Reviews tagging 'Slavery'
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi
18 reviews
txsweetheart's review
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery, Racism, and Violence
nadia's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
I'm a little conflicted with my rating here because I definitely think this a book I would like everyone to make time for, but I struggled to get through it, for a handful of reasons.
I listened to the audiobook, and while I've heard others praise this edition highly — and it was awesome to hear so many different Black voices — I just don't think this format was the right one for me to take in this material. Admittedly, I wasn't in the best mood while listening to most of it — which definitely didn't help given the subject matter — but I struggled to focus and gel with some of the chapters, especially a lot of the earlier ones.
I go back and forth between thinking the book was incredible because of its breadth and variety and thinking it was trying to pack in almost too much that I've left it not really remembering any details, which is what I went into the book hoping for. Again, this could be because I listened to the book as opposed to reading the words from a page.
I was a big fan of the structure — 10 parts spanning 40 years and each chapter spanning 5 — and it was fascinating travelling bit by bit from the 17th Century all the way to the present day. I also appreciated the occasional poems mixed in with the essays!
I think I might have preferred a series of books in a very similar style, but with some of the essays going more in depth, and perhaps them having a little bit more of a narrative thread through them.
All in all, a book that's definitely worth your time! My rating is heavily based on my personal enjoyment in the moment.
Note: Around 75% in, there's a chapter on Zora Neale Hurston. I skipped most of it for fear of spoilers of Their Eyes Were Watching God.
I listened to the audiobook, and while I've heard others praise this edition highly — and it was awesome to hear so many different Black voices — I just don't think this format was the right one for me to take in this material. Admittedly, I wasn't in the best mood while listening to most of it — which definitely didn't help given the subject matter — but I struggled to focus and gel with some of the chapters, especially a lot of the earlier ones.
I go back and forth between thinking the book was incredible because of its breadth and variety and thinking it was trying to pack in almost too much that I've left it not really remembering any details, which is what I went into the book hoping for. Again, this could be because I listened to the book as opposed to reading the words from a page.
I was a big fan of the structure — 10 parts spanning 40 years and each chapter spanning 5 — and it was fascinating travelling bit by bit from the 17th Century all the way to the present day. I also appreciated the occasional poems mixed in with the essays!
I think I might have preferred a series of books in a very similar style, but with some of the essays going more in depth, and perhaps them having a little bit more of a narrative thread through them.
All in all, a book that's definitely worth your time! My rating is heavily based on my personal enjoyment in the moment.
Note: Around 75% in, there's a chapter on Zora Neale Hurston. I skipped most of it for fear of spoilers of Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery, Violence, Colonisation, Racism, Death, Murder, and War
talonsontypewriters's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Murder, Hate crime, Trafficking, War, Racism, Slavery, Violence, Religious bigotry, Classism, and Police brutality
Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, Torture, Kidnapping, Fire/Fire injury, Addiction, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Colonisation, Racial slurs, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual harassment, Genocide, Child abuse, and Drug use
Minor: Transphobia, Pregnancy, Suicide, Pedophilia, Infertility, Mass/school shootings, Antisemitism, Alcohol, Homophobia, and Ableism
stevia333k's review against another edition
dark
informative
fast-paced
5.0
This anthology gives me a lot of topics to further look up. Oppression is heartbreaking but I liked how this history took pains to show how things got layered upon layered some melting quicker than others because a lot of histiography tends to act like the time dimension doesn't exist and that things are eternal. Like yeah, we were always bad off but there's been many slow creeps towards fascism, like revolution & counterrevolution. I'm marginalized but I'm white, so I'm feeling awkward about using the pronoun we, but still.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Religious bigotry, Kidnapping, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Classism, Child abuse, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Colonisation, Police brutality, Sexism, Genocide, Hate crime, Misogyny, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Trafficking, War, and Violence
jennie_white2008's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Classism, Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Racism, War, Drug use, Police brutality, Violence, Xenophobia, Death, Ableism, Addiction, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Slavery, and Torture
sydapel's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I usually don't rate the anti-racist books I read, but holy shit was this the most impactful thing I've read this year, and I haven't seen it talked about nearly enough. It's so uniquely structured and powerfully written, and more than any other book I've read made me directly confront the white supremacy rooted in this country's history. It's long, but so worth your time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Police brutality, Murder, Slavery, Forced institutionalization, War, Violence, Racism, and Miscarriage
Moderate: Suicide attempt, Hate crime, Drug use, Mental illness, Torture, Rape, Colonisation, and Sexual assault
caidyn's review
emotional
informative
medium-paced
4.0
A heartfelt book on the four hundred years of Black folk being in America. Some of the essays hit harder than others. And I definitely found areas that interest me that I'd like to read more on.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Slavery
gabi_tron's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Murder, Colonisation, Confinement, Police brutality, Racism, Slavery, and Violence
steveatwaywords's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
This collection of historical essays is so accessible, it's a wonder it is not more widely used in schools and public discourse. Each entry, focused usually on a small or local figure at some point in the 5-year span, is also given the broader context in the narrative of black experience and the American story and written by a different author. While some topics are expected (Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Hip-Hop), none are "traditionally-taught" accounts but each reveals an unexpected (at least for me) connection, a significant consequence, or a series of details which--while barely planned by editors Kendi and Blain--underscore larger patterns.
Widely researched (though awkwardly cited with difficult-to-navigate and unmarked end notes), nearly every essay hints at still deeper scholarship to be revealed. I say "nearly every essay" because this is one of two concerns I had about the project:
1) While I am not certain of the directives given the various writers, not each approached the task with equal devotion to scholarship. I expected (and desired) analysis and judgments to accompany the topics and, especially in the earlier essays, these appeared, solidly built upon documented evidence. In a few (fortunately quite few) cases, however, there was more judgment than analysis and more still than documented detail. This was frustrating, as the tone for the book had been set by more focused historians earlier. But when the rhetoric grew powerful in place of scholarship, the interest in learning waned. In my view, it undermined the credibility of the collection as a whole.
2) My other concern is not truly that. As large as the collection is (80-odd brief essays with 10 poems), it is yet incredibly brief, barely skimming the richness and nuanced diversity of narratives we have of black history. In other words, I found myself reading the work as an introduction to larger studies (some completed or underway by the writers), or as a first volume, perhaps, to another few thousand which might still be written. To be sure, this is hardly a criticism but a printing limitation; but to that end, I would have appreciated a section which pushed readers to more serious scholarship out there on its topics. The brief writer bio entries at the end were in this way somewhat helpful, but not reliably focused on expanding the reader's experience.
Still, as I purge my bookshelf of over 5000 titles, <i>Four Hundred Souls</i> will stay, because it a volume I am confident to return.
Widely researched (though awkwardly cited with difficult-to-navigate and unmarked end notes), nearly every essay hints at still deeper scholarship to be revealed. I say "nearly every essay" because this is one of two concerns I had about the project:
1) While I am not certain of the directives given the various writers, not each approached the task with equal devotion to scholarship. I expected (and desired) analysis and judgments to accompany the topics and, especially in the earlier essays, these appeared, solidly built upon documented evidence. In a few (fortunately quite few) cases, however, there was more judgment than analysis and more still than documented detail. This was frustrating, as the tone for the book had been set by more focused historians earlier. But when the rhetoric grew powerful in place of scholarship, the interest in learning waned. In my view, it undermined the credibility of the collection as a whole.
2) My other concern is not truly that. As large as the collection is (80-odd brief essays with 10 poems), it is yet incredibly brief, barely skimming the richness and nuanced diversity of narratives we have of black history. In other words, I found myself reading the work as an introduction to larger studies (some completed or underway by the writers), or as a first volume, perhaps, to another few thousand which might still be written. To be sure, this is hardly a criticism but a printing limitation; but to that end, I would have appreciated a section which pushed readers to more serious scholarship out there on its topics. The brief writer bio entries at the end were in this way somewhat helpful, but not reliably focused on expanding the reader's experience.
Still, as I purge my bookshelf of over 5000 titles, <i>Four Hundred Souls</i> will stay, because it a volume I am confident to return.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Rape, Slavery, Violence, and Racism
The nature of the history of black Americans is rife with abusive treatment. These historians do not flinch from discussing it where relevant; however, each is treated factually as essential to its topic and never gratuitously.just_one_more_paige's review
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Well, this is just one of those big-name recent releases that I knew I needed to read. And then I actually read an interview with Kendi and Blain and the audiobook producer (does anyone else that works/spends time in a library read Book Page?) where they talked about matching the full cast of narrators to easy essay/chapter and how important the voice/vibe/topic match was. Which happened around the same time that Libro.fm offered the audiobook as an ALC...and here we are!
Well, the subtitle of this fairly epic collection, A Community History of African America 1619-2019, pretty well sums up the contents. This is a collection of close to one hundred essays and poems that tell the history of Africans in America, retelling the history of America within the frame of this perspective. With authors whose backgrounds range from historian to sociologist to lawyers to journalists to artists and more, this chronological look at four hundred years of African-American history (from first arrival through slavery, segregation, migration, general cultural and systemic oppression and violence, along with resistance, art and creativity, and myriad examples of the constant pushing of boundaries) is stunningly successfully ambitious in scope (which should come as no surprise, considering the curators).
This is a really unique book to review because it was so...all-encompassing. I think it's going to be tough to speak to anything individually, since this was such a sweeping history, and each of the essays felt like it covered so much in such a short time. Reviewing it all seems like a nigh-on impossible task. That being said, I'll kind of give some broad sweeping thoughts/reactions, perhaps add a few more specific comments (for flavor!), and then just close out with a recommendation to read (or, really, listen - the full cast audiobook narration was a spectacular experience) to it yourself.
Starting with a personal note, I have to say that, as a twice-graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, starting this right after their recent self-inflicted BS bad rep post the non-tenure-granting to Nikole Hannah-Jones, was stark and poignant, since the opening essay (the arrival in 1619 of the first Africans to this land) was by her (and the "not" reason for her not-tenure was most definitely related to her involvement with th 1619 Project). As a good friend said, "truth hurts, UNC."
Moving forwards from there, this was a beautiful compilation of Black voices telling the stories of their history centering them, which is a huge, and necessary, departure from the "conventional" history taught in schools (the authors of which textbooks are, pretty much all, white). It was such a cool way to look at such a large chunk of time too, getting snippets of individual stories that illuminated so many different periods and lives, working together to make a full historical picture. I also absolutely loved the way that so many nuances were added to that picture, with perspectives not commonly considered (like the concept of myriad separate African identities before African American became a "single" thing) and non-mainstream perspectives of common/popular figures and moments (like reflections from a descendant of Plessy from Plessy v Ferguson). Along these same lines, these moments did a really great job exemplifying how often historical figures, whether deserved/beneficial or not, get defined by the time period and not by their person. I also really enjoyed reading from contributors whose other work I know/have read, like Heather McGhee, Kiese Laymon, Angela Davis, Isabel Wilkerson and more, because it was fascinating to see what they felt was most important to highlight in such a short space, in comparison with their longer/other works. Overall, the creative breadth of narrative style was so well executed and curated. And though for some reason in my head this was more a creative nonfiction/fiction collection, rather than a strictly nonfiction/educational collection, in the end it was amazing and it didn't matter what I had expected, because what I got was spectacular.
One benefit to going through these pieces of history so quickly, even though sometimes I definitely wanted more, was that there was a great opportunity to see patterns unfold. For example, watching the evolution of the purposeful dehumanization of Black people (and even more specifically, the differences in the way Black men and Black women were societally stereotyped and/or degendered) and how those socially-created parameters have been codified and accepted as truth today is hard, but so important, to witness. It's a comprehensive look at how we (white people, specially, white politically/economically powerful people) created, for the benefit, the racism that led to slavery and the society we have today. It did not start out that way and so clearly didn't/doesn't have to be that way.
The chance to experience these years in such quick succession emphasized how, over and over, history's pattern of racial disenfranchisement in America has repeated itself. This is particularly striking in juxtaposition with realizing that we accept so many things as "fact" right now that were fabricated so recently as to be within my lifetime (or just before…). Really, this was just such an incredible reading and learning experience.
“This omission is intentional: when we are creating a shared history, what we remember is just as revolutionary as what we forget.”
“It was a womanhood synonymous with market productivity, not motherhood; and with promiscuity rather than modesty or a heightened moral sensibility.”
“A recovery of the earthly and spiritual equality of all people, both in theory and in practice, is the only way to redeem religion from racism.”
“The 1688 Germantown petition is a model of, if nothing else, a quality that Black people need in white Americans – the uncompromising belief that what is wrong with racism is not that it inhibits full access to American goods and treasures but that it is an affront to the human standing of Black Americans. Black people don’t need allies. We need decent people possessed of the moral conviction that lives matter.”
“Time and again white racism produced Black resistance. It is one of the longest-running plotlines in African American history.”
“While some nations vow never to forget, our American battle has always been over what we allow ourselves to remember. Our historical record, we know, is subjective. Not every account is written down. The distinction between equity and injustice, riot and uprising, hinges on whose hand holds the pen. So often, it seems, our history is hiding from us, preventing the possibility that we dare look back and tell the truth – afraid of what doing so may require of us now.”
“But true equality cannot be left to the whims of the electorate – it is the predicate for democracy and the vote, not their product.”
“What happens to the person when they become a symbol? Can they be recovered? Can they exist beyond what they embody? In this wrestling over symbols, the individual is sacrificed. They become the unknown.”
“When it comes to our democracy, and who we determine to have the right to vote – our most sacred of rights – patience is no virtue. We must never be patient when someone else’s rights are in the balance. We cannot wait on laws, or elected officials, or anyone else. The only virtue when it comes to the right to vote is impatience.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Violence, Slavery, Sexism, Sexual assault, Police brutality, Gaslighting, and Colonisation