An excellent look at lived experiences of Black Americans that should be required reading for all Americans.
A perfect follow-up to the authors’ You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey.
Ruffin and her sister, Lamar, describe their second collaboration as a collection of stories not just about the two of them, as in their previous book, but “about our whole family, all our siblings and even some friends.” Here, the tone is heavier than You’ll Never Believe; the authors note that the text is roughly “50/50 silly/scary racist stories.” Their tales range widely—someone using a ridiculous racist phrase at work that required research to understand; a jaw-dropping example of “why we need diversity training at diversity training”; and a heartbreaking yet poignant account of Lamar leading a Zoom-based Q&A session regarding the first book with several “boys and girls homes across the US”—and offer a pleasingly diverse array of different generations, occupations, and environments. As in the previous book, the banter between the sisters is consistently funny, but the underlying social commentary remains incisive. Among countless others, standout pieces include Lamar’s description of an incredibly awkward first date and a story about a Black mother who was informed that when her children registered at a new school, they would need their pictures taken and “show it to all the students so they don't get scared.” Though obviously upset, the mother made the pictures because, as the authors write, “if these people need to see Black people in order to not feel scared, then there’s no telling what the fuck these little monsters are capable of.” Ultimately, Ruffin and Lamar provide a much-needed wake-up call for anyone who still doesn’t believe the severity of anti-Black racism in America. “What is a racist?,” they ask at the beginning. “Is it just a confused person who means well but blah blah blah? No. A racist is a turd.” Well said.
An excellent look at lived experiences of Black Americans that should be required reading for all Americans.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5387-2455-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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