An uneven book about America’s black community that offers provocative ideas.
An author details his search for leadership and his plan to address the continuing effects of slavery.
In this work, Shelton (America’s Little Black Book, 2015, etc.) intends to follow the orders of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and “engage the economic battleground.” In order to do so, the author forms the “foundation-corporation” American Slaves Inc. to spread awareness of his beliefs. He feels it is necessary for the descendants of slaves to reconnect with the roots of the horrific institution: commercial gain. He wants this group, a population he refers to as “American slaves,” to acknowledge that they are a newly bred race who must work together to address the continuing inequality that is a legacy of slavery. Shelton’s main purpose is to encourage these “American slaves” to embrace economic development as a core cultural principle. He emphasizes the need for improved leadership in the black community and increased outreach and assistance from white individuals. The book also serves to document Shelton’s attempts to see his plan reach fruition; it chronicles his various meetings and attempted interactions with black leaders, his decision to run for political office, and his struggles to spread his message nationwide and internationally. Shelton has admirable aims in this book and his concern for his community is clear. But he consistently expresses astonishment when government officials or black leaders are uncomfortable with adopting the term “American slave.” The text also swings confusingly among philosophical discussions, recollections of Shelton’s efforts to confer with black leaders, and descriptions of the author’s other volumes. There are even endorsements for both the current book and Shelton’s previous work shoehorned within the narrative of his steps to gain attention for American Slaves Inc. The largest flaw of the text is that the author uses many pages to dwell on old grudges and flawed leadership. He ruminates on black community leaders and educators who spurned his ideas or who he feels have failed the “American slave” population, and unfortunate incidents with federal figures, such as the time President George W. Bush declined to serve on the board of his organization. This distracts from Shelton’s larger goal, moving his focus from the cultural ramifications of slavery to the personal slights he feels he has endured.
An uneven book about America’s black community that offers provocative ideas.Pub Date: May 1, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: American Slaves, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© 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
