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A review by em_harring
The Reckonings: Essays by Lacy M. Johnson
1.0
DNF @ 50%
It's a hearty, resounding no from me. Before I go into all the ways this book fails, I will say: Johnson is at her strongest when discussing sexual assault and gender discrimination. This would have been a stronger collection if she had focused on that. Instead, we have a collection that makes little sense in its structure (how do they all fit together?), and makes attempts to be "woke" that end up fairly problematic in their execution.
Onwards and upwards.
General writing annoyances:
* Repetition. The writing can be repetitious at times, especially with key phrases she really likes to shove into all of her essays.
* Style. Not really an annoyance. It's just fine. She's a fine writer.
* Structure. All of the essays I read (so, half), are braided. I like braided essays. It's a great format to work in. But every essay? Show some variation.
Essays that caused me the most grievance:
"Against Whiteness"
Whoa. All this essay does is show that the author needs to do more research before attempting to discuss whiteness and racial disparity in any sort of theoretical way. If you're interested in these conversations, I'd recommend reading some Peggy McIntosh. And, as always, read all of the various men and women of color currently writing on racial discrimination––So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo might be a good place to start if you're brand new to the topic. Don't read this.
Underneath this essay is a deep seated discomfort and inability to actually, in a productive way, discuss the ways in which Johnson benefits from her whiteness. The first half of the essay lays out her desire to mark herself as different from 'those White people' because she's poor, and that somehow makes her different (it doesn't).
Let's look at a quote from the text: “[Rachel Dolezal’s] discomfort with whiteness might more accurately be called a conscience, though having a conscience doesn’t give any white woman the moral authority to become a black woman instead." That's the wrong take on Rachel Dolezal. It's so far off-base, it's the moment I knew I needed to put this book down. If one looks at what Dolezal did and says it's because she has a conscience, and not because she wanted to fetishize Black bodies, one is wrong.
Secondly: stating that some white people didn't know they were white until they got to America, when they had to perform whiteness to fit in, isn't technically wrong, but it's another wrong take and completely disregards the history of racial discrimination.
Thirdly: there's an entire section on how Johnson failed to speak up against the verbal attacks of a white male professor to a junior professor of color in her graduate seminar. When a friend of color in the seminar asked her "where the fuck were you?" (an appropriate response), Johnson sits sullenly and then talks about white guilt a bit, but ultimately by the end of the essay arrives at the conclusion that what happened that day wasn't her responsibility. That's true. But, it's still a failing on her part to speak up and say anything. You can not be responsible for something, and also fail at saying something while it's happening. That doesn't resolve you. It's still a failing. And ending with an attempt at a powerful "let's just burn it all down" statement disregards her own personal failings in that moment. It's okay to fail, but you have to recognize why you failed and think about how you can do better. By the end of this, I don't see any concrete steps Johnson has taken to be better.
"On Mercy"
Kid cancer ward tragedy porn is so The Fault in Our Stars that I almost couldn't believe it was here, but yup. There it was. And, it was somehow paralleled with the death penalty and racial discrimination in our judicial system (not well, mind you).
This essay made me deeply uncomfortable. So uncomfortable, I had to leave my house. The fact that a) she chose to describe in detail how these kids looked and acted as they were dying, as she was teaching them and b) the fact that she then decided to put them in conversation with her lack of compassion and inability to talk about grief left a sour taste in my mouth. Coupled with the parallel to the death penalty, and that's how we get lazy writing.
Just read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, and let's not do the kid cancer ward tragedy porn anymore. Their stories, their endings, should not be in service to our own stories.
So, just don't do it. Don't read this. Read any of the other things I've recommended, but don't read this. It's a trash fire.
It's a hearty, resounding no from me. Before I go into all the ways this book fails, I will say: Johnson is at her strongest when discussing sexual assault and gender discrimination. This would have been a stronger collection if she had focused on that. Instead, we have a collection that makes little sense in its structure (how do they all fit together?), and makes attempts to be "woke" that end up fairly problematic in their execution.
Onwards and upwards.
General writing annoyances:
* Repetition. The writing can be repetitious at times, especially with key phrases she really likes to shove into all of her essays.
* Style. Not really an annoyance. It's just fine. She's a fine writer.
* Structure. All of the essays I read (so, half), are braided. I like braided essays. It's a great format to work in. But every essay? Show some variation.
Essays that caused me the most grievance:
"Against Whiteness"
Whoa. All this essay does is show that the author needs to do more research before attempting to discuss whiteness and racial disparity in any sort of theoretical way. If you're interested in these conversations, I'd recommend reading some Peggy McIntosh. And, as always, read all of the various men and women of color currently writing on racial discrimination––So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo might be a good place to start if you're brand new to the topic. Don't read this.
Underneath this essay is a deep seated discomfort and inability to actually, in a productive way, discuss the ways in which Johnson benefits from her whiteness. The first half of the essay lays out her desire to mark herself as different from 'those White people' because she's poor, and that somehow makes her different (it doesn't).
Let's look at a quote from the text: “[Rachel Dolezal’s] discomfort with whiteness might more accurately be called a conscience, though having a conscience doesn’t give any white woman the moral authority to become a black woman instead." That's the wrong take on Rachel Dolezal. It's so far off-base, it's the moment I knew I needed to put this book down. If one looks at what Dolezal did and says it's because she has a conscience, and not because she wanted to fetishize Black bodies, one is wrong.
Secondly: stating that some white people didn't know they were white until they got to America, when they had to perform whiteness to fit in, isn't technically wrong, but it's another wrong take and completely disregards the history of racial discrimination.
Thirdly: there's an entire section on how Johnson failed to speak up against the verbal attacks of a white male professor to a junior professor of color in her graduate seminar. When a friend of color in the seminar asked her "where the fuck were you?" (an appropriate response), Johnson sits sullenly and then talks about white guilt a bit, but ultimately by the end of the essay arrives at the conclusion that what happened that day wasn't her responsibility. That's true. But, it's still a failing on her part to speak up and say anything. You can not be responsible for something, and also fail at saying something while it's happening. That doesn't resolve you. It's still a failing. And ending with an attempt at a powerful "let's just burn it all down" statement disregards her own personal failings in that moment. It's okay to fail, but you have to recognize why you failed and think about how you can do better. By the end of this, I don't see any concrete steps Johnson has taken to be better.
"On Mercy"
Kid cancer ward tragedy porn is so The Fault in Our Stars that I almost couldn't believe it was here, but yup. There it was. And, it was somehow paralleled with the death penalty and racial discrimination in our judicial system (not well, mind you).
This essay made me deeply uncomfortable. So uncomfortable, I had to leave my house. The fact that a) she chose to describe in detail how these kids looked and acted as they were dying, as she was teaching them and b) the fact that she then decided to put them in conversation with her lack of compassion and inability to talk about grief left a sour taste in my mouth. Coupled with the parallel to the death penalty, and that's how we get lazy writing.
Just read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, and let's not do the kid cancer ward tragedy porn anymore. Their stories, their endings, should not be in service to our own stories.
So, just don't do it. Don't read this. Read any of the other things I've recommended, but don't read this. It's a trash fire.