The Wedding Date, by Jasmine Guillory, is a delightful romcom that doesn’t shy away from some of the tough work involved in interracial relationships. Alexa calls Drew on his privilege many times in the book, and Drew demonstrates that he’s learning. These issues come up throughout the book, but not in a preachy way – in a way that shows a relationship growing and trust developing. Briefly, Alexa and Drew ‘meet cute’ in an elevator, which sets the stage for a fake relationship. Their chemistry […]
The Original 8
In 1948, the city of Atlanta hired its first 8 black police officers. They were not allowed to wear their uniforms to or from work, they could not arrest white people, they could not drive a squad car or operate out of the police headquarters. If they uncovered a crime, they reported that to white police officers, who would investigate it when, and if, they chose. Many in the black community viewed them with suspicion. Darktown is Thomas Mullen’s fictional interpretation of this endeavor. Historically, Henry Hooks, […]
“Civilization is the way one’s own people live. Savagery is the way foreigners live.”
How to begin? I have wanted to read books by Octavia Butler for years and somehow never picked one up until now. Wild Seed wasn’t’ an easy read, although the language is beautiful, the characters are compelling and change over time (in many ways!), and the plot is complex and interesting. The story takes place over several hundred years and the characters mostly live day-to-day having children, falling sick, getting married, eating food – with powerful ancient beings living day-to-day next to more “ordinary” psychic […]
A Different Life in America
A friend of mine introduced me to Ta-Nehisi Coates with The Beautiful Struggle, a book I found both moving and eye-opening. When I started seeing Between the World and Me (2015) on bookshelves, I knew I’d be reading it. The Beautiful Struggle was a memoir of Coates’s life, growing up in the violent streets of Baltimore with a dictatorial father.Between the World and Me covers some of the same ground but in a very different way. This book is an existentialist (according to the NY Times) letter to […]