First and foremost, I love, maybe even adore, Coates writing. He manages to weave narrative with fact and emotion with such grace and power. If I could write like anyone, it would be Ta-Nehisi Coates. But I can’t write like Coates. Even if we wrote with the exact same words, I could not write like him because I am not him. For a long time, especially as a younger man, I believed that if I wanted to do something, it could be done and that […]
“Look, I know I’ve been joking around a lot, but it’s only to keep from being sad.”
I’ve been volunteering at my local library, and shelving books has taken me into unfamiliar territory: the nonfiction section! (dun dun duuuuuuun!) Since I’ve been attempting to read stuff by non-white non-men lately anyway, when I found this on my cart to return to the shelves, I decided to keep it for myself. I’m glad I did – Phoebe is a delight. The book is organized into general essay sections, but she rambles a bit, which makes it all much more conversational and easy to […]
The Banality of Racism
Citizen: An American Lyric (2014) was a finalist for the National Book Award for poetry, the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry, and winner of many other literary prizes. It is a series of reflections written as poetry on racism in its many forms, from childhood through adulthood, from everyday personal experiences to those that make national news. Rankine, with precise and evocative language, provides a series of images with words that demonstrate the relentlessness and predictability of racism in America […]
Seldom has so much stupidity been written by such a smart man.
I’ll start this review by briefly describing the story. I’m only doing this to get it out of the way, because I’m not going to talk much about it in the rest of the review. Celebrating the opening of its new headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, the Nakamoto Corporation throws a lavish party filled with businessmen, celebrities, and politicians. During the party, a young woman, Cheryl Austin, is murdered. Police Lt Peter Smith, Japanese liaison with the LAPD, and Cpt. John Connor are given the […]