Reviews tagging 'Torture'

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith

27 reviews

wifeslife's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Sexual violence, Rape, Child abuse, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Colonisation, Dysphoria, Genocide, Slavery, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Child death, Death, Deportation, Violence, Police brutality, Racial slurs, and Racism

brynalexa's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Poetic, powerful, and thought-provoking. Filled in some gaps in my education while inspiring me to seek out more information on the world’s cruel history. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Rape, Slavery, Bullying, Torture, Violence, Child death, Colonisation, Grief, Kidnapping, Death, Death of parent, Excrement, Genocide, Hate crime, Murder, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Xenophobia

discarded_dust_jacket's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

This is such a poignant and well-written book. Smith has such a talent for making the locations mentioned (and by extension, their history) so viscerally tangible; it felt like you were standing there with him, experiencing the weight of those places alongside him.

The locations themselves were well-curated: highlighting both places where we, as present day Americans, are attempting to reckon with our nation’s past relationship with chattel slavery, and places where we are instead choosing to prioritize comfort over truth.

It asks us to question (among other things) all we’ve been taught about a) those who were supposedly “the good guys” like Thomas Jefferson, and b) the “innocence” of northern cities, both pre- and post-civil war. It asks us not to shy away from discomfort, but to face the ugly truth head on. And no matter what was being discussed, it continued to remind us of the personhood of enslaved people—never allowing us to reduce the enslaved population of the United States to a faceless, amorphous concept in our minds, but instead repeatedly giving enslaved people names, identities, cultures, and deep familial bonds. Always always always reminding us: these were human beings. These were people. I really appreciated that aspect of Smith’s storytelling.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Colonisation, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual violence, Murder, Racism, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

analenegrace's review

challenging informative

I was fortunate enough to meet Clint Smith and get a free signed copy at a university book event over a year ago, but I just now got to reading it. Smith is an amazing writer whose poetry clearly influences his prose, and it is written in such a compelling and beautiful book, even with the difficult subject matter. 

I cannot recommend reading this book, especially if you're trying to deconstruct what racism in America looks like. While there are so many lines I marked as pivotal to the book, the most important comes on page 289 in his epilogue, 

"The history of slavery is the history of the United States. It was not peripheral to our founding; it was central to it. It is not irrelevant to our contemporary society; it created it. This history is in our soil, it is in our policies, and it must, too, be in our memories."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Classism, War, Racism, Genocide, Grief, Violence, Murder, Racial slurs, Misogyny, Kidnapping, Police brutality, Confinement, Death, Medical content, Hate crime, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Trafficking

heatherilene's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Torture, Sexual assault, Classism, Racism, Violence, Slavery, Child death, and Confinement

leahkarge's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Trafficking, Colonisation, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Genocide, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Racial slurs, Classism, Death, Torture, Violence, Racism, and Rape

rachbake's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Stunning. Should be required reading. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Confinement, Rape, Slavery, Genocide, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Trafficking, Violence, Child abuse, Death, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Police brutality, Racism, and Murder

katiea714's review

adventurous challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, War, Violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Confinement, and Cultural appropriation

sydapel's review

dark informative reflective slow-paced

Part history compilation, part piece of journalism and partly the authors own reflections, but primarily I was fascinated by how Smith keeps coming back to how we teach others about slavery, both in America and abroad. A lot of the images described in this book, as well as the writing, will stick with me for a long time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Physical abuse, Racism, Murder, and Slavery

Moderate: Colonisation, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Rape, Hate crime, Forced institutionalization, and Confinement

Minor: Police brutality

albernikolauras's review

informative reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

An excellent nonfiction book very grounded in different locations across the US (with one exception). It's a history and discussion on the slave trade within the US and how the US twists itself up to avoid confronting it. Smith spends each chapter in the book at a different site and on a different tour discussing the slave trade in the United States, and interviews some of the individuals on the tour as well as the organizations conducting them.

I highly recommend for everyone to read this - although definitely look for some own voice reviews on this book. I found How the Word is Passed is approachable and without apology. Smith is an excellent writer and I loved the way he wove his own narrative throughout the story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Violence, and Torture

Moderate: Colonisation, Kidnapping, Confinement, Sexual violence, Racism, Physical abuse, and Rape