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A review by marissacanread
White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue ... and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation by Lauren Michele Jackson
3.5
A densely written book, I often found myself rereading sections and sentences. I admit, at the beginning I felt it was encouraging a deep level of thought but other times I thought it could be simplified with no detriment to the topic at hand, but hey I didn't write the book.
I googled the author, and all her New Yorker articles came up, and that made me say ah-ha. If you like New Yorker style writing, you'll like this (and probably vise versa).
In a world where topics like cultural appropriation are usually surrounded with the absolute most banal and idiotic "conversations" leaving you wanting to scream in your car after talking to a racist uncle, this book was an interesting take in that it did not engage in that way at. all. This shouldn't necessarily have to be called out, but in our world where short oversimplified content is the norm, this book is the complete opposite of TikTok and the like.
It's not a "how to not culturally appropriate in ten easy steps" book. This won't give you the sentence to say to make your racist uncle understand. But, it's full of deep, nuanced examples to consider and think about. She calls for nothing else if not more awareness, and the chapters provides great tools. I also agree with the other reviewer who recommend it in conjunction with the film 'American Fiction'.
Also I learned a lot of new words.
I googled the author, and all her New Yorker articles came up, and that made me say ah-ha. If you like New Yorker style writing, you'll like this (and probably vise versa).
In a world where topics like cultural appropriation are usually surrounded with the absolute most banal and idiotic "conversations" leaving you wanting to scream in your car after talking to a racist uncle, this book was an interesting take in that it did not engage in that way at. all. This shouldn't necessarily have to be called out, but in our world where short oversimplified content is the norm, this book is the complete opposite of TikTok and the like.
It's not a "how to not culturally appropriate in ten easy steps" book. This won't give you the sentence to say to make your racist uncle understand. But, it's full of deep, nuanced examples to consider and think about. She calls for nothing else if not more awareness, and the chapters provides great tools. I also agree with the other reviewer who recommend it in conjunction with the film 'American Fiction'.
Also I learned a lot of new words.