4.5 Stars Rounded Up This audiobook was made available for me to listen to and review by Jacqueline Jones, Dreamscape Media, and NetGalley.
This was exc4.5 Stars Rounded Up This audiobook was made available for me to listen to and review by Jacqueline Jones, Dreamscape Media, and NetGalley.
This was excellent, respectful, knowledgeable, well-sourced, and interesting. It mostly avoids focusing on the more harrowing aspects of slavery in the Antebellum period. I'd rate this as low as far as slavery trauma focus. Though this does focus on segregation and racism in Boston and the wider Northern states. Perhaps in terms of trauma, this is closer to reading about the Civil Rights Movement than many texts that deal with chattel slavery. I add this to say: don't shy away from this for fear of trauma. That's not the tone or focus.
The main subject matter and focus of this is Black folks' opportunities and everyday lives in Boston in this era. This takes specific individuals and follows their lives and includes some generational information when available. This explores the opportunities available in employment, housing, and personal lives. So this includes marriages, births, relocating even outside of Boston, and what the records reveal about how this person ended their days. This focuses on the basic struggle for even free Black folks during the antebellum era. It's very in-depth and fascinating. Often, the history of this period tends to focus on the few famous Black individuals, but while this did include them, the focus was primarily on regular folks' struggles. This highlighted the differences that Black women faced in finding and maintaining freedom and affording to live. This was a hard and harrowing life for the vast majority of folks. Even more well-known figures like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman really struggled to survive in the available economy. I was really enlightened at the struggle between the established Black Boston community and the immigrant Irish community. Irish folks attacked established Black communities and accused them of taking their jobs and housing. It was wild. I forever think Irish Americans badly bungled this. Imagine the world we would all live in if Irish Americans had made common cause with Black Americans rather than focus on whiteness.
I really liked that this focused on and gave examples of the hypocrisy in white liberals/abolitionists of this era. I mean, it's historically focused but also relevant today. Many wealthy white liberal will march for Black Lives Matter but only so long as those lives stay in their respective red-line restricted communities. This focuses on the fact that white abolitionists were overwhelmingly anti-Black and held very troubling views of Black folks. This isn't a view of white abolitionists that we often see presented this clearly.
White abolitionists were largely in control of the funds raised to help formerly enslaved Black folks, whether escapees or post civil war. They seemed to operate from a fear that Black folks were inherently lazy and needed to be 'encouraged' to work hard. So, almost the same view that enslavers held of Black folks. Their policy was to give funds to aid escape but nothing to help formerly enslaved folks settle in a new place without family. In effect, their attitude reminded me of today's pro-lifers. Pro-life/anti-abortionists are obsessed with halting abortion but don't want to feed, clothe, or house these unplanned babies they insisted be born. If you consider the base wealth of the major white abolitionists, their hypocrisy is glaring. It's the historical version of Kim Kardashian's empty-headed 'Nobody wants to work anymore' nonsense.
I was appalled at the bootstrap rhetoric employed by white abolitionists post Civil War. At the same time, these same white abolitionists largely refused to employ Black folks in their businesses. They'd hire a few favored folks in their home, but they refused to integrate their businesses. Instead, white abolitionists overly focused on Black folks' willingness to work. As if enslaved people were taken care of and not exploited. It's frustrating because historically, white women really struggled post Civil War, and that was behind many of the Jim & Jane Crow era laws requiring Black women to work outside of the home. There were laws forcing Black women into domestic labor because white women were unprepared to care for their own homes, families, and children. As enslaved peoples, Black folks had been providing enough labor to provide for themselves and to enrich an entire white demographic/community/country and enrich Europe in the process. So clearly, they could provide just fine for themselves as they had been since they 'arrived' in the colonies.
This also does an excellent job pointing out what would today be termed 'respectability politics', which was how some Black folks responded, and continue to respond, to racist and eugenicist views common in US society. This behavior isn't directly called out nor a focus of the book, but it is included. This is important because just like the Jim & Jane Crow era racist beliefs that still plague our nation, this also works to increase racism and oppression. Black folks don't need to prove anything to be worthy of basic humanity. This is just a function of internalized racism.
This audiobook is narrated by Leon Nixon. Leon does an excellent job keeping the narrative interesting and from feeling like a very long history lecture. I pretty much binged this, and my attention never waivered.
Thank you to Jacqueline Jones, Dreamscape Media, and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. All opinions and viewpoints expressed in this review are my own....more
This audiobook was made available for me to listen to and review by Lauren Blackwood, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley.
This is a historical fantasy noveThis audiobook was made available for me to listen to and review by Lauren Blackwood, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley.
This is a historical fantasy novel with an alternative history twist. What if, during the American Civil War, the Confederate army were led by vampires? What if some humans had developed super human speed and reflexes? That's the basis for this novel, and it fully delivers. This has epic battle scenes, tragic character backstories, high stakes, solid world building, and a strong and complicated Black formerly enslaved FMC with a sweet but complicated interracial love interest. This is a slow burn enemies to lovers storyline with a side of trauma and PTSD thrown in. I think the romance is a bit complex for this type of novel and could've used more fleshing out. It does work but is not the snoothest element of this story. This does use modern language, which this novel is dinged for in multiple reviews, but I think it fits a novel of this genre. The concept of a civil war fought by vampires, werewolves, and godlike humans is a fairly modern concept. The language used in the novel matched the concept. Furthermore, this concern with the correct use of 'language' concerning Black authors is, in my experience, usually just dog whistle racism. There's absolutely nothing jarring about the language used in this novel at all. I read Within These Wicked Walls by this author previously, which I enjoyed but found a bit clunky in places. This was a much more fully developed concept and a much smoother storyline. I look forward to Ms. Blackwood's next novel.
The narrators of The Dangerous Ones are Angel Pean and Jay Ben Markson. I've definitely heard at least one other audiobook narrated by Ms. Pean before. Mr. Markson is new to me as a narrator. I loved the dual narrators for the dual viewpoints. Both of these narrators really succeeded in bringing both Jerusalem and Alexei to life. As well as making them both immediately relatable given their respective backgrounds.
Thank you to Lauren Blackwood, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. All opinions and viewpoints expressed in this review are my own. ...more
This was my least favorite of the trilogy. It was just silly on many levels and upheld silly sexist tropes that are harmful and annoying.
I'll be stickiThis was my least favorite of the trilogy. It was just silly on many levels and upheld silly sexist tropes that are harmful and annoying.
I'll be sticking to short stories by thus author going forward....more
Look I loved this. I like this historian quite a bit. Her research on the Hemings family is groundbreaking. This was short but packed with good info. ReadLook I loved this. I like this historian quite a bit. Her research on the Hemings family is groundbreaking. This was short but packed with good info. Read this, you won't regret it....more
This is a wonderful companion read to the series. I'd read it after Dread Nation and before Deathless Divide. This functions as back stories Great fun
This is a wonderful companion read to the series. I'd read it after Dread Nation and before Deathless Divide. This functions as back stories for strong secondary characters....more
This is a well researched, extremely readable and slightly white supremacist apologist biography of John Brown.
The author does an excellent job of preThis is a well researched, extremely readable and slightly white supremacist apologist biography of John Brown.
The author does an excellent job of presenting most white Abolitionists as white supremacists and racists. The vast majority of white abolitionists mostly cared about the impact that owning human beings had on the souls of white folks. They recognized that unlimited power breeds unlimited corruption and they were legitimately afraid that generations unchecked of this behavior in white folks would lead to a lessening of their race. They were afraid that this would result in a character much like our current president: the least of the white race leading the nation to ruin.
The author tends to not be completely honest about the struggles Black folks faced in this time period. He presents Chatham, Ontario as a Black Escaped Enslaved-folks Haven but basically presents it as segregated. To the extent that Black folks needed their own firehouse. He neglects to offer why this was necessary or speculate what this means for the actual power and social position of Black folks in Canada. This is crucial because the author is somewhat disparaging of how Black free and enslaved folks handled their oppression. If you wanna offer opinions you have to explore the entire situation, not just as it relates to white folks.
The author continually struggles with seeing Black folks realistically in their time and place. He holds John Brown's white supremacist view that white men can't respect Black folks freedom if they don't 'earn it' by freeing themselves. This view ignores that Black folks had been rising to free themselves since before the first slave ship left West Africa. (If this is new info for you be sure to check out Fighting the Slave Trade by Sylviane A. Diouf) None of the US uprisings: Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, etc , much less Haiti, was treated with 'respect' by white people. In fact all of these uprisings were heavily criticized and sabotaged, if not outright thwarted by white people. It was frustrating and disrespectful as fuck to have the author continually act like Black folks were too frightened to rise up against white men.
The author also fails to write about the aftermath of the rebellions/uprisings on the Black Community. Black folks who did not live anywhere near the uprisings were murdered out of white fears. White people formed roving gangs and took out their angst and anger on Black folks in general all over the south. I find it hard to believe the author doesn't know this. Uprisings don't just impact the Black folks who participated.
John Brown knew his actions would never put his wife or kids not involved at risk. That wasn't true for Black people. Our entire community would pay for our actions and so the cost is considerably higher. We still paid it and had uprisings but this is crucial as to why Brown doesn't get more support from Black folks. Yet the author only mentions once why Black folks joining John Brown was considerably more risky for them than white folks. He mentions repeatedly, more than 10 times, that Black folks can't be respected without fighting for themselves. He uses Black folks voices alive at the time who had swallowed white supremacy to give this theory energy. It's racist and white supremacist thinking. The author needed to shut this shit down immediately rather than tease it out for 75% of the book.
The other issue I have is the author presenting John Brown as antiracist. The author knows this to be untrue because he sites John Brown's Sambo story in the text. He quickly tries to point out that the Black folks alive at the time weren't upset by this story but he is only able to name a few Black folks. He has no idea how the larger community felt or if the community at large knew Brown wrote that clearly racist story. Instead the author tries to use Black folks alive at the times non-reaction as a way to neutralize the racism of a story called Sambo written by a white man. There's no cleansing that story of racism. Not by any standard. That story stands as proof that despite his later actions John Brown was racist.
The author primarily focuses on why Black folks didn't join or trust John Brown. He neglects to tie this to Brown's own agenda or racism. Brown very much believed that he and other white men were needed to plan and lead Black folks in a rebellion. The author ignores, much like Brown did, that Haiti was 100% planned and carried out successfully by Black folks. In fact Haiti is the 2nd nation to break away from a European overlord, the USA being the first. No whites needed at any stage of the rebellion.
Why didn't John Brown focus on leading other white men in a strike against slavery? The whiteness of Brown is why Harper's Ferry is a big deal. Imagine if he'd focused on a whole army of white men who's responsibility it was to stamp out an evil created and perpetuated by those like them. The author doesn't want to own that chattel slavery is 100% white people's fault much like John Brown didn't want to. There aren't 'good people on both sides', white people are a fucking nightmare full stop. It's not ok to try to dissipate responsibility for this by pointing at the victims. Black folks didn't need to be better victims, this bullshit is firmly on white folks shoulders.
It's clear that it more important to John Brown that white enslavers not be harmed AT ALL than it was that Black folks be free. Brown spends most of the raid explaining himself, his views and resulting actions to his white slave oppressing captives. Freeing Black Enslaved folks is secondary. Brown deliberately outted the involvement of Frederick Douglass, and other conspirators, which caused him to barely escape with his life and hide out in Europe for years. Brown gives zero fucks about Black life.
Before Harper's Ferry in 1858/1859 Brown and his men assist Black families to escape from slavery. Jim Daniels is an enslaved man who approaches Brown's group to assist with a planned escape of several families from surrounding farms in Kansas. The author makes it clear that the plan was entirely Jim Daniel's and the other Black folks involved who had clearly been planning this for sometime before approaching Brown's group. Yet, the author gives Brown complete credit for 'saving' this family when clearly these Black folks saved themselves. They approached Brown. Furthermore this was a workable and sustainable model for freeing actual Black enslaved folks and giving them the tools to start a new life in Canada. If Brown had expsnded and stuck to this model he'd have done more good while still stressed the system enough to spark the civil war. This plan didn't hold enough glory for Brown though.
Brown was a racist tool. He planned poorly and only becomes militantly active in antislavery activities AFTER he mismanages his businesses, looses everything including his land and steals from his friends & business associates. He always intended to both die and let his companions die at Harper's Ferry. He wanted to be martyred. He needed to be important and remembered as such. While he did believe slavery was wrong and he was far thinking for a white man of his time period, he was also a racist white supremacist and so is the author for this fuckery...more
I would not advise reading this book. I'd advise reading Patriotic Treason by Evan Carton & Five for Freedom by Eugene L. Meyer. Both texts are flawed I would not advise reading this book. I'd advise reading Patriotic Treason by Evan Carton & Five for Freedom by Eugene L. Meyer. Both texts are flawed but considerably less biased then this book.
The author treats Black Americans in a racist and dismissive manner, blaming us for our own captivity in tone. For not fighting our fight in the struggle against slavery. This ignores that abolitionism as a concept isn't created by white folks in Western countries. Black West Africans organized and fought against chattel slavery starting in West Africa in the 1400's. They fought in both North and South America as well as on every island in between. They used a variety of methods from outright rebellion, to uprisings, to murder, to running away, suing in local court systems, developing the Underground Railroad. Black folks always fought and were beaten but not passive. Ending slavery in the US was the job of it's creators and those that profited from it. It was never our job or moral responsibility to stop evil white enslavers, that was always the job of white people. Much like the responsibility for today's proud boys and racist militias fall at the feet of today's white americans. Those are your people and the responsibility both for the evil they perpetuate and the duty to stop said evil falls on them. Ending chattel slavery was always a debt white folks owed. They sacrificed their kids to it and I'm sick that any Black folks died for that. Nah, die for your own sins. The author's theories about why Black folks don't join Brown are based in white supremacy and I found them deeply offensive and ahistoritcal. That ain't got shit to do with us.
Also the author strangely rewrites white abolitionists such as Walt Whitman as believing in racial equality when in in fact Whitman referred to Black people as 'baboons & wild brutes'.
Most white Abolitionists were white supremacists. They didn't believe Black folks were the same as or equal to them. They mostly didn't want Black folks enslaved because it caused white men to become so evil and endangered their eternal souls. They really didn't care about Black folks. In fact Brown himself was a white supremacist. As evidenced by a 'sambo' story he wrote. The story is printed in it's entirety in A John Brown Reader by Louis Ruchames which can be found at archive.org: https://archive.org/details/johnbrown...
I believe that John Brown believed that Black folks had the potential to be equal to white folks but needed guidance.
I think this author pulls a lot of good research together but is ultimately unable to get past his own internal white supremacy.