know the author had some mixed feelings about indulging in memoir (she mentioned this in a few of her essays) but if she had done so, i would not have minded at all. voice actor slash law student slash essayist editor? please, tell me more!!! such a compelling set of essays from an even more compelling writer.
November 1, 2024
There's a lot going on in this book, and it really jumps from light-hearted to serious to slightly academic. Some portions worked better from me than others, but overall, it was a thought-provoking dive into important topics.
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