“The beauty and the force of Decolonize Hipsters is the way Pierrot folds and unfolds the pleats of historical moments to tell a story of race in the Atlantic world…. The genius of this book is not just in Pierrot’s analysis but in his delivery of it… Pierrot’s humor is the kind that refuses to soft pedal for anyone’s comfort. He reveals this kind of accommodation to be part of the problem in the first place: the hipster’s recourse to snark and irony is an insidious dodge… Pierrot’s accounting of the consequences of hipsterdom on present day politics is damning. The cult of individuality and commitment to burnishing one’s quirkiness is exposed for what it is: depoliticization, consumerism, complicity… In the end, though, Pierrot offers a path forward—the possibility of breaking the cycle of colonization, appropriation, and theft. He brings a genuine spirit of hopefulness imbued with a generosity that cannot but feel a bit heartbreaking.”
