Review Of The Racial Imaginary: The Murder Of Matt Shepard

Loffreda, Beth. 2000. Losing Matt Shepard. New York, New York: Columbia University Press. The murder of Matt Shepard, and the reason for it, will be remembered. The book, Losing Matt Shepard focuses on the murder of Matt Shepard and some of the effects and events surrounding it. The book was written by Beth Loffreda. Beth Loffreda has a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree from the University of Virginia and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree from Rutgers University. Loffreda now works as the Associate Professor for the Department of American Studies and the Creative Writing Program at the University of Wyoming. She has also written, The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind. I chose the book because I thought it dealt with

There are several perspectives shared from gay and straight people. The book describes how isolated gay people can feel, but how different organizations are helping to connect some of these people. The middle of the book also describes the trial of Russel Henderson. Outside the Albandy County Courthouse Fred Phelps was leading an anti-gay demonstration. Blocking Phelps and his supporters from view were a dozen people dressed as angels. The book talks about concerts and foundations that were suppose to help, but didn’t actually accomplish

The tone was serious when it needed to be, but turned sarcastic and blunt to prove points. An example of the latter is, “Rob also drove me past the former homes of the killers, and that, it appears, is as close as I’ll get to them” (Loffreda 2000, 162). In the book the author interprets mostly primary and a few secondary sources. “As Joe, a member of the United Gays and Lesbions of Wyoming told me” (63), is an example of the author using a secondary source. The intention for writing this book is to tell the story of Matt’s murder and its effects on the nation and on individuals. A quote from the preface demonstrates this, “it records individual voices mostly unheard in the media frenzy that followed the murder” (xi). The exclusion of visual aids only negatively affected my understanding at one part of the book. The book states, “Matt lay on his back, head propped against the fence, legs outstretched. His hands were lashed behind him and tied barely four inches off the ground to a fencepost” (5). That description was hard for me to comprehend without a visual