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taylort 's review for:
Okay this turned out to be a great read. I was skeptical of the premise coming from a white man -not because I thought the research wouldn’t be good, rather because I wasn’t sure what his perspective would add to a conversation that’s been happening in activist and POC circles for literal decades. And it took me a while to get into it and hear his voice coming through, but by the end I was so pleasantly humbled and surprised!
He finds unique people and and anecdotes both in history and in his contemporary travels around the American south that simply speak for themselves, telling the story of racism enshrined in monuments as means for control without really saying it explicitly at all. This isn’t heavy handed or pandering. It’s just the need for American reckoning laid bare, and it’s very compelling. He describes the obstacles to progress faced by activists and civil rights advocates every day and throughout history, “same war; same general,” by focusing on the monuments of one confederate general. But it’s clear his work is about more than that.
It’s about the erasure and palliatives that have allowed white supremacy to maintain its grip on American systems relentlessly and unrepentant. He has done a lot of work on himself as well and it shows in his tone, reflections, and reverence for the work of others who have tackled the monster of institutionalized racism before he started his work.
I would recommend this to avid readers of history and new historians alike. While for me it didn’t expose anything I had not already learned, it provided language and insight for the ways in which we can continue to fight and find hope for progress through remembering history. “Drop the illusion of innocence and restore a proper tension to our lives as we wonder together what in Memphis and what in America and what in this world should be unsettling [our] prayers today.”
He finds unique people and and anecdotes both in history and in his contemporary travels around the American south that simply speak for themselves, telling the story of racism enshrined in monuments as means for control without really saying it explicitly at all. This isn’t heavy handed or pandering. It’s just the need for American reckoning laid bare, and it’s very compelling. He describes the obstacles to progress faced by activists and civil rights advocates every day and throughout history, “same war; same general,” by focusing on the monuments of one confederate general. But it’s clear his work is about more than that.
It’s about the erasure and palliatives that have allowed white supremacy to maintain its grip on American systems relentlessly and unrepentant. He has done a lot of work on himself as well and it shows in his tone, reflections, and reverence for the work of others who have tackled the monster of institutionalized racism before he started his work.
I would recommend this to avid readers of history and new historians alike. While for me it didn’t expose anything I had not already learned, it provided language and insight for the ways in which we can continue to fight and find hope for progress through remembering history. “Drop the illusion of innocence and restore a proper tension to our lives as we wonder together what in Memphis and what in America and what in this world should be unsettling [our] prayers today.”