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izzy01 's review for:
The Black Kids
by Christina Hammonds Reed
You know when a book is so important that that very fact takes precedence to it being... good? Enjoyable? That was what this book was for me. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s so imporant that you read it anyway.
In the beginning, this book dragged on to no end. I was annoyed, frustrated and didn’t want to read on. Then it started picking up when the riots finally began.
I knew very little about the Rodney King riots in LA in 1992 before this. It was fascinating learning about the beatings of the truckdrivers, the destruction of Koreatown and the "rooftop Koreans" and the lootings and arson that destroyed so many black businesses (and more.)
Themes this book touches on: black people having to be better than white people because they’re held to a different standard, white people seeing a black person and immediately drawing a gun (we love shooting out some racists’ tires in this household,) racist police, how riots impact poor black people’s businesses too, being black and rich vs. being black and poor, how black children don’t get to be children for very long, how even when black people become rich, they’re still black and therefore still disadvantaged. It was all very interesting and educational for me as a white person.
Ashley’s white friends were... awful. Just straight up. It didn’t sit well with me how cheating was almost equated with calling someone the n-word. When you cheat on one person you dont cheat on every person. When you call one black person the n-word, you call all black people the n-word. Those two are not compareable in the slightest.
How there hasn’t been a second civil war in America I don’t know. I’ll end this with a suggestion (a quote from a dumb movie I personally like): "Power to the people. Stick it to the man."
In the beginning, this book dragged on to no end. I was annoyed, frustrated and didn’t want to read on. Then it started picking up when the riots finally began.
I knew very little about the Rodney King riots in LA in 1992 before this. It was fascinating learning about the beatings of the truckdrivers, the destruction of Koreatown and the "rooftop Koreans" and the lootings and arson that destroyed so many black businesses (and more.)
Themes this book touches on: black people having to be better than white people because they’re held to a different standard, white people seeing a black person and immediately drawing a gun (we love shooting out some racists’ tires in this household,) racist police, how riots impact poor black people’s businesses too, being black and rich vs. being black and poor, how black children don’t get to be children for very long, how even when black people become rich, they’re still black and therefore still disadvantaged. It was all very interesting and educational for me as a white person.
Ashley’s white friends were... awful. Just straight up. It didn’t sit well with me how cheating was almost equated with calling someone the n-word. When you cheat on one person you dont cheat on every person. When you call one black person the n-word, you call all black people the n-word. Those two are not compareable in the slightest.
How there hasn’t been a second civil war in America I don’t know. I’ll end this with a suggestion (a quote from a dumb movie I personally like): "Power to the people. Stick it to the man."