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4.43 AVERAGE
4.43 AVERAGE
Oof. I had only previously read three of the eight essays in this collection, and really enjoyed the additional commentary, but it's not easy content to get through. It's especially embarrassing for me to admit that I didn't know a lot of what he covers in The Case for Reparations. Coates is so thoughtful and powerful and these essays are so necessary. I want everyone I know to read this (or at least find the essays online).
"In the popular mind, [the] demonstrable truth has been evaded in favor of a more comforting story of tragedy, failed compromise, and individual gallantry. For that more ennobling narrative, as for so much of American history, the fact of black people is a problem."
this made me so sad. it made me so profoundly sad over and over that i had to interrupt my reading several times just to get through it. the writing is brilliant, of course, and the insights profound. but the current horrible state of our nation particularly after the shining promise of a new beginning, blind to race, that was ushered in with the Obama administration depresses me to the point of despair.
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I learned so much from this book that wasn’t taught to me in school. Incarceration rates and racist real estate deals were things that I wasn’t taught in school, and it was really eye opening to see how slavery is still affecting African Americans today.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
hopeful
reflective
tense
fast-paced
I appreciate the author's open discussion of his perspective and how it has changed over time. The same is true for most of us, but we don't always take time to examine our own perspectives, let alone how they have changed.
Read up to chapter 7. A great collection of essays, but definitely written for affluent, well-meaning but mildly ignorant white readers.
While I enjoyed this book, it took me over a month to read — and I can’t remember the last time I put off reading something to this extent. It was full of poignant insight, reflection and thought-provoking analysis, but I also felt like it was a bit repetitive and narrow at times.