Best for: All white people in the U.S. right now. In a nutshell: Dr. Anderson shares a concise history of all the shit black people have gone through because of the anger white people feel when black people start to make even a little bit of progress. Line that sticks with me: All of them. Seriously, I underlined, circled, or commented on all but maybe three pages in this book. Okay, fine, here’s one: “Somehow many have convinced themselves that the man who pulled the […]
A debut that deserves all the praise it’s been given.
I have been trying to figure out what I want to say about this book for literally months now, and I just can’t do it. I give up. The amount of things I want to say are all swirling around in my brain and getting mixed up with each other, and everything is coming out all garbled whenever I try, so I give up and am now officially half-assing this review in a stream of consciousness manner with no regards for structure, and I am no longer […]
Two books so close as to be indistinguishable
You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell […]
Fantastic Take on a Tough Subject
Best for: Anyone looking for a riveting read. In a nutshell: 16-year-old Starr Carter is in the car when her friend is killed by a police officer. Line that sticks with me: “Claim folks need to act peaceful, but rolling through here like we in a goddamn war.” (pg 211) Why I chose it: I’ve been hearing loads of people talk about it. Review: Holy shit. 444 pages. Started yesterday morning on the walk to work, finished it this morning on the walk to work. […]