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beccaruthe's review
5.0
Graphic: Murder, Police brutality, Sexual assault, Death, Hate crime, Colonisation, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Racial slurs, Slavery, Torture, Violence, and Sexual violence
Minor: Abortion and Cultural appropriation
bandysbooks's review
5.0
Graphic: Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Colonisation, War, Grief, Sexual assault, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Trafficking, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Forced institutionalization, Torture, Racial slurs, Classism, Medical trauma, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Violence
skitch41's review against another edition
5.0
For my full review, check out my blog here.
Graphic: Slavery and Racism
Moderate: Racial slurs and Violence
Minor: Sexual violence and Sexual assault
deadeye's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Grief, Cultural appropriation, War, Torture, Slavery, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Sexism, Rape, Racism, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Murder, Misogyny, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Kidnapping, Hate crime, Gun violence, Genocide, Emotional abuse, Death, Colonisation, Classism, Confinement, Chronic illness, Child death, Child abuse, and Cancer
smblanc1793's review against another edition
4.5
The majority of this collection is made up of essays, sometimes written with a quasi-poetic lilt, but mainly stark and to-the-point as is the convention for this kind of writing. It does, at times, get repetitive, but only because history itself is repetitive. Because the events within repeat and repeat under new names, and those they affect never completely break that cycle of suffering. There is something powerful in that alone.
But it is the stories and poems within, I think, that save this book from feeling too much like a history textbook—not that there’s anything wrong with a straightforward history. But these pieces of creative work, often imagining and chronicling the feelings of those who experienced slavery and oppression firsthand, add the right touch of emotion, of connection back to the level of the individual that often gets lost in stories as vast as this one. The book as a whole is powerful and painful and important, and I am glad I read it.
Graphic: Violence, Death, Xenophobia, Racism, and Slavery
mmccombs's review against another edition
3.5
However, I often felt like chapters were missing things and that some were just weaker than others. I also noticed some glaring absences especially when thinking about these issues through an intersectional lens. There’s a lot of focus on Black men, less focus on women, and basically no acknowledgement of LGBTQ+ folks, disabled people, Afro-Indigenous people, and many other intersections, which I felt weakened some of this work’s thesis. Personally, I also kept waiting for the book to make that extra push towards critically addressing capitalism, class, and abolition, but that might just be beyond the scope of this project (I also think that by framing slavery as the foundation of the US, rather than capitalism, would produce this [fairly simplistic] work. I think that’s the point, but I would have loved to have seen these authors make a much clearer link between the two. Cause without one I don’t think you’d have the other in the US). I think I’d recommend this as an intro to understanding the current impacts of slavery on the US, but I do think there are other books/authors who approach this general theme with a more critical, nuanced, and deep angle.
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, and Violence
Moderate: Medical trauma
emily_koopmann's review
5.0
Graphic: Racism, Slavery, and Violence