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shaynreadthat 's review for:
Dear Martin
by Nic Stone
Just to start off on a positive note, the most accurate part of this book was the way the media represented Justyce and Manny.
Moving on....
As a teacher, I’m furious that this is a book that’s given to so many [black] students in [inner city] schools. It teaches weakness, passiveness, and self-hate. Justyce is a very passive young man who demonstrates NO heart or passion, except when showing his love for SJ.
What kid do you know from the projects with no heart (in the black community, this refers to an ability to hold up your chest and keep your head high)? No backbone? No awareness of how differently he is treated by white people until he was nearly 18 years old??? I doubt he would have even made it as far as he had without these strengths.
There’s also Manny (who was the biggest coon I have come across in a book intended for black kids) who has a ridiculous view on black women—does he look at his mother in this same light? How can a black woman write a book that bashes black women and offers nothing to uplift them, only mentioning them to justify why a black boy would not be attracted to them?
Furthermore, wtf is up with the dialogue? The conversations are forced and cringeworthy. Teenagers—black or white—don’t regularly talk in similes and metaphors. I would have thought Nic Stone was ANYTHING but black if I hadn’t seen her picture. The black vernacular sounded as though it was a non-black person trying to imitate it and I had to put the book down a few times after reading some things because it frustrated me so much.
And the Black Jihad gang??? What the hell kinda fairytale. Does this woman even know about street gangs and their role in these communities? It seemed like some sort of utopia, having a gang full of activists. In real life, street gangs do not move as senselessly and recklessly as the members in this story and they have much bigger concerns (to them) than activism. It seemed very evident that Nic Stone did not actually grow up around black people or urban youth, yet she is attempting to speak from their perspective and makes a complete joke of black culture.
Great idea, horrible plot and execution.
Moving on....
As a teacher, I’m furious that this is a book that’s given to so many [black] students in [inner city] schools. It teaches weakness, passiveness, and self-hate. Justyce is a very passive young man who demonstrates NO heart or passion, except when showing his love for SJ.
What kid do you know from the projects with no heart (in the black community, this refers to an ability to hold up your chest and keep your head high)? No backbone? No awareness of how differently he is treated by white people until he was nearly 18 years old??? I doubt he would have even made it as far as he had without these strengths.
There’s also Manny (who was the biggest coon I have come across in a book intended for black kids) who has a ridiculous view on black women—does he look at his mother in this same light? How can a black woman write a book that bashes black women and offers nothing to uplift them, only mentioning them to justify why a black boy would not be attracted to them?
Furthermore, wtf is up with the dialogue? The conversations are forced and cringeworthy. Teenagers—black or white—don’t regularly talk in similes and metaphors. I would have thought Nic Stone was ANYTHING but black if I hadn’t seen her picture. The black vernacular sounded as though it was a non-black person trying to imitate it and I had to put the book down a few times after reading some things because it frustrated me so much.
And the Black Jihad gang??? What the hell kinda fairytale. Does this woman even know about street gangs and their role in these communities? It seemed like some sort of utopia, having a gang full of activists. In real life, street gangs do not move as senselessly and recklessly as the members in this story and they have much bigger concerns (to them) than activism. It seemed very evident that Nic Stone did not actually grow up around black people or urban youth, yet she is attempting to speak from their perspective and makes a complete joke of black culture.
Great idea, horrible plot and execution.