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A review by imperfectcj
The Middle Passage: White Ships/ Black Cargo by Tom Feelings, John Henrik Clarke
4.0
My daughter's history text recommended The Middle Passage but suggested parents preview it. I'm glad I did. It's a beautiful and heart-wrenching book, but my 7.5-year-old is not ready for the rawness and brutality depicted here, and I'm not ready for her to see it. I want her to know the story, but not so much so soon.
According to the text that precedes the illustrations, this book took the author/illustrator 20 years to complete. I can see why. Each picture holds so much emotion and so much history.
In his preface, Feelings explains why he chose to tell the story only in illustrations. One reason he gives is the limitations and inherent bias in the English language. "It is a language so infused with direct and indirect racism that it would be difficult, if not impossible, using this language in my book, to project anything black as positive."
I think he went the right path telling the story with pictures rather than words. It's a story I've heard over and over again, but it is difficult to conceptualize the dehumanization that happens to both the enslaved and those enslaving them when I'm just reading the words.
That said, John Henrik Clarke's introduction added a dimension to the book that I would have missed had I only looked at the illustrations. In particular, I was struck by his description of the cultural differences between the people of West Africa and the Europeans. "The European temperament," he writes, "was shaped by a thousand-year-old feudal system, which was a form of slavery...Europe was just emerging from the Middle Ages, a time when poverty and disease were rampant, 'an age haunted by death and damnation.' The Africans had never dealt with such a fiercely competitive people, a people set on asserting its dominance at any cost."
This book gives people in the United States another opportunity to look into our country's dark history. By facing this past rather than avoiding it, hopefully we can help shape a future that allows each of us to be our best selves rather than being trapped in a tradition of dominance and subordination.
According to the text that precedes the illustrations, this book took the author/illustrator 20 years to complete. I can see why. Each picture holds so much emotion and so much history.
In his preface, Feelings explains why he chose to tell the story only in illustrations. One reason he gives is the limitations and inherent bias in the English language. "It is a language so infused with direct and indirect racism that it would be difficult, if not impossible, using this language in my book, to project anything black as positive."
I think he went the right path telling the story with pictures rather than words. It's a story I've heard over and over again, but it is difficult to conceptualize the dehumanization that happens to both the enslaved and those enslaving them when I'm just reading the words.
That said, John Henrik Clarke's introduction added a dimension to the book that I would have missed had I only looked at the illustrations. In particular, I was struck by his description of the cultural differences between the people of West Africa and the Europeans. "The European temperament," he writes, "was shaped by a thousand-year-old feudal system, which was a form of slavery...Europe was just emerging from the Middle Ages, a time when poverty and disease were rampant, 'an age haunted by death and damnation.' The Africans had never dealt with such a fiercely competitive people, a people set on asserting its dominance at any cost."
This book gives people in the United States another opportunity to look into our country's dark history. By facing this past rather than avoiding it, hopefully we can help shape a future that allows each of us to be our best selves rather than being trapped in a tradition of dominance and subordination.