Book Review: State of Emergency

Talia Whyte Books Black Writers Matter, Winter Institute

Tamika Mallory is a rising star within many social justice movements in America.  She first came to prominence as a co-chair of the 2017 Women’s March with her firebrand outspokenness.  More recently, she has been one of the faces of the 2020 protests when she said in a now-famous speech that George Floyd’s death wasn’t an isolated incident but really a bookmark in a long history of systemic racism.  In her debut book, State of Emergency: How We Win In The Country We Built, Mallory guides readers through America’s racial history to explain why the country is indeed in a state of emergency and what can be done about it.

This is great for readers who might not be knowledgeable about social justice issues or don’t consider themselves activists but were radicalized by Floyd’s death and the ensuring uprisings worldwide.  Rapper Cardi B asks in one of the two forwards in this book if an entertainer like herself who isn’t involved in politics has a role in the movement.  Legendary activist Angela Davis answers in the other forward that entertainers have also had a role in social movements like Nina Simone and Harry Belafonte.  As a matter of fact, Davis said Simone’s musicianship inspired her, and the late singer also visited Davis in jail back in the 1970s.  Simone didn’t think she was educated enough to be an activist, even though today she is remembered as one of the leading voices from the civil rights movement. Davis said art moves people, and activists come into movements from different perspectives and lived experiences.

Mallory begins the book by talking about how her upbringing in Harlem, her activist parents’ involvement with Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network (NAN), and her son’s father’s death inspired her activism.  She then goes briefly into historical touchstones like slavery and Jim Crow laws, as well as more recent subjects like the war on drugs, the crime bill, welfare reform, and the Trump administration has led to a situation where people are protesting in the streets against police brutality and tearing down Confederate monuments and other public racist symbolism.

Mallory explains some practical issues that activists should know, like the difference between centralized and decentralized organizing, why you should pack light, and even why you should always have identification on you when you go out to a protest.  I really appreciate her saying why voting is important.  Often, people go to protests and don’t think to take the next step of learning more about the issues affecting their communities and voting.  And not just voting, but also voting down-ballot in local elections. Mallory also takes down white women for being co-conspirators in racism and how “Karenism” has held back and destroyed black communities.

Speaking of white ladies, the only blindspot to this book was Mallory’s perspective, kind of, about her time in the Women’s March.  Mallory was criticized for her association with Min. Louis Farrakhan, who has been accused of making antisemitic and homophobic at a 2018 Saviour’s Day event.  Mallory was also accused of making antisemitic remarks to Vanessa Wruble, a Women’s March co-founder who is also Jewish.  Wruble claims she left the organization because of concerns about antisemitism within the organization.  Mallory disputed that she made the remarks to Wruble.

Although Mallory went on TV at the time to say she didn’t agree with Farrakhan on everything but didn’t directly condemn antisemitism, I think it was a missed opportunity for her to use the book to give her side of the story some clarity in her own words.  Instead, she has another Women’s March co-chair and “accomplice” (Mallory’s words!) Linda Sarsour explain what really happened in a separate essay in the book.  According to Sarsour, the organization, mostly led by white women, either didn’t understand or want to understand marginalized women’s issues and include their issues in the march’s platform.  Every time Mallory tried to bring up these issues, she was shut down as an angry black woman.  When Mallory started to gain traction in calling out privileged white women, the hate mail and death threats started to come in from detractors, who also began a smear campaign by using video of Mallory attending the Saviour’s Day event.  It just seemed weird to me that Mallory used someone else’s words to describe an issue that directly happened to her.

But this is a minor issue in the book.  Mallory concludes with some potential solutions to help move the country forward, like reparations and criminal justice reform.  This book is definitely worth a read if you are a beginner activist looking for a roadmap.

State of Emergency: How We Win in the Country We Built by Tamika Mallory. Published by Black Privilege Publishing on May 11, 2021.  Buy the book here.

Book Review: The Second

Talia Whyte Books Black Writers Matter, Winter Institute

In Carol Anderson’s previous book, White Rage, she made the case for why the fight against voting rights for Black people was really a fight for white supremacy.  Similarly in Anderson’s latest book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, the author argues that the Second Amendment isn’t about protecting gun rights as NRA members like to espouse; it was designed to control and terrorize African Americans.  Through her thorough research, Anderson says that gun laws and anti-Blackness were part of the founding of this country.

When the Haitian Revolution happened in 1791, as well as other successful anti-slavery insurrections, white slaveowners freaked out about enslaved people wanting to kill them.  The Second Amendment wasn’t created for a “well-regulated militia.” It was originally a bribe to get anti-Federalists to ratify the Constitution and soothe the worries of Southern planters about slavery’s future.  The Second Amendment was created to be a slave control device.

In some states at the time, Black militias, including Black slave catchers, were not allowed to carry guns.  There was an argument against Black soldiers who fought valiantly in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars having access to guns.  Even in southern states that didn’t have enough militiamen to fight in these wars, Black soldiers were banned from fighting simply because they would access guns.  During World War I, some white people thought it would be dangerous to arm Black people and to the “racial harmony” in the country.   However, it was also common at this time for Black people, including Black soldiers, to be shot and beaten because of white rage.

Nonetheless, more gun laws have been created over the years to control African Americans.  When the Black Panthers carried weapons, the Oakland Police was frustrated because they couldn’t legally arrest them, as the Panthers were always operating within the laws.  This all changed when California, with the support of the NRA, created Assembly Bill 1591, which made it illegal to carry loaded weapons in public and effectively outlawed the Panthers.

Anderson also talks about the hypocrisy of many of the laws still enacted today like stand your ground, open carry, and the castle doctrine, and how they affected the cases of Kyle Rittenhouse, Trayvon Martin, and Breona Taylor.

This book is an excellent primer on a current issue that has a long, unresolved history.

The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America by Carol Anderson, published by Bloomsbury.  Buy it here.

Book Review: Caul Baby

Talia Whyte Books Black Writers Matter, Winter Institute

I don’t usually read fiction, but the virtual book galley room at Winter Institute last February provided me with a great opportunity to broaden my horizons by picking books I would normally not pick up.  While I am a nonfiction gal, I did get some interesting fiction books that I will review over the next few weeks.

The first book I read is Caul Baby, the fictional debut by writer Morgan Jerkins.  She is the editor of Zora, an online black women’s magazine.  She has previously written two nonfiction books from a black feminist perspective.

Caul Baby explores issues of black motherhood.  The book is set in Harlem with a pregnant Laila, who has had a history of miscarriages.  Out of fear that she might miscarry again, she turns to the Melancons, a family of women who sell their caul, a layer of skin that has magical power.  The family decides not to give her the healing skin because they only help white people. Laila loses her baby and has a mental breakdown.

Unbeknownst to anyone in her family, Laila’s 20-year-old niece, Amara, is pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl born in a caul.  Because she doesn’t want her family to know about her pregnancy and wants to continue with her college studies, Amara has her baby in secret at her godfather’s house. He secretly gives the caul-bearing infant to the Melancons. The book continues down a thrilling route of intrigue and secrets while looking at race and class in America.

I really liked the book.  It was really well-written, and the character development was superb.  I was able to visualize everything happening in the book. Maybe Jerkins is setting this book up to be made into a movie!  The book cover is also stunning.

Of course, after Googling real caul babies, I went down a rabbit hole of surreal images of newborns still in their amniotic sac.  En caul births, as they are called, are extremely rare where a newborn is born fully inside the sac, which looks like a thin and filmy membrane.  In many cultures, it is good luck to be born with the caul. The Melancons are part of a long caul-bearing tradition from West Africa by way of New Orleans that is both helpful and harmful in their Harlem community and to themselves.  Coincidentally, Josephine, one of the Melancon women, also has also had many miscarriages, doesn’t have the same good luck with the caul.

I also appreciated the focus on reproductive health and justice for Black women.  Systemic racism impacts access to quality healthcare, which puts Black women at higher risk for pregnancy complications.  According to the CDC, Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related problems than white women.  Black women also develop fibroids and endometriosis more often than white women, contributing greatly to pregnancy issues and other health issues.  Many might not go to a doctor to get properly diagnosed for these issues because of cost, access, thinking it is just a “bad period,” or not thinking health professionals will believe their pain.

Then Black women are criminalized when access to proper healthcare is denied.  A storyline later in Jerkins’ book is about Asali, a pregnant Black teen who delivers her baby inside a convenience store bathroom and leaves the dead baby in the trash.  Amara is now a 40-year-old prosecutor who is running for Manhattan district attorney.  To win the race, Amara charges Asali as an adult for murder while still secretly thinking about her own hypocrisy of giving up her baby.  If Asali had access to decent healthcare, Harlem wasn’t gentrifying, or if she was simply white, would she be in this situation?

Sometimes fiction can tell us many truths.

Caul Baby by Morgan Jerkins. Published by Harper on April 6, 2021.  Buy it here.

Book Review: How The Word Is Passed

Talia Whyte Books Black Writers Matter, Winter Institute

Last February, I attended the annual Winter Institute virtually hosted by the American Booksellers Association.  I was there as a steering committee member for my local bookstore, Rozzie Bound.  I had never attended a whole conference conducted online before.  It was a wonderful experience, and I wish all conferences are done online, even after the pandemic.  One of the cool things about it was I was able to select advanced reader copies (ARC) of new books coming out in the next few months and have them delivered to me for free.  I will be reviewing some of those books here in the next few weeks.

One of the books I selected was Clint Smith’s book How The Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America.  Smith is an activist and writer for The Atlantic.  He also used to be on the podcast Pod Save The People.   Whenever I listened to him on the podcast, I found him a brilliant and thoughtful person.  So when I saw his book was an available ARC, I immediately requested it because I know I would get a good history lesson.

And I wasn’t disappointed.  I loved the book!

How The Word Is Passed focuses on how America remembers slavery through physical landmarks.  The book attempts to answer many questions. Are we doing a good job at this remembrance? Are we telling the truth about these landmarks to ourselves? What do they say about America?  Smith goes beyond the debate around Confederate monuments and tries to answer these questions. He visited places dedicated to our collective memory on slavery like Monticello, Whitney Plantation, Blanford Cemetary, Juneteeth celebrations in Texas, and Senegal’s Gorée Island. The book is well researched and does a great job examining how America is reckoning with this history.

He also talks about history that is hidden in plain view, like Central Park.  I only found out a couple of years ago that a thriving black community used to live in the area we now know as the famous park called Seneca Village.  The rich, white New Yorkers wanted to have a park similar to those in Europe.  In what probably was the first gentrification act in New York, the Black folks were violently forced out of the village in the 1850s, and developers raised all the buildings to create the park we all know today.  I remember going on a three-hour walking tour of Central Park about five years ago, and the tour guide never mentioned any of this dark history.  The guide made it sound like the park was a vacant, unused parcel of land before Frederick Law Olmsted created the park.

The most disturbing part of the book is when the author visits Angola – a slave plantation turned into a prison that got its start with “convict leasing” – or slavery by another name.  Today Angola Prison also has a museum “celebrating” its storied history, minus any mention of slavery, a golf course, a guesthouse, and the Angola Rodeo.  Yes, a rodeo! According to the rodeo’s website, it includes activities like “Convict Poker, where four offenders play poker seated at a table with a loose bull, and the last sitting offender wins.”  The rodeo also includes “Prisoner Pinball,” where offenders stand in randomly placed hula-hoops with a loose bull and the last offender still in their hula-hoop wins.”  Think of Disney with cellblocks!

Several of the landmarks bring up issues of truthfulness and “storytelling,” whether it is the stained windows at Blanford Church, the Lost Cause messaging from the Sons of Confederate Veterans, or the actual number of enslaved people who came through the House of Slaves.  I wonder in the cases of Blanford and Gorée if the storytelling has more to do with tourism and the financial incentive.  Blanford Church is part of a memorial for Confederate soldiers buried in the adjacent Blandford Cemetary in Virginia. When Smith toured the church, all the guide wanted to talk about were the famous windows and not about the Confederacy’s role in wanting to keep slavery alive.  Many tourists today only go to slave plantations and other similar landmarks just to hear a “nice story.” Unfortunately, places like Blanford are catering to that “whitewashed” market. Oh, slavery wasn’t that bad.  Look at the lovely windows! It’s like going to Auschwitz and not wanting to hear about the Holocaust!

On the Gorée tour, Smith was told that millions of enslaved people came through the Door of No Return.  Not only is this number exaggerated allegedly, but there is even a question about how relevant Gorée is in transatlantic slave trade history.  Gorée Island is a significant tourist destination in Senegal and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Many people in Dakar financially benefit from the island’s high profile and tourist money, even if these exaggerations started by House of Slaves’ original curator Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye in 1962 persisted.  In my opinion, there is a financial incentive to keep the lie going.  Many historians still argue that the number of enslaved people coming through there isn’t as important as its place in the collective memory of what the House of Slaves represents.

Smith ends the book with more questions for the reader.  How do we fill these historical gaps when we don’t always know if the information we are being told is true, false, or “sincere fiction”?  I don’t think we will ever know, but we should work towards having more honest information.

How The Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery across America by Clint Smith.  Available June 1, 2021, from Little, Brown, and Company.  Buy the book here.