Lois 's Reviews > The Talk

This audiobook was made available for me to listen to and review by Darrin Bell, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley.

The narrators of this audiobook are Brittany Bradford, Darrin Bell, Emyree Zazu Bell, and William DeMerrit. This is an extremely high quality audio production of this graphic novel. With multiple narrators this felt really respectful of the subject matter. This could appeal to older grade school aged children.

The beginning of this audiobook is haunting, "For Breonna Taylor, Freddie Gray, Trayvon Martin,...." each name read by a separate narrator or in a different voice. What a beautiful homage to those we've lost to police and other white supremacist violence.

This is an example of how Black parents and guardians in the US speak to their children about race. I'm sure this is replicated by other cultures but I myself received this talk from my Black father. I had this talk with my own Black daughter. I've had versions of this talk with my 2 oldest grandkids, aged 8 & 7. This must be discussed early and often especially if you live in primarily white areas.

The author remembers when his mother had the talk with him around a water gun she purchased him. He's now an adult and a father himself trying to decide if his son is old enough for the talk. This is heavy, important but weighty.

Sometimes it feels like books like this aren't for Black folks. These books feel like they're written for white folks so they can understand the stress of living under racism on Black folks. I don't think this type of narrative fights racism. This puts me in mind of Stokely Carmichael's quote, "Dr. King's policy was that nonviolence would achieve the gains for Black people in the United States. His major assumption was that if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That's very good. He only made one fallacious assumption: In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none."

This type of narrative requires the reader to care about Black children. We already know that not even liberals really care about our kids. We have open policies in states to protect the feelings of white children. These folks are not going to care about this book beyond it being banned from their children's access. So I feel like this almost falls under Black violence porn. It doesn't move the mark on the fight against racism for the same reason systemic racism exists, white folks aren't going to be guilted out of harming us.

So we're just gonna have to force change. After which white folks will pat themselves on the backs congratulating themselves on solving the problem they caused in the first place. Totally ignoring that we forced the issue at great cost to ourselves and our communities. These are the same folks who want police at Pride because they don't know the original Pride was a fight against police. History just has to march right over these folks without bothering to appeal to their nonexistent conscience.
The use of the term 'folks' in this review refers to US folks.

Thank you to Darrin Bell, 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.