An essential contribution to American history.
A searching examination of anti-Black racism as a defining feature of American life.
Writes actor Tom Hanks in his foreword, “I had never heard of the Tulsa Massacre, nor had it ever been taught in any of my American history classes.” Enter Robinson, a former criminal justice lawyer and the founder of the nonprofit Who We Are Project; his book helps answer historian Jill Lepore’s call for a “national narrative,” a history everyone can agree on as the basis for “a shared future.” The problem, of course, is that a sizable number of Americans want to rewrite history to remove some of the more unpleasant facts. Robinson charts the course of anti-Black racism through the arrival of the first slave ships in 1619, a year that the Trump administration and Project 2025 have been striving to erase from the record. Thus, it is that the National Park Service attempted to downplay Harriet Tubman’s role in the Underground Railroad and abolitionist movement: “Getting rid of her completely would have been too extreme, so they minimized her,” writes Robinson. In response to a public outcry, the NPS reversed its revisionism, but the battle continues. Conservative media organization PragerU comes in for a drubbing for making “three misleading and inaccurate statements” about the history of slavery in an animated video lasting only 67 seconds, including the assertion that “Slavery was part of life all over the world. It was America that began the conversation to end it.” Actually, slavery existed in the U.S. well after it had been abolished around the globe. In a mind-bending exercise, Robinson takes readers through a literacy exam forced on Black voters in Louisiana, which “had nothing to do with proving adequate intelligence to vote and everything to do with suppressing the Black vote.” Try the test yourself, and you’ll see why so much effort is made to suppress the past as well, to say nothing of present injustices.
An essential contribution to American history.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2027
ISBN: 9780593803912
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: yesterday
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2026
A welcome new version of a publication that is no less important now than it was in 1967.
A timely distilled version of the powerful report on racism in the U.S.
Created by Lyndon Johnson’s executive order in 1967, the Kerner Commission was convened in response to inner-city riots in cities like Newark and Detroit, and its findings have renewed relevance in the wake of the George Floyd verdict and other recent police brutality cases. The report, named for Otto Kerner, the chairman of the commission and then governor of Illinois, explored the systemic reasons why an “apocalyptic fury” broke out that summer even in the wake of the passage of significant civil rights and voting acts—a response with striking echoes in recent events across the country. In this edited and contextualized version, New Yorker staff writer Cobb, with the assistance of Guariglia, capably demonstrates the continued relevance and prescience of the commission’s findings on institutionalized discriminatory policies in housing, education, employment, and the media. The commission was not the first to address racial violence in the century, and it would not be the last, but the bipartisan group of 11 members—including two Blacks and one woman—was impressively thorough in its investigation of the complex overarching social and economic issues at play. “The members were not seeking to understand a singular incident of disorder,” writes Cobb, “but the phenomenon of rioting itself.” Johnson wanted to know what happened, why it happened, and what could be done so it doesn’t happen “again and again.” Of course, it has happened again and again, and many of the report’s recommendations remain unimplemented. This version of the landmark report features a superb introduction by Cobb and a closing section of frequently asked questions—e.g., “How come nothing has been done about these problems?” The book contains plenty of fodder for crucial national conversations and many excellent ideas for much-needed reforms that could be put into place now.
A welcome new version of a publication that is no less important now than it was in 1967.Pub Date: July 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63149-892-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fiery, eloquent call to action for White men who want to be on the right side of history.
A Black man speaks hard truths to White men about their failure to dismantle systemic racism.
A “child of the Black bourgeoisie,” journalist Ross first learned “the shadow history of Black revolutionary struggle” in college. He accepted that he “directly benefited from the struggle that generations of Black folks had died in the name of, yet I wasn’t doing anything to help those who hadn’t benefited.” The author calls the White men of his generation, Gen X, to also recognize their complicity and miseducation. “We were fed cherry-picked narratives that confirmed the worthlessness of Black life,” he writes, “The euphemistic ‘culture of poverty,’ not systemic oppression, was to blame for the conditions in which so many Black people lived.” The story that White people have been told about Black people is “missing a major chapter,” and Ross thoroughly elucidates that chapter with a sweeping deep dive into decades of American social history and politics that is at once personal, compelling, and damning. Through a series of well-crafted personal letters, the author advises White men to check their motivations and “interrogate the allegedly self-evident, ‘commonsense’ values and beliefs” that perpetuate inequality and allow them to remain blissfully unaware of the insidiousness of racism and the ways they benefit from it. Ross condemns the “pathological unwillingness to connect the past with the present” and boldly avoids the comfortable “both sides” rhetoric that makes anti-racism work more palatable to White people. “It is on you,” he writes, “to challenge the color-blind narratives your parents peddle.” The letters are consistently compelling, covering wide ground that includes the broken criminal justice system, gentrification, and the problem with framing equity work as “charity.” Finally, Ross offers practical guidance and solutions for White men to employ at work, in their communities, and within themselves. Pair this one with Emmanuel Acho’s Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man.
A fiery, eloquent call to action for White men who want to be on the right side of history.Pub Date: June 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-27683-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
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