This is also a book I picked up at Winter Institute.
This is the debut novel by Rwandan–Namibian author Rémy Ngamije. It is a semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age story about a young man name Séraphin, whose family left Rwanda during the 1994 genocide and for Namibia. The story follows Séraphin from his high school years in “boring” Windhoek to college in cosmopolitan Capetown. We are introduced to his traditional family trying to make a new life for themselves as immigrants. We also see Séraphin’s many colorful friends, lovers, and acquaintances struggle through the African continent’s current racial and sexual politics.
This is definitely a great, witty read from a new voice in African literature!
The Eternal Audience of One by Rémy Ngamije. Published by Scout Press on August 10, 2021.
I don’t read a lot of fiction, but when I do, I prefer historical fiction. I like this genre because it is based on real people and events. Island Queen follows the true story of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, a Black woman from the West Indian island of Montserrat during the 18th century who bought herself and her family freedom from slavery and became one of the richest and most powerful landowners in the Caribbean.
I was initially attracted to the book because I am interested in learning more about slavery in the Caribbean and books that are not centered on Black trauma. Yes, slavery itself was a traumatic experience for Black people. Thomas goes through some horrific events throughout her life, including being raped twice by her white owner/stepbrother. But she was able to rise from these horrors and build a successful life for herself.
Clocking in at nearly 600 pages and through many decades, Island Queen is not only a sweeping epic about Thomas’s life but also the lives of free women of color at that time who were both enterprising in their own right. Thomas earned enough money during her enslavement to free herself, her mother, and her sister and build a housekeeping and hotelling business.
However, most of the book focuses on Thomas’s many romantic relationships with wealthy white baby daddies. She had ten children with at least three men during her life. Readers might think Island Queen is an epic “romance” novel. There is a huge market for romance novels. However, I personally have a hard time with any depictions showing a Black woman and a white man during slavery as “romantic.” Most Black women during slavery – both enslaved and free – were not in consensual relationships with white men. Many readers might come away from this book and think of Thomas as a “bed wench.” But as the author notes in the epilogue, her choice of men had less to do with race and more to do with the power and influence white men had to help her grow her business and protect her family.
With that said, I wish the author spent more time discussing how Thomas specifically ran her businesses. She eventually became a slaveowner solely to protect other enslaved people from the horrors she suffered. I would have like to have seen how she interacted with her slaves.
Also, the book is too long! I don’t think it needs to be 600 pages. The book could have easily have been edited down to under 400 pages, and it still would have been effective in telling the story. I felt like there were whole chapters that could have been rewritten in two or three sentences. Cutting down the pages would have been most useful in the last quarter of the book because Thomas had ten children and their numerous spouses, children, and grandchildren, whose names were hard to keep up with. I only wished the editor would have put a diagram of the family tree in the book for reference because I became confused about who was who!
However, the book being 600 pages doesn’t take away from the quality writing. I prefer to read books that concise and to the point. However, some readers might not mind the book’s length. Island Queen is also full of drama and mess! I can totally see a Shondaland adaptation of this book soon.
This book comes out at the beginning of the summer season. This is a great read for people who are maybe vaccinated and now have the freedom to go away on a long summer vacation, and they can only take one engaging book with them. This book will definitely keep you entertained.
One other recommendation: instead of getting the 600-page hardcover book, get the e-book!
Island Queen by Vanessa Riley. Published by William Morrow on July 6, 2021. Buy the book here.
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.
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.
This is also a book I picked up at Winter Institute.
