“Kimberly Dark has forever transformed the way I understand sex, gender, and the notion of ‘damage.’ The patriarchy should be terrified of this book. The rest of us can stick it in our hearts—emboldenment for the revolution.” —Ariel Gore, Author of Hexing the Patriarchy
Social hierarchies cause damage. At the same time, people who have been damaged by this world—thrown away, marginalized, traumatized, oppressed—are more capable of apprehending harmful social patterns, precisely because they’ve needed to be vigilant about how the world works. For too long, though, those with long-held rights and entitlements have claimed that survivors are biased about the very topics on which they have the greatest expertise. This powerful collection of essays reveals a complex social landscape—a living map of pain, survival, and compassion. A mix of personal memoir and sociological acumen, each piece seeks to build roads to a more equitable and loving collective culture of body sovereignty, racial justice, and gender liberation. They demonstrate the humane insights, approaches, and knowledge of those on the receiving end of inequity and violence, those whose “objectivity” on issues of oppression has been consistently maligned despite their having the most to teach us.
Advanced Praise for Damaged, Like Me.
"Kimberly Dark profoundly understands the power of storytelling to create change. Damaged, Like Me begins with her body and reaches out toward new meaning-making in a burst of resilience and imagination. Each dazzling essay asks what we might learn from the tensions, contradictions, erasures and difficulties we have inhabited at the edges of culture, and how we may yet reinvent ourselves and new communities. These brilliant insights will illuminate new paths even through the troubled dark." --Lidia Yuknavitch, Author of Verge, Chronology of Water, Book of Joan
"In Damaged Like Me, Kimberly Dark weaves together philosophical thoughts, sociopolitical commentary and personal narrative, with writing so evocative that at times I felt I was Kimberly. Riveting, honest, and haunting truth-telling." —Lindo Bacon, PhD, Scientist and Author of Radical Belonging and Health at Every Size