Reviews with content warning for Bullying - The Talk

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The Talk by Darrin Bell

4 reviews

l1brarygirl's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

I pretty much cried through the last 25% of this book. So poignant & powerful. I think Bell was honest and I loved how this book came full circle in a heart-breaking way: The Talk given to him by his own mother when he was 6 to when he had to have this same talk with his own son at the age of 6.

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jaduhluhdabooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective tense fast-paced

5.0

A powerful depiction of Darrin Bell’s life through the medium at which he found his voice, drawings. It’s an eclectic form of story telling that demonstrates the atrocious realities of growing up Black in America. It’s about discovering wealth in your identity and beauty in your experience and value in your speech. It’s about exploration and expression of the self, to exhibit confidence and bodily admonish one’s ability to stand. It’s about the depth of racism institutionally and relationally, gripping the roots of our nation. It’s about the brutality of law enforcement and the criminalization of the “other”. It’s about seeing each other as human, for fighting for equity and equality. It’s about safety. It’s about love. It’s about life.

Darrin Bell is the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for a cartoon editorial. He made history and it’s a history worth remembering and celebrating. But in order to do it properly you must know ALL of Bell’s story. I am honored to have gotten to sit and reflect with Bell’s experiences, as well as on my own.

Theirs is beauty in acknowledging and celebrating the journey. But theirs is something solidifying about ensuring a safer and more fulfilling journey for those who come after us. May their “talks” be one of history and remembrance. Not of survival and self preservation.

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annreadsabook's review against another edition

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2.5

This book felt very...basic?

I get the author’s desire to examine his own experiences as a biracial Black man and the complexities that come with it. But I think a lot of this book reads very repetitive and surface level…realizing cops racially profile, sometimes biracial kids aren’t accepted into either community, etc. As a Black person reading this, it felt very much written for while folks.

And a couple things bothered me:

The failure to acknowledge the privileges that did undoubtedly come with having a white parent/primary caregiver, as well as being lighter skinned; and
There's a very brief mention of Bell's creation of a caricature of turban-wearing "terrorists" after 9/11 that were extremely racist and harmful...and he glosses over this in only a couple of panels. This was extremely jarring and felt almost as though Bell included the couple of panels out of a feeling of obligation, not necessarily out of a true desire to reckon with his own prejudices.

For a book that's singularly devoted to talking about race in America, it felt quite surface-level and limited. Each vignette left me feeling dissatisfied; there was much more in each scene that needed to be unpacked.

This book felt more invested in considering at far range the harms the author experienced while not stopping to really consider his own role in harming others or his own privileges.

Wanted to love this, just missed the mark for me.

Thank you to Henry Holt for the gifted copy.

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michelle_my_belle's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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