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Reviews
Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Today by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
mkstevenson's review against another edition
5.0
This is such a great book. A nice tribute to Baldwin and a look into the past and today’s worlds through, perhaps, his eyes.
chanelmeadows's review against another edition
5.0
I was 4 hours in and I KNEW this would definitely be one of my favorites for the year...and it's only February!!!! Too many quotes, to quote. He and Baldwin gave voice and eloquent words to the emotions I felt during the T. presidency. It has not been an easy time for ppl of color and I believe many of us have struggled to accept our friends who supported Trump not once but twice. Often I have struggled. Baldwin and Glaude helped me realize what is and is not my responsibility to my friends.
I loved this book!!!
I loved this book!!!
bootman's review against another edition
5.0
I'm ashamed to say that I didn't know much about James Baldwin for a long time, and that's exactly why I got this book from Eddie Glaude Jr. Once I learned who Baldwin was, I was intrigued to learn more about him because he wasn't only an activist, but he was also a sort of philosopher. In this book from Glaude, it's part biography of James Baldwin while also applying Baldwin's lessons to the current stay of racial injustice in America. You see how far we've come but more importantly, you learn how much farther we still have to go. I'm extremely happy that I took the time to read this book and now understand why there was so much hype around it on launch.
btravassos's review against another edition
5.0
You cannot have reconciliation without the truth.
An intense, mesmerizing read that lays out the plan of redemption.
An intense, mesmerizing read that lays out the plan of redemption.
juntakinte1968's review against another edition
4.0
Glaude is strongest when adapting and applying the words of Baldwin to our times--especially comparing the similarities of the Trump era and the Age of Reagan for example. His notes at the end thanking his students for being open with their anxieties about the times show that he's a keen listener. He's also amazing at taking not just quotes from Baldwin, but the life of the man, his trauma, and his personality, and talking about what we can learn from it. The section at the end, where he looks for Baldwin's grave, makes me think that Eddie could do a remarkable piece of journalism if he wanted. It only loses steam as even with the wealth of research he did (from films, interviews, other books, etc.), at times the book ventures a bit too heavily into guessing about Baldwin's inner thoughts. But that's a minor criticism. This is worth reading.
nursays's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
I've never read Baldwin before but this made me want to read some of the works mentioned. The way the author writes about Baldwin is so compassionate, so understanding. So many important events were mentioned and I was glad I had some prior research to help me understand the text better, but it's highly accessible and you don't need to have prior knowledge to understand the concepts and struggles the author highlights. Truly wonderful read.
shawnareads24's review against another edition
5.0
There is a lot to digest in this book. Many parts are flagged, marked and highlighted.
"We have to look back and tell a different story, without the crutch of our myths and legends, about how we have arrived at this moment of moral reckoning in the country's history."
"We have to look back and tell a different story, without the crutch of our myths and legends, about how we have arrived at this moment of moral reckoning in the country's history."
amymo73's review against another edition
4.0
Let's start with this: I haven't read James Baldwin. I came into this wanting to read and learn from other perspectives and because it was on the CHQ list.
What I learned was vast. And one of the things I learned is how I need to examine my own life, my own life experiences, to see what's been going on there before I can have a broader impact. Live the examined life. See my privilege. But don't just see it. Examine it. What it means. Where I'm willing to give up power -- really give up this notion of power. Because I see microagressions of power EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And I'm a middle class white woman with every advantage. (Or many advantages. We don't talk about gender in this work, which is not a criticism, just an observation.
I read this through Libby so here are some of the many screenshots I took of quotes:
"It is exhausting to find oneself, over and over again, navigating a world rife with deadly assumptions about you and those who look like you, to see and read about insult and harm, death and anguish, for no other reason than because you're black or black and poor or black and trans or ... For me, the daily grind consumes."
"What we made of ourselves in our most private moments, we made of the country. The two were inextricably related, because the country itself reflected those intimate terrors that moved us about."
"'Backlash' mistakenly views demands for fundamental dignity as demands for privileges, and, worse, suggests that creeping incrementalism is a legitimate pace of change when it comes to remedying the devastation of black lives."
"... 'I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain.'"
"It has never been America's way to confront the trauma directly, largely because the lie does not allow for it. At nearly every turn, the country minimizes the trauma, either by shifting blame for it onto fringe actors of the present ('These acts don't represent who we are'), relative values of the times ('Everyone back then believed in slavery'), or, worst, back onto the traumatized ('They are responsible for themselves'). There has never been a mechanism, through something like a truth and reconciliation commission, for telling ourselves the truth about what we have done in a way that would broadly legitimate government policies to repair systematic discrimination across generations. Instead, we pine for national rituals of expression that wash away our guilt without the need for an admission of guilt, celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day or pointing to the election of Barack Obama, and in the process doing further damage to the traumatized through a kind of historical gaslighting."
"We are told, for example, that Trumpism is exceptional, a unique threat to our democracy. This view that Trump, and Trump alone, stresses the fabric of the country lets us off the hook. ... It attempts to explain away as isolated events what today's cellphone footage exposes as part of our everyday experience."
"Today, our task remains the same, no matter its difficulty or the magnitude of the challenge. Some of us must become poets, but we must all bear witness. Make the suffering real and force the world to pay attention to it, and not place that suffering all at the feet of Donald Trump, but understand it as the inevitable outcome in a country that continues to lie to itself."
"Interpretation matters: What we do with the facts, the kinds of questions we ask about them, and for what ends, matter."
"Again, who and what we celebrate reflects who and what we value."
"It should be said that even when we get the facts straight as best as we can and we offer interpretations of the past that acknowledge the evils and best approximate of who we aspire to be, there is no guarantee that those who have born the brunt of the previous histories will accept the story being told. Reception matters, too."
"... our task, then, is not to save Trump voters -- it isn't to convince them to give up their views that white people ought to matter more than others. Our task is to build a world where such a view has no place or quarter to breathe."
"What matters ... is that categories can shut us off from the complexity of the world and the complexity within ourselves. ... categorization refers only to the different conditions under which we life; it doesn't capture the essence of who we are."
"It is the soil that nurtures us even when we cant' see it on the surface."
What I learned was vast. And one of the things I learned is how I need to examine my own life, my own life experiences, to see what's been going on there before I can have a broader impact. Live the examined life. See my privilege. But don't just see it. Examine it. What it means. Where I'm willing to give up power -- really give up this notion of power. Because I see microagressions of power EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And I'm a middle class white woman with every advantage. (Or many advantages. We don't talk about gender in this work, which is not a criticism, just an observation.
I read this through Libby so here are some of the many screenshots I took of quotes:
"It is exhausting to find oneself, over and over again, navigating a world rife with deadly assumptions about you and those who look like you, to see and read about insult and harm, death and anguish, for no other reason than because you're black or black and poor or black and trans or ... For me, the daily grind consumes."
"What we made of ourselves in our most private moments, we made of the country. The two were inextricably related, because the country itself reflected those intimate terrors that moved us about."
"'Backlash' mistakenly views demands for fundamental dignity as demands for privileges, and, worse, suggests that creeping incrementalism is a legitimate pace of change when it comes to remedying the devastation of black lives."
"... 'I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain.'"
"It has never been America's way to confront the trauma directly, largely because the lie does not allow for it. At nearly every turn, the country minimizes the trauma, either by shifting blame for it onto fringe actors of the present ('These acts don't represent who we are'), relative values of the times ('Everyone back then believed in slavery'), or, worst, back onto the traumatized ('They are responsible for themselves'). There has never been a mechanism, through something like a truth and reconciliation commission, for telling ourselves the truth about what we have done in a way that would broadly legitimate government policies to repair systematic discrimination across generations. Instead, we pine for national rituals of expression that wash away our guilt without the need for an admission of guilt, celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day or pointing to the election of Barack Obama, and in the process doing further damage to the traumatized through a kind of historical gaslighting."
"We are told, for example, that Trumpism is exceptional, a unique threat to our democracy. This view that Trump, and Trump alone, stresses the fabric of the country lets us off the hook. ... It attempts to explain away as isolated events what today's cellphone footage exposes as part of our everyday experience."
"Today, our task remains the same, no matter its difficulty or the magnitude of the challenge. Some of us must become poets, but we must all bear witness. Make the suffering real and force the world to pay attention to it, and not place that suffering all at the feet of Donald Trump, but understand it as the inevitable outcome in a country that continues to lie to itself."
"Interpretation matters: What we do with the facts, the kinds of questions we ask about them, and for what ends, matter."
"Again, who and what we celebrate reflects who and what we value."
"It should be said that even when we get the facts straight as best as we can and we offer interpretations of the past that acknowledge the evils and best approximate of who we aspire to be, there is no guarantee that those who have born the brunt of the previous histories will accept the story being told. Reception matters, too."
"... our task, then, is not to save Trump voters -- it isn't to convince them to give up their views that white people ought to matter more than others. Our task is to build a world where such a view has no place or quarter to breathe."
"What matters ... is that categories can shut us off from the complexity of the world and the complexity within ourselves. ... categorization refers only to the different conditions under which we life; it doesn't capture the essence of who we are."
"It is the soil that nurtures us even when we cant' see it on the surface."