Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Ibram X. Kendi, Jason Reynolds

5 reviews

lordefarquaad's review

medium-paced

4.0

I really liked it. The only reason I wouldn’t give it a 5 is because I felt like since the book was so short, a lot of info was kind of dumbed down. Still a great intro to antirscism for teens and young adults tho

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, and Murder

Moderate: Rape and Police brutality

amanileb's review

funny informative lighthearted reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Hate crime, Murder, Police brutality, Racism, and Slavery

alisazhup's review

informative inspiring fast-paced

4.0

This was a short but incredibly informative not history history book! 95% of what I read was new to me.

The chapters were fast paced but some of them ended up making for dense reading. There were some parts where I wish the authors had gone into more depth. For example, I was a little disappointed by the chapter on W. E. B. Du Bois. I loved Du Bois' writing on double consciousness and the authors of Stamped overgeneralized the concept by implying that it's assimilationist thought and that it's simply about "a self that is Black and a self that is American." It's fair to have that opinion, but since I believe it's an unpopular one (double consciousness is a topic discussed frequently to this day), it deserved more than a paragraph.

Also, there were times when the authors' tone clashed with the book's content. I understand that Jason Reynolds wanted to make this book more readable for younger audiences, but at times it was a little too much. This is a quote from chapter one: "Uh-oh. The R-word. Which for many of us still feels rated R. Or can be matched only with another R word-run. But don't. Let's all just take a deep breath. Inhale. Hold it. Exhale and breathe out: RACE." It almost feels like I'm being talked down to. 

The authors tried to make an effort to include LGBT+ people and women. I would say they succeeded in being inclusive of women, but not LGBT+ people. I can count maybe two times that they were mentioned.   

Regardless of those three factors-the tone, the pacing, and inclusivity-I would replace this with current school history textbooks any day. THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER than history told through a white perspective.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Hate crime, Murder, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Racial slurs, Sexism, Slavery, and Violence

marieketron's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective fast-paced

3.5

As i indicated during an earlier status update, I probably would have been better off having read the first book that this one is a remix of. I’m not exactly the target audience, being way past being a teenager and also not American. I do think the material being discussed is relevant and important for everyone to be aware of, but the way it was being presented here didn’t really work for me. 

That being said, I am very happy to see these type of dense materials are being remixed so they’re more easily accessible for a range of audiences. The ideas on which racism is built are old and have changed a lot in their presentation but never at their core. This book helps track that development and illuminates those core ideas so that the reader can track them and identify them themselves. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Hate crime, Violence, Slavery, Religious bigotry, Racism, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Physical abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Islamophobia and Xenophobia

junefish's review against another edition

hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Police brutality, Violence, Slavery, Sexism, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Murder, Mass/school shootings, Hate crime, Gun violence, Forced institutionalization, Drug use, Death, and Child death