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kevin_shepherd's Reviews (563)
“After the alarm caused by Nat Turner’s insurrection had subsided, the slaveholders came to the conclusion that it would be well to give the slaves enough of a religious instruction to keep them from murdering their masters.” ~Harriet Ann Jacobs, 1861
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“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.” ~Ephesians 6:5
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism.” ~Colossians 22-25
“All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare of their slaves.” ~1 Timothy 6:1-2
“Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.” ~Titus 2:9-10
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“There is a great difference between Christianity and religion at the south. If a man goes to the communion table and pays money into the treasury of the church, no matter if it be the price of blood, he is called religious. If a pastor has offspring by a woman not his wife the church will dismiss him if she is a white woman, but if she is colored it will not hinder his continuing to be their good shepherd… Old Satan’s church is here below, but up to God’s free church I hope to go.” ~Harriet Ann Jacobs, born 1815 - died 1897 (rest in peace)
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“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.” ~Ephesians 6:5
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism.” ~Colossians 22-25
“All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare of their slaves.” ~1 Timothy 6:1-2
“Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.” ~Titus 2:9-10
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“There is a great difference between Christianity and religion at the south. If a man goes to the communion table and pays money into the treasury of the church, no matter if it be the price of blood, he is called religious. If a pastor has offspring by a woman not his wife the church will dismiss him if she is a white woman, but if she is colored it will not hinder his continuing to be their good shepherd… Old Satan’s church is here below, but up to God’s free church I hope to go.” ~Harriet Ann Jacobs, born 1815 - died 1897 (rest in peace)
Pearl Cleage rocks. I know this whole project of journal entries interspersed with personal letters and dotted with poetry was inspired by (and compiled for) her daughter, but It feels like she wrote it to remind ME that what I don’t know about the dynamics of feminism and civil rights would fill a large library.
Seriously. My lack of awareness of who’s who in black history is tantamount to illiteracy. Every time I stopped to Google one of her friends or acquaintances I was both awed and humbled. This beautiful woman was quite often in the eye of the storm. It’s sad to think that I, creeping up on my sixtieth year, could have easily passed through this world never knowing who she was or what she has accomplished or how incredibly incredible she (still) is.
Seriously. My lack of awareness of who’s who in black history is tantamount to illiteracy. Every time I stopped to Google one of her friends or acquaintances I was both awed and humbled. This beautiful woman was quite often in the eye of the storm. It’s sad to think that I, creeping up on my sixtieth year, could have easily passed through this world never knowing who she was or what she has accomplished or how incredibly incredible she (still) is.
“Once he hit a line drive right past my ear. I turned around and saw the ball hit his ass sliding into second." ~Satchel Paige
James “Cool Papa” Bell might have been the fastest man to have ever played the game of baseball. It was rumored that, in his prime, he could round the bases in less than 12 seconds. (Wow!)
And although record keeping in the Negro Leagues was intermittent and sketchy, what is known for sure is that Cool Papa hit .391 in over 40 exhibition games against all-white major league pitchers, including some of the best white pitchers to ever play the game. (Wow again!)
After reading this painstakingly researched biography, I find myself somewhat at a loss for the right words. Mostly I am struck by the enormity of what we missed. It’s not that the baseball legends of the American Negro Leagues (1920-1948), like Cool Papa Bell and Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, were born too early to compete in a baseball meritocracy of fairness and equality. The reality is that the doors of opportunity, the parapet of baseball’s racist segregation, swung open far too late.
James “Cool Papa” Bell might have been the fastest man to have ever played the game of baseball. It was rumored that, in his prime, he could round the bases in less than 12 seconds. (Wow!)
And although record keeping in the Negro Leagues was intermittent and sketchy, what is known for sure is that Cool Papa hit .391 in over 40 exhibition games against all-white major league pitchers, including some of the best white pitchers to ever play the game. (Wow again!)
After reading this painstakingly researched biography, I find myself somewhat at a loss for the right words. Mostly I am struck by the enormity of what we missed. It’s not that the baseball legends of the American Negro Leagues (1920-1948), like Cool Papa Bell and Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, were born too early to compete in a baseball meritocracy of fairness and equality. The reality is that the doors of opportunity, the parapet of baseball’s racist segregation, swung open far too late.
I put off reading this book for quite some time, not because I was disinterested in the topic or afraid of what I might discover about myself. I put off reading this because the cover (which is god-awful btw) gave off a dull, generic vibe. Because this book looks so ‘common’ I had this idea in my head that it probably contained nothing new for me. I mean, I have two big shelves in my home library dedicated to “the black experience” - books about MLK and Malcolm, books by bell hooks and Dr Cornell West and Nella Larsen and Langston Hughes and Audre Lorde and Michelle Alexander and on and on and on… I thought this little book probably had nothing original to add to what I already thought I knew. I was wrong.
When I read in Ijeoma Oluo’s introduction that she lives in a “white supremacist country,” my first thought was something like, “oh, so she’s South African?” No. She lives in Seattle, Washington and she was born in Denton, Texas. (What!?) Okay, I had long ago freely acknowledged that white supremacy exists here. But to call America a white supremacist country was a paradigm shift I had to creep up on. I had to mull this over.
This book is FULL of moments like that. There are many sentences here where I had to stop and ask myself, is this true? There are epiphanies here that hit a little too close to home—hell, some of them landed in my goddamn living room. I’ll be honest, at times this book made me uncomfortable.
Epiphanies of this nature can be more than a little unsettling. To embrace a new conception, especially a new self-conception, we have to first release our death-grip on a misconception. Some of those misconceptions are there because they’re comforting. Some of those misconceptions are there because we don’t want to think about the alternatives.
There are quite a few dismissive reviews about this book. Most of those dismissive reviews are from white folks (like me) who felt hurt or insulted or disrespected. We have to stop and ask ourselves, why is this upsetting? I admit, there were times here when I read something that made me wince. Am I THAT guy? Is this really me? More than once, the unflattering answer to that question was yes.
If you’re a white person who knows all there is to know about what it’s like to be a person of color in America then don’t read this book. For the rest of us, I highly recommend we give the uncomfortable ideas here a lot of thought.
When I read in Ijeoma Oluo’s introduction that she lives in a “white supremacist country,” my first thought was something like, “oh, so she’s South African?” No. She lives in Seattle, Washington and she was born in Denton, Texas. (What!?) Okay, I had long ago freely acknowledged that white supremacy exists here. But to call America a white supremacist country was a paradigm shift I had to creep up on. I had to mull this over.
This book is FULL of moments like that. There are many sentences here where I had to stop and ask myself, is this true? There are epiphanies here that hit a little too close to home—hell, some of them landed in my goddamn living room. I’ll be honest, at times this book made me uncomfortable.
Epiphanies of this nature can be more than a little unsettling. To embrace a new conception, especially a new self-conception, we have to first release our death-grip on a misconception. Some of those misconceptions are there because they’re comforting. Some of those misconceptions are there because we don’t want to think about the alternatives.
There are quite a few dismissive reviews about this book. Most of those dismissive reviews are from white folks (like me) who felt hurt or insulted or disrespected. We have to stop and ask ourselves, why is this upsetting? I admit, there were times here when I read something that made me wince. Am I THAT guy? Is this really me? More than once, the unflattering answer to that question was yes.
If you’re a white person who knows all there is to know about what it’s like to be a person of color in America then don’t read this book. For the rest of us, I highly recommend we give the uncomfortable ideas here a lot of thought.
Nonviolent, Integrated and Dignified
“Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them, is a spiritually moribund religion.”
A philosopher as well as a minister, Martin Luther King Jr. questioned whether or not man was intrinsically good and whether or not divine grace could lift him from the contradictions of history. In such queries King showed himself to be a present tense realist and a future tense optimist. He took on Jim Crow on the buses of Montgomery, in the streets of Selma, and in the jail cells of Birmingham. He didn’t always win but the reverberations of his achievements are still being felt half a century after his passing.
"If a man has not found something that is worth giving his life for he is not fit to live”
I admire that rare biographer that can be both objective and enthusiastic; Stephen Oates is about 95% there. Aside from his tangent apologetics (we get it, Dr. King wasn’t a beacon of fidelity, let’s move on) and his referral to the U.S. as a “christian nation” (it’s not—don’t get me started), Oates has penned a doozy. Highly recommended. 4 stars.
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On the morning of April 4, 1968 when an assassin’s bullet found the good Dr. on that Memphis motel balcony, I was five years old and 335 miles away. I have no specific memories of the event but I can say, without any doubt or reservation, there were no tears shed in my father’s house. Years later, whenever the name Martin Luther King Jr. would surface in passing conversation, both my mom and dad would refer to him as a “troublemaker.” Trust me on this one, if you ever find yourself on the wrong side of racist bigots (i.e. my parents) you can bet your ass you are on the right side of history.
“Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them, is a spiritually moribund religion.”
A philosopher as well as a minister, Martin Luther King Jr. questioned whether or not man was intrinsically good and whether or not divine grace could lift him from the contradictions of history. In such queries King showed himself to be a present tense realist and a future tense optimist. He took on Jim Crow on the buses of Montgomery, in the streets of Selma, and in the jail cells of Birmingham. He didn’t always win but the reverberations of his achievements are still being felt half a century after his passing.
"If a man has not found something that is worth giving his life for he is not fit to live”
I admire that rare biographer that can be both objective and enthusiastic; Stephen Oates is about 95% there. Aside from his tangent apologetics (we get it, Dr. King wasn’t a beacon of fidelity, let’s move on) and his referral to the U.S. as a “christian nation” (it’s not—don’t get me started), Oates has penned a doozy. Highly recommended. 4 stars.
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On the morning of April 4, 1968 when an assassin’s bullet found the good Dr. on that Memphis motel balcony, I was five years old and 335 miles away. I have no specific memories of the event but I can say, without any doubt or reservation, there were no tears shed in my father’s house. Years later, whenever the name Martin Luther King Jr. would surface in passing conversation, both my mom and dad would refer to him as a “troublemaker.” Trust me on this one, if you ever find yourself on the wrong side of racist bigots (i.e. my parents) you can bet your ass you are on the right side of history.
In preface, let me say that I learned a good deal more about James Baldwin in David Leeming’s biography than I thought probable.
For instance, I learned that early in his writing career Baldwin’s ability to accurately portray life in the Jim Crow South was called into question because he was, by birth, a “northerner.” I learned that his writing style was mocked by Alex Haley (“I like those Baldwin sentences with all them commas 'n'shit”). I learned, not surprisingly, that Baldwin's work was often considered immoral and offensive. I learned that Baldwin had both public and private tussles with Langston Hughes over which of them wrote “real books” and which of them wrote “piles of slogans and manifestos.” I also learned that James Baldwin thought that racism was so infused into white culture, so endemic to America, that many white folks were oblivious to its existence; a state of insensibility that he politely termed “White Innocence.”
My issue with author David Leeming’s book stems not from his source material but rather from his complete lack of objectivity. Leeming’s intimate friendship with Baldwin is evident from the start and as a result his biography often comes across as both tabloid and cliché. 3 stars.
For instance, I learned that early in his writing career Baldwin’s ability to accurately portray life in the Jim Crow South was called into question because he was, by birth, a “northerner.” I learned that his writing style was mocked by Alex Haley (“I like those Baldwin sentences with all them commas 'n'shit”). I learned, not surprisingly, that Baldwin's work was often considered immoral and offensive. I learned that Baldwin had both public and private tussles with Langston Hughes over which of them wrote “real books” and which of them wrote “piles of slogans and manifestos.” I also learned that James Baldwin thought that racism was so infused into white culture, so endemic to America, that many white folks were oblivious to its existence; a state of insensibility that he politely termed “White Innocence.”
My issue with author David Leeming’s book stems not from his source material but rather from his complete lack of objectivity. Leeming’s intimate friendship with Baldwin is evident from the start and as a result his biography often comes across as both tabloid and cliché. 3 stars.
Add bell hooks to my list of favorite authors. Her assessment of American class hierarchy is spot on. And while I don’t necessarily agree with all of her countermeasures, I don’t take umbrage with them either. 4 big stars.
“A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books.” ~Andrei Tarkovsky
Bernardine Evaristo’s fiction expands our knowledge of what it means to be human; narrative arcs and plot devices be damned.
So many of my friends loved this novel that I feel somewhat guilty giving it anything less than all the stars. But I just can’t.
I don’t gravitate toward fiction very often but when I do I want to be inspired by it. At first, this felt like a five star read but by the time I got to page four hundred and fifty three it felt like a soap opera. Give me characters who do more than reinforce socioeconomic stereotypes. Please.
Bernardine Evaristo’s fiction expands our knowledge of what it means to be human; narrative arcs and plot devices be damned.
So many of my friends loved this novel that I feel somewhat guilty giving it anything less than all the stars. But I just can’t.
I don’t gravitate toward fiction very often but when I do I want to be inspired by it. At first, this felt like a five star read but by the time I got to page four hundred and fifty three it felt like a soap opera. Give me characters who do more than reinforce socioeconomic stereotypes. Please.
I fell in love with Zora Neale Hurston - anthropologist, writer, filmmaker, heretic - in the autumn of 2021.
As an author and public speaker, Zora was not above taking our religious institutions to task.
“You cannot have knowledge and worship at the same time. Mystery is the essence of divinity… It seems to me that organized creeds are collections of words around a wish. I feel no need for such.”
Did I mention she was a heretic?
“I do not pretend to read God’s mind. If he has a plan of the Universe worked out to the smallest detail, it would be folly for me to presume to get down on my knees and attempt to revise it. That, to me, seems the highest form of sacrilege… Prayer seems to me a cry of weakness, and an attempt to avoid, by trickery, the rules of the game as laid down.”
Politically, she favored diplomacy over military intervention…
“We [the United States] consider machine gun bullets good laxatives for heathens who get constipated with toxic ideas about a country of their own.”
…and philosophically, she challenged our stereotypes and embraced our shared humanity.
“…I feel that I have lived. I have the joy and pain of strong friendships. I have served and been served. I have made enemies of which I am not ashamed. I have been faithless, and then I have been faithful and steadfast until the blood ran down into my shoes. I have loved unselfishly with all the ardor of a strong heart, and I have hated with all the power of my soul. What waits for me in the future? I do not know. I cannot even imagine, and I am glad for that. But already I have touched the four corners of the horizon, for from hard searching it seems to me that tears and laughter, love and hate, make up the sum of life.”
In spite of all she contributed and accomplished, Zora Neale Hurston spent her final years working as a housemaid. She died in poverty and relative obscurity on 28 January, 1960.
Dearest Zora, our differences not withstanding (as in black/white, conservative/liberal, theist/atheist, living/deceased) I am so looking forward to spending more time with you.
As an author and public speaker, Zora was not above taking our religious institutions to task.
“You cannot have knowledge and worship at the same time. Mystery is the essence of divinity… It seems to me that organized creeds are collections of words around a wish. I feel no need for such.”
Did I mention she was a heretic?
“I do not pretend to read God’s mind. If he has a plan of the Universe worked out to the smallest detail, it would be folly for me to presume to get down on my knees and attempt to revise it. That, to me, seems the highest form of sacrilege… Prayer seems to me a cry of weakness, and an attempt to avoid, by trickery, the rules of the game as laid down.”
Politically, she favored diplomacy over military intervention…
“We [the United States] consider machine gun bullets good laxatives for heathens who get constipated with toxic ideas about a country of their own.”
…and philosophically, she challenged our stereotypes and embraced our shared humanity.
“…I feel that I have lived. I have the joy and pain of strong friendships. I have served and been served. I have made enemies of which I am not ashamed. I have been faithless, and then I have been faithful and steadfast until the blood ran down into my shoes. I have loved unselfishly with all the ardor of a strong heart, and I have hated with all the power of my soul. What waits for me in the future? I do not know. I cannot even imagine, and I am glad for that. But already I have touched the four corners of the horizon, for from hard searching it seems to me that tears and laughter, love and hate, make up the sum of life.”
In spite of all she contributed and accomplished, Zora Neale Hurston spent her final years working as a housemaid. She died in poverty and relative obscurity on 28 January, 1960.
Dearest Zora, our differences not withstanding (as in black/white, conservative/liberal, theist/atheist, living/deceased) I am so looking forward to spending more time with you.
"This book is dangerous for the Negro to read, for it will only incite discontent and fill his imagination with things that do not exist, or things that should not bear upon his mind." ~The Nashville Banner, 1903