An important, sympathetic effort to elucidate matters of Black lives while expanding intellectual horizons.
A popular University of Texas professor offers a trenchant survey of Black history—and an argument for why every American, of every ethnicity, needs to learn it.
“African American history should be a graduation requirement in every high school, college, or university in America. Every. Single. One.” So urges Moore, who allows that he took a circuitous path to academia. He was an average student in college but was awakened when he discovered some of the awful facts about being Black in America, past and present. For one, as he observes, not so very long ago, Black drivers were not allowed to pass White motorists in Mississippi, for “it was believed that the dust from the Black person’s car would fly up and hit the windshield of the white person’s car, which would symbolize domination of Black over white.” White students in Austin have flocked to Moore’s survey courses and emerged with a clear understanding of such injustices, and many have gone on to teaching and activism themselves. The author writes cogently of how he handles such ticklish subjects as reparations—he supports them—and, with a look back at Jim Crow laws, current Republican efforts to suppress the Black vote. He is especially good on economic inequalities: Moore observes that if Black and White people were to sit down and play Monopoly together, the Black player wouldn’t be able even to start to accumulate property until the 20th move. He urges that White liberals, many of whom “value trees and the environment more than people,” learn foremost how to be uncomfortable, for the history that he teaches will expose them as being implicated in the same system in which White supremacists operate. Moore closes with a syllabus of suggested reading that “highlight[s] the historical issues and themes that best connect to contemporary Black life in America.”
An important, sympathetic effort to elucidate matters of Black lives while expanding intellectual horizons.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4773-2485-1
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Univ. of Texas
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
An intriguing but uneven family memoir and travelogue.
An author’s trip to Venice takes a distinctly Borgesian turn.
In November 2020, soccer club Venizia F.C. offered Nigerian American author Madu a writing residency as part of its plan “to turn the team into a global entity of fashion, culture, and sports.” Flying to Venice for the fellowship, he felt guilty about leaving his immigrant parents, who were shocked to learn upon moving to the U.S. years earlier that their Nigerian teaching certifications were invalid, forcing his father to work as a stocking clerk at Rite Aid to support the family. Madu’s experiences in Venice are incidental to what is primarily a story about his family, especially his strained relationship with his father, who was disappointed with many of his son’s choices. Unfortunately, the author’s seeming disinterest in Venice renders much of the narrative colorless. He says the trip across the Ponte della Libertà bridge was “magical,” but nothing he describes—the “endless water on both sides,” the nearby seagulls—is particularly remarkable. Little in the text conveys a sense of place or the unique character of his surroundings. Madu is at his best when he focuses on family dynamics and his observations that, in the largely deserted city, “I was one of the few Black people around.” He cites Borges, giving special note to the author’s “The House of Asterion,” in which the minotaur “explains his situation as a creature and as a creature within the labyrinth” of multiple mirrors. This notion leads to the Borgesian turn in the book’s second half, when, in an extended sequence, Madu imagines himself transformed into a minotaur, with “the head of a bull” and his body “larger, thicker, powerful but also cumbersome.” It’s an engaging passage, although stylistically out of keeping with much of what has come before.
An intriguing but uneven family memoir and travelogue.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781953368669
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Belt Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
An accessible, informative journey through complex issues during turbulent times.
Immersion journalism in the form of a graphic narrative following a Syrian family on their immigration to America.
Originally published as a 22-part series in the New York Times that garnered a Pulitzer for editorial cartooning, the story of the Aldabaan family—first in exile in Jordan and then in New Haven, Connecticut—holds together well as a full-length book. Halpern and Sloan, who spent more than three years with the Aldabaans, movingly explore the family’s significant obstacles, paying special attention to teenage son Naji, whose desire for the ideal of the American dream was the strongest. While not minimizing the harshness of the repression that led them to journey to the U.S.—or the challenges they encountered after they arrived—the focus on the day-by-day adjustment of a typical teenager makes the narrative refreshingly tangible and free of political polemic. Still, the family arrived at New York’s JFK airport during extraordinarily political times: Nov. 8, 2016, the day that Donald Trump was elected. The plan had been for the entire extended family to move, but some had traveled while others awaited approval, a process that was hampered by Trump’s travel ban. The Aldabaans encountered the daunting odds that many immigrants face: find shelter and employment, become self-sustaining quickly, learn English, and adjust to a new culture and climate (Naji learned to shovel snow, which he had never seen). They also received anonymous death threats, and Naji wanted to buy a gun for protection. He asked himself, “Was this the great future you were talking about back in Jordan?” Yet with the assistance of selfless volunteers and a community of fellow immigrants, the Aldabaans persevered. The epilogue provides explanatory context and where-are-they-now accounts, and Sloan’s streamlined, uncluttered illustrations nicely complement the text, consistently emphasizing the humanity of each person.
An accessible, informative journey through complex issues during turbulent times.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-30559-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
