A review by ceallaighsbooks
Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

“There was nothing i could do but change myself. Not for him, but for me. And i did change… Of course, i couldn’t undo all the years of self-hatred and brainwashing in that short time, but it was a beginning. And although i still cared too much about what people thought about me, i always tried hard after that to stand on my own two feet, to stand by what i felt and thought and not just be a robot. I didn’t always succeed, but i always tried like hell.”

TITLE—Assata An Autobiography 
AUTHOR—Assata Shakur
PUBLISHED—orig. 1987 (read edition pub. 2001)
PUBLISHER—Lawrence Hill Books

GENRE—autobiography, memoir
SETTING—amerika
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—Black resistance & revolution, choosing life & love & hope, segregation, systemic racism & white supremacy, police brutality, injustice of the u.s. kourts, widespread nazi infiltration of US police and government forces, racism in the u.s. North & South, political ideology, amerikan sociocultural conditioning & brainwashing

“You don’t know what the hell the bogeyman is, but you hate him and you’re scared of him… Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is.”

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
STORY/PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

BONUS ELEMENT/S—I loved reading the parts about Assata’s childhood in North Carolina with her grandparents. Also all the great quotes on books and reading too!

PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
PREMISE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
EXECUTION—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“The struggle i’ve been going through and the struggle i’ve been seeing is too hard to lie about and i don’t even want to try. I want to help free the ghetto, not run away form it, leaving my people behind. I don’t want to style and profile in front of nobody. I want somebody i can relate to and talk about serious shit with.”

My Notes:
The story of this book, Assata’s life, is told in the first person using parallel timelines. The first timeline starts with Assata and her companions being ambushed and shot by new jersey PD cops on the New Jersey Turnpike resulting in Zayd Shakur’s murder and her kidnapping by the state. The second timeline begins with her childhood. By the end of the book we arrive at the end of both storylines which have now painted a picture of who Assata Shakur really is and the contrast between this picture and the one the u.s. government has tried to create through its anti-Black propaganda and lies is stark.

This structure is a masterstroke of storytelling genius. When we first see Assata entering police custody and being assaulted, brutalized, and tortured, we don’t know her story yet. We might have some idea based on things we’ve heard or read, but this is the first time we’re hearing her side in her words. And as we slowly learn about her history, her upbringing and her education, we begin to grasp more and more the arbitrary horror that she and millions of innocent people in similar situations have been subjected to for centuries by the evil machinations of imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, patriarchal fascism, and white supremacy.

By the end we understand that not only was Assata Shakur only ever absolutely innocent, but, even more than that, we see that she was a fundamentally good person and a seemingly tireless agent for positive change and love and unity among her community. The fact that the u.s. government and the police found such a person so terrifying, so threatening, makes it very clear what their values, their purpose, and their goals truly are.

What I think I loved most about this book was getting such a clear and intimate portrait of who Assata really was as an individual, as well as as a teacher, a revolutionary, a mother, and just an incredibly thoughtful, brave, and curious woman to whom it never occurred to stop learning, to stop fighting, and to ever stop living her life the best she knew how, and that was available to her, and always insisting that things should and could be better, more just, more free.

This book also reads like a sort of manual-by-example for how to be a revolutionary, how to live your life according to these values in a world that is literally built to silence and oppress and terrorize anyone who wants to create a better world, and to dismantle imperialism, colonialism, white supremacy, capitalism, and pseudoreligious oppression. This is one of the most inspiring and uplifting books I have ever read.

I would recommend this book to anyone who needs a really inspiring read about all the hope that is still to be found even in the most desperate of situations.

“I am still scared, but i am just as angry and evil as i am scared… They are gonna do what they are gonna do and there isn’t much i can do about it. I just have to be myself, stay as strong as i can, and do my best. That’s all.”

Final thoughts: I’d also highly recommend this book to anyone who is still confused about the whole “all cops are bastards” sentiment because this book will put all your doubts to rest on that matter. Or for whom the empty promises of our justice system or election process have always seemed to be something a lot different than what we are often led to believe they are… Assata addresses all of these issues concisely and simply. Amazing how confused about these systems Americans still continue to be… 🙃

“I thought about what Zayd had always told me. ‘While you’re alive, girl, you betta live.’”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CW // police shooting, gun death, severe and extreme police brutality, gross injustice, prison, abuse in prison, torture, healthcare abuse, abuse of a pregnant woman, child abuse, domestic abuse, attempted gang-rape, bigotry, racism, misogyny, gaslighting (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—
- James Baldwin
- ZAMI A NEW SPELLING OF MY NAME, by Audre Lorde
- SISTER OUTSIDER, by Audre Lorde
- THE SOURCE OF SELF REGARD, by Toni Morrison
- Angela Davis
- THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X
- DEAR SENTHURAN, by Akwaeke Emezi
- STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING, by Ibram X. Kendi

Favorite Quotes—
(This is only like half of them… 😂)

From the first Foreward by Angela Davis:
“…brazen expressions of structural racism—such as the pattern of mass imprisonment to which communities of color are subjected—are rendered invisible by the prevailing moral panic over crime.”

“When Richard Nixon raised the slogan of “law and order” in the 1970s, it was used in part to discredit the black liberation movement and to justify the deployment of the police, courts, and prisons against key figures in this and other radical movements of that era. Today, the ironic coupling of a declining crime rate and the consolidation of a prison industrial complex that makes increased rates of incarceration its economic necessity has facilitated the imprisonment of two million people in the United States.”

“At a time when optimism has receded from our political vocabulary, [Assata Shakur's autobiography] offers invaluable gifts—inspiration and hope. Her words remind us, as Walter Benjamin once observed, that it is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us.
—Angela Y. Davis
University of California, Santa Cruz March 2000”

From the second Forward by Lennox S. Hinds:
“…the findings of the Domestic Intelligence Subcommittee, headed by Senator Walter Mondale, which were published by the U.S. Government Printing Office in 1976, provided incontrovertible documentation of this government-sponsored conspiracy against the civil and human rights of all sorts of political activists and, most particularly, Black people.”

“I can certainly not improve on Assata’s account of her experiences… but I must point out that she understates the awfulness of the conditions in which she was incarcerated.”

“As long as members of Congress, still intimidated by AB-SCAM, are afraid to antagonize the FBI, and as long as FBI guidelines are drafted internally by the FBI and as long as the Justice Department is subject to the political imperatives of the President, monitored only within the system but without public accountability, we are all in danger of the kinds of repression and government secrecy that victimized…many…whose ideas and advocacy are threatening to the administration. We are all potential victims.”

“I encourage you now to enter the heart and soul of Assata Shakur who, despite all that has happened to her, preserves fresh idealism and confidence in the power of principled people to make change together for the common good of the peoples of the world.”

From the text:
“I have seen the destruction of the daylight,
and seen bloodthirsty maggots
prayed to an saluted.
I have seen the kind become the blind
and the blind become the bind
in one easy lesson.
…
“And, if i know any thing at all,
it’s that a wall is just a wall
and nothing more at all.
It can be broken down.”
—from AFFIRMATION

“When they changed shifts, the two troopers would salute the sergeant. Some saluted an army salute, but others saluted like the nazis did in Germany… I asked him if there were a lot of nazis in the state troopers, but he just laughed and kept on talking… As many times as i had referred to police as fascists, these shocked me by the truth of my own rhetoric.”

“One night one of the nurses came in and gave me three books. I hadn’t even thought about reading. The books were a godsend. They had been carefully selected. One was a book of Black poetry, one was a book called Black Women in White Amerika, and the third was a novel, Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse. Whenever i tired of the verbal abuse of my captors, i would drown them out by reading the poetry out loud. “Invictus” and “If We Must Die” were the poems i usually read. I read them over and over, until i was sure the guards had heard every word. The poems were my message to them.”

“The world, in spite of oppression, is a beautiful place.”

“You died.
I cried.
And kept on getting up.
A little slower.
And a lot more deadly.”
—STORY

“Decent families didn’t let their kids play in the street with no shoes on and didn’t let their kids say “ain’t.” Little did my grandmother know that ain’t was my favorite word once i got two feet out of her hearing range.”

“For the most part, we receive fragments of unrelated knowledge, and our education follows no logical format or pattern. It is exactly this kind of education that produces people who don’t have the ability to think for themselves and who are easily manipulated.”

“I was supposed to be a child version of a goodwill ambassador, out to prove that Black people were not stupid or dirty or smelly or uncultured. I carried out this mission as best i could to show that i was as good as they were. I never questioned the things they thought were good… I was a puppet and i didn’t even know who was pulling the strings.”

[Her response to a prisonguard ordering her around:] “I don’t remember joining your army,” i said. “When i join your army, then you can order me around.”

“Rhinocerous Woman—
This world is blind
and slight of mind
and cannot see
How beautiful you are.

I saw your light.
And it was shining.”

“When the jersey police were replaced by New York police at the bridge to Staten Island, they shook hands and gave each other the power sign… They acted like they were on some dangerous mission inside Russia. They were actually afraid. White people’s fear of Black people with guns will never cease to amaze me. Probably it’s because they think about what they would do were they in our place. Especially the police, who have done so much dirt to Black people—their guilty conscience tells them to be afraid. When Black people seriously organize and take up arms to fight for our liberation, there will be a lot of white people who will drop dead from no other reason than their own guilt and fear.”

“Don’t worry,” [Simba] told me. “These people can lock us up, but they can’t stop life, just like they can’t stop freedom. This baby was meant to be born, to carry on. They murdered Homey, and so this baby, like all our children, is going to be our hope for the future.” I would think about her words many times later.”

“…If the courts are interested in justice, well, of course, they’ll support our position.” We all know how big an “if” it is.”

[On the white, suburban jurors:] “How could they understand someone becoming a Black revolutionary? They had so little to revolt against. They had bought the amerikan dream lock, stock, and barrel and seemed unaware that, for the majority of Black and Third World people, the amerikan dream is the amerikan nightmare.”

“I have never really understood exactly what a “liberal” is, though, since i have heard “liberals” express every conceivable opinion on every conceivable subject… History has shown me that as long as some white middle-class people can live high on the hog, take vacations to Europe, send their children to private schools, and reap the benefits of their white skin privileges, then they are “liberals.” But when times get hard and money gets tight, they pull off that liberal mask and you think you’re talking to Adolf Hitler. They feel sorry for the so-called underprivileged just as long as they can maintain their own privileges.”

“Back then I thought being rich was the solution to everything.”

“She [a music teacher Assata had] was a racist who would have denied it to the bitter end. A lot of people don’t know how many ways racism can manifest itself and in how many ways people fight against it… And when i think back to some of those kids who were labeled “troublemakers” and “problem students,” i realize that many of them were unsung heroes who fought to maintain some sense of dignity and self-worth.”

“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”

“Those who believe that the president or the vice-president and the congress and the supreme kourt run this country are sadly mistaken. The almighty dollar is king; those who have the most money control the country and, through campaign contributions, buy and sell presidents, congressmen, and judges, the ones who pass the laws and enforce the laws that benefit their benefactors. The rich have always used racism to maintain power. To hate someone, to discriminate against them, and to attack them because of their racial characteristics is one of the most primitive, reactionary, ignorant ways of thinking that exists.”

“Everything is a lie in amerika, and the thing that keeps it going is that so many people believe the lie.”

“For Rema Olugbala—Youngblood
…
They think they killed you.
But i saw you yesterday
with your back against the wall,
muscles bulging against the chains,
eyes absorbing truth.
Lips speaking it.
Heart learning how to love.
Head learning who to hate.
Blood ready to flow
towards freedom.
Youngblood!”

“When it comes to the media, i have learned to believe none of what i hear and half of what i see.”

“I do not understand a government so willing to spend millions of dollars on arms, to explore outer space, even the planet Jupiter, and at the same time close down day care centers and fire stations.”

“There aren’t too many experiences that give you that good, satisfied feeling, that make you feel so clean and refreshed, as when you are fighting for your freedom.”

“We always started out talking about reform and ended up talking about revolution. If you were talking about anything except a few little jive crumbs here and there, reform was just not going to get it. I was long past the day when i thought that reform could possibly work, but revolution was a big question mark. I believed, with all my heart, that it was possible. But the question was how.”

“That’s why i couldn’t see fighting within the system. Both the democratic party and the republican party are controlled by millionaires. They are interested in holding on to their power, while i was interested in taking it away.”

“I had begun to think of myself as a socialist, but i could not in any way see myself joining any of the socialist groups i came in contact with… For one thing, i could not stand the condescending, paternalistic attitudes of some of the white people in those groups.”

“Only the strong go crazy.
The weak just go along.”

“I don’t want to rebel, i want to win.”

“The only great people i have met have been modest and humble. You can’t claim that you love people when you don’t respect them, and you can’t call for political unity unless you practice it in your relationships. And that doesn’t happen out of nowhere. That’s something that has got to be put into practice every day.”

“One of the best things about struggling is the people you meet. Before i became involved, i never dreamed such beautiful people existed. Of course, there were some creeps, but i can say without the slightest hesitation that i have been blessed with meeting some of the kindest, most courageous, most principled, most informed and intelligent people on the face of the earth. I owe a great deal to those who have helped me, loved me, taught me, and pulled my coat when i was moving in the wrong direction. If there is such a thing as luck, i’ve had an abundance of it, and the ones who have brought it to me are my friends and comrades. My wild, big-hearted friends, with their pretty ways and pretty thoughts, have given me more happiness than i will ever deserve. There was never a time, no matter what horrible thing i was undergoing, when i felt completely alone. Maybe it’s ironic, i don’t know, but the one thing i do know is that the Black liberation movement has done more for me than i will ever be able to do for it.”

“That was one of the big problems in the Party. Criticism and self-criticism were not encouraged, and the little that was given often was not taken seriously.”

“…armed struggle, by itself, can never bring about a revolution. Revolutionary war is a people’s war. And no people’s war can be won without the support of the masses of people. Armed struggle can never be successful by itself; it must be part of an overall strategy for winning, and the strategy must be political as well as military.”

“You can’t win a race just by running,” my mother told me when i was little. “You have to talk to yourself… You have to talk to yourself when you are running and tell yourself you can win.”

“Too many people in the u.s. support death and destruction without being aware of it. They indirectly support the killing of people without ever having to look at the corpses.”