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Looking for Palestine: Growing Up Confused in an Arab-American Family by Najla Said
2.0
In the conclusion, Said writes about how she needed to be encouraged to publish a memoir as "I worried I did not know enough about my dad’s work, I was scared of making political statements of any kind, I was afraid of sounding like a whining spoiled brat." Unfortunately, this is exactly how I felt about this book. Said writes vapidly as a self-described "Upper West Side Princess," almost never touching on what being Palestinian means to her, spending her youth distancing herself from her Arabness and her adulthood embracing the Orientalist views of the Middle East her father strove to dispel. Worst, the book often conflates all Jews with Zionists, contains a wild amount of normalization of Israel, and perpetuates Islamophobia. Said not only positions herself as "not like other girls" but also as "one of the good Arabs."
Describing being in Beirut when the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon started: "There's something I want to explain and I want to be clear about it. You can spend your life being a humanist, a pacifist, a thoughtful person who does not even think about hating or does not even know what it is to hate. That is to say you can really and truly be a human being who is tolerant and open-minded and humane, judging people by how they behave toward you, and treating them the way you wish to be treated. But when you are being attacked, when bombs are falling around you, planes are hovering over your head, when your life is in danger and you are scared, it is so easy to look up to the sky and feel abject boiling hatred for the people doing this to you and curse them out. When you are fearful for your life and you are being bombed by a certain group of people, you are not thinking, "Oh, but I know that not all Israelis agree with this." There's not time for that. Just as there is not time for them to think that it is not all Lebanese attacking back. And there is no time to think about the Israeli pilot who wishes he weren't in the plane dropping bombs on everybody. All you can think in these situations is "fuck everyone.'"
Thorough the memoir, Said continues to claim that she was connecting with her Arab roots at different points in her life, but then continues to distance herself from them: "It was relatively easy to avoid my Arabness in college, too. In part, it was because the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, so to anyone who wasn't actually from Palestine or Israel, the Israelis and Palestinians seems to be getting along fine. The war in Lebanon had ended and the country was being rebuilt. And I went to a school were political activity on campus was non-existent." It's true that Princeton is not known for it's political activity, but to ignore the work of the NAACP, LGBTQ+ groups, and others is a strange choice. The way Said describes herself, it sounded like she actively avoided any political organizations.
She also discussed "identity politics" in a strange tangent: "People are always shocked to know that my father wasn't a fan of this "identity politics PC-movement" of calling yourself "a Pacific Islander from the third island to the right of Samoa hyphen American." I guess it makes sense that someone who championed the rights and humanity of The Other would be a fan of declaring yourself an African-American or whatever. But he wasn't. And that makes sense, too. Daddy didn't like labels. Oriental was the one he was most famous for disliking, but it was just an example of millions of others."
Though the book is titled "Looking for Palestine," Said also spends time distancing her family from Palestine: "These were the people who saw him [Edward Said] as a human symbol of a geographical place. These people make me crazy, even though they mean well. It actually never occurred to us to bury Daddy in Palestine, because Palestine, though a cause he embraced wholeheartedly and fought for his entire adult life, is a place he hadn't really known. The world had conflated Edward Said with Palestine, but I had not. I had only really ever known Daddy. But how could I explain that to the world?"
In the end, the book is more about wealthy New York neighborhoods, Ivy League universities, and how great it is to vacation in Lebanon in the summer than it has anything to do with Palestine. Even in her final step towards learning about what it means to be Arab, interviewing Arabs in America with a group of Arab artists in the direct aftermath of 9/11, Said talks more about her Lebanese mother and her history than she does about her father or Palestinians.
I wonder if she had written this now, seeing how much information she's been sharing on her Instagram about Gaza and about the mistreatment of Arabs in the USA, her framing would be different.
Describing being in Beirut when the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon started: "There's something I want to explain and I want to be clear about it. You can spend your life being a humanist, a pacifist, a thoughtful person who does not even think about hating or does not even know what it is to hate. That is to say you can really and truly be a human being who is tolerant and open-minded and humane, judging people by how they behave toward you, and treating them the way you wish to be treated. But when you are being attacked, when bombs are falling around you, planes are hovering over your head, when your life is in danger and you are scared, it is so easy to look up to the sky and feel abject boiling hatred for the people doing this to you and curse them out. When you are fearful for your life and you are being bombed by a certain group of people, you are not thinking, "Oh, but I know that not all Israelis agree with this." There's not time for that. Just as there is not time for them to think that it is not all Lebanese attacking back. And there is no time to think about the Israeli pilot who wishes he weren't in the plane dropping bombs on everybody. All you can think in these situations is "fuck everyone.'"
Thorough the memoir, Said continues to claim that she was connecting with her Arab roots at different points in her life, but then continues to distance herself from them: "It was relatively easy to avoid my Arabness in college, too. In part, it was because the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, so to anyone who wasn't actually from Palestine or Israel, the Israelis and Palestinians seems to be getting along fine. The war in Lebanon had ended and the country was being rebuilt. And I went to a school were political activity on campus was non-existent." It's true that Princeton is not known for it's political activity, but to ignore the work of the NAACP, LGBTQ+ groups, and others is a strange choice. The way Said describes herself, it sounded like she actively avoided any political organizations.
She also discussed "identity politics" in a strange tangent: "People are always shocked to know that my father wasn't a fan of this "identity politics PC-movement" of calling yourself "a Pacific Islander from the third island to the right of Samoa hyphen American." I guess it makes sense that someone who championed the rights and humanity of The Other would be a fan of declaring yourself an African-American or whatever. But he wasn't. And that makes sense, too. Daddy didn't like labels. Oriental was the one he was most famous for disliking, but it was just an example of millions of others."
Though the book is titled "Looking for Palestine," Said also spends time distancing her family from Palestine: "These were the people who saw him [Edward Said] as a human symbol of a geographical place. These people make me crazy, even though they mean well. It actually never occurred to us to bury Daddy in Palestine, because Palestine, though a cause he embraced wholeheartedly and fought for his entire adult life, is a place he hadn't really known. The world had conflated Edward Said with Palestine, but I had not. I had only really ever known Daddy. But how could I explain that to the world?"
In the end, the book is more about wealthy New York neighborhoods, Ivy League universities, and how great it is to vacation in Lebanon in the summer than it has anything to do with Palestine. Even in her final step towards learning about what it means to be Arab, interviewing Arabs in America with a group of Arab artists in the direct aftermath of 9/11, Said talks more about her Lebanese mother and her history than she does about her father or Palestinians.
I wonder if she had written this now, seeing how much information she's been sharing on her Instagram about Gaza and about the mistreatment of Arabs in the USA, her framing would be different.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Eating disorder, Panic attacks/disorders, Terminal illness, and Death of parent
Moderate: Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Colonisation, and War
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
5.0
Absolutely incredible work. It was horrifying to read about the cooperation of big tech with federal police and border control and then open the news to read about more and more detentions, deportations, and increasing surveillance systems. The writing was so gripping that I often found myself confused at what I had read in the news and what I was remembering from the book. Having also read Conditional Citizens by Lalami, I expected no less!
This book will haunt me in the most useful ways, and I hope will inspire other readers to organize, oppose police states, and stand up against detention centers in their own lands.
This book will haunt me in the most useful ways, and I hope will inspire other readers to organize, oppose police states, and stand up against detention centers in their own lands.
Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
3.0
Three stars is maybe generous, but I did enjoy some of the style and settings. However, there were a lot of unnecessary lectures on history and politics, and with how leftist and liberatory those info dumps were, the characters somehow came out praising cops, dismissing the fight for Puerto Rican independence, and propping up the systems they argue against.
Of course, if I was abandoned by my mother as a child for a cause, I can see how that child might grow up to despise the cause. But in that case, it felt like Olga should have either completely ignored the issues or been for some kind of becoming a US State compromise.
With her job, it would have been amazing to see her become a real Robin Hood, using her connections to take from the rich and give to the movement.
Instead, the tidy end of the book implies that revolutionary movements are only accomplished by hard-hearted but charismatic loners and the only way to find happiness is to turn off the news and reap the wealth of your “community” by becoming a landlord.
Of course, if I was abandoned by my mother as a child for a cause, I can see how that child might grow up to despise the cause. But in that case, it felt like Olga should have either completely ignored the issues or been for some kind of becoming a US State compromise.
With her job, it would have been amazing to see her become a real Robin Hood, using her connections to take from the rich and give to the movement.
Instead, the tidy end of the book implies that revolutionary movements are only accomplished by hard-hearted but charismatic loners and the only way to find happiness is to turn off the news and reap the wealth of your “community” by becoming a landlord.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
Moderate: Addiction, Homophobia, Sexism, Sexual content, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Colonisation
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
4.0
I’m not a big horror fan, but this was more fun than I thought it would be and I really enjoyed it! Using eugenics as the base of the horror was so interesting.
I wish there had been more tension between the two love interests, or that the romance wasn’t created there. She has so much chemistry, though toxic and abusive, with the brother, that the lack of spark made them feel like just very good friends who survived a traumatic experience together.
Some of the language and phrases also felt too modern for the time period, which otherwise was very engrossing, but it didn’t take away from the readability too much.
I wish there had been more tension between the two love interests, or that the romance wasn’t created there. She has so much chemistry, though toxic and abusive, with the brother, that the lack of spark made them feel like just very good friends who survived a traumatic experience together.
Some of the language and phrases also felt too modern for the time period, which otherwise was very engrossing, but it didn’t take away from the readability too much.
Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray by Anita Heiss
4.75
This was beautiful and so, so heartbreaking. It follows the life of Wagadhaany, an Aboriginal Wiradjuri woman, and the ways the white colonizers abuse her, her community, and her land, and also how she maintains her culture, connections, and passes her traditions on to her children. Despite the heavy history and painful scenes, the writing was so touching and the characters so real I had a hard time pausing this read!
I Am Maroon: The True Story of an American Political Prisoner by Kanya D'Almeida, Russell Shoatz
5.0
“Armed struggle is never undertaken lightly. It is always the final straw, a decision made by a man with his back up against the wall, when all other means have been tried and have failed. Everyone comes to it differently, some with conviction, some with doubts, in desperation or in anticipation of something — anything — that can change their circumstances. I am not talking about kids wielding guns in gang warfare or a soldier enlisting in the military. I am talking about revolutionaries, those who have rejected once and for all the oppressor’s monopoly over violence, those of us who have rejected the state as the only legitimate purveyor of death.”
This is an incredible memoir, so fast paced and shocking that I dreaded any time I had to put it down. I am also surprised how little I knew about Russell Maroon Shoatz before this, and how few reviews this book has here and on other reader platforms. Shoatz was a member of the Black Panther Party and other Black Liberation and Black Power groups. This memoir details his life from a child gang member in Philadelphia, to being moved to leave the gang life after hearing Malcolm X speak and learning more about Black liberation groups, to his arrest after being involved with the shooting of multiple police officers. Shoatz then manages to escape from three prisons, and his stories of harrowing treatment within each facility and the wild ways he managed to break out and how he survived on the run each time before his ultimate recaptures were breathtaking.
It was so interesting to hear how his life and surrounding circumstances led him to commit awful crimes and treat those around him terribly, and how he came to gain purpose and find regret for his past behavior through Black Power groups and later Islam. He details how reading and seeing films changed his views on women's rights and made him reflect on how he treated women in his life. It was disappointing that his reflections didn't extent to viewing coercion as a form of assault, as during his earlier years in his gang he describes"group sex" or "pulling trains," describing what I understood as gang rape as a "rite of passage" for girls and women in his neighborhood as they were pressured into proving a girl’s worth among her peers—how many guys in a row could she endure, or “pull?'"
It was also strange that he described how Yemoja, a woman from "“a cadre of young Black revolutionary sisters who had become active in the Black Liberation Movement in Pittsburgh” visited him and eventually helped him break out of another prison. He ended up cornered in the winter forests of Pennsylvania with Yemoja and another prisoner, engaging in a long lasting gun fight against the police. After a two hour standoff, they were recaptured, and though they were well armed with Shoatz having a machine gun he says no police were shot. It was strange reading how Shoatz described Yemoja as another key woman in his life who led him away from his past misogynistic behavior, but not saying anything about her fate after that standoff. After breaking him out of prison and fighting alongside him, he only mentions that she testified in his defense despite risking "losing much from her continued support" and thanked her and her sister briefly. I had to search for a while to find an article from Plough Publishing that named her as Oshun (previously Phyllis Hill) and said she "agreed to a plea deal that would give her a reduced sentence if she agreed to keep a low profile with the media (and) served just under three years in prison for her role in their escape."
The way Shoatz was able to start liberatory study groups with other prisoners even while in solitary confinement was inspiring.
This is an incredible memoir, so fast paced and shocking that I dreaded any time I had to put it down. I am also surprised how little I knew about Russell Maroon Shoatz before this, and how few reviews this book has here and on other reader platforms. Shoatz was a member of the Black Panther Party and other Black Liberation and Black Power groups. This memoir details his life from a child gang member in Philadelphia, to being moved to leave the gang life after hearing Malcolm X speak and learning more about Black liberation groups, to his arrest after being involved with the shooting of multiple police officers. Shoatz then manages to escape from three prisons, and his stories of harrowing treatment within each facility and the wild ways he managed to break out and how he survived on the run each time before his ultimate recaptures were breathtaking.
It was so interesting to hear how his life and surrounding circumstances led him to commit awful crimes and treat those around him terribly, and how he came to gain purpose and find regret for his past behavior through Black Power groups and later Islam. He details how reading and seeing films changed his views on women's rights and made him reflect on how he treated women in his life. It was disappointing that his reflections didn't extent to viewing coercion as a form of assault, as during his earlier years in his gang he describes
It was also strange that he described how Yemoja, a woman from "“a cadre of young Black revolutionary sisters who had become active in the Black Liberation Movement in Pittsburgh” visited him and eventually helped him break out of another prison. He ended up cornered in the winter forests of Pennsylvania with Yemoja and another prisoner, engaging in a long lasting gun fight against the police. After a two hour standoff, they were recaptured, and though they were well armed with Shoatz having a machine gun he says no police were shot. It was strange reading how Shoatz described Yemoja as another key woman in his life who led him away from his past misogynistic behavior, but not saying anything about her fate after that standoff. After breaking him out of prison and fighting alongside him, he only mentions that she testified in his defense despite risking "losing much from her continued support" and thanked her and her sister briefly. I had to search for a while to find an article from Plough Publishing that named her as Oshun (previously Phyllis Hill) and said she "agreed to a plea deal that would give her a reduced sentence if she agreed to keep a low profile with the media (and) served just under three years in prison for her role in their escape."
The way Shoatz was able to start liberatory study groups with other prisoners even while in solitary confinement was inspiring.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, and Murder
Moderate: Racial slurs, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? by Martin Luther King Jr.
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing to prevent us from paying adequate wages to schoolteachers, social workers and other servants of the public to insure that we have the best available personnel in these positions which are charged with the responsibility of guiding our future generations."
I realized I had never read a whole book by Martin Luther King, Jr. after seeing a Thread post by @theandrehenry discussing this one. So glad I saw that and picked this up. Andre Henry wrote, "In his final book, MLK said white America would rather throw away democracy altogether, and embrace “a native form of fascism,” to preserve their power. We are living in that prophecy today." That was a major theme of this work, and it shouldn't have surprised me how much time King spent on advocating for a universal basic income and other social security projects.
It was interesting how, after calling for guaranteed housing, health care, jobs, and income, King still tacitly supported fighting Communism.
It was very interesting to read this alongside Russell Shoatz's memoir, I Am Maroon: The True Story of an American Political Prisoner as King discusses his arguments with Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) and criticizes the Black Power movement while Shoatz details how the Panthers and Black Power leaders turned his life around and gave him and his community hope and purpose.
“We will be greatly misled if we feel that the problem will work itself out. Structures of evil do not crumble by passive waiting. If history teaches anything, it is that evil is recalcitrant and determined, and never voluntarily relinquishes its hold short of an almost fanatical resistance. Evil must be attacked by a counteracting persistence, by the day-to-day assault of the battering rams of justice. We must get rid of the false notion that there is some miraculous quality in the flow of time that inevitably heals all evils. There is only one thing certain about time, and that is that it waits for no one. If it is not used constructively, it passes you by.”
I realized I had never read a whole book by Martin Luther King, Jr. after seeing a Thread post by @theandrehenry discussing this one. So glad I saw that and picked this up. Andre Henry wrote, "In his final book, MLK said white America would rather throw away democracy altogether, and embrace “a native form of fascism,” to preserve their power. We are living in that prophecy today." That was a major theme of this work, and it shouldn't have surprised me how much time King spent on advocating for a universal basic income and other social security projects.
It was interesting how, after calling for guaranteed housing, health care, jobs, and income, King still tacitly supported fighting Communism.
It was very interesting to read this alongside Russell Shoatz's memoir, I Am Maroon: The True Story of an American Political Prisoner as King discusses his arguments with Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) and criticizes the Black Power movement while Shoatz details how the Panthers and Black Power leaders turned his life around and gave him and his community hope and purpose.
“We will be greatly misled if we feel that the problem will work itself out. Structures of evil do not crumble by passive waiting. If history teaches anything, it is that evil is recalcitrant and determined, and never voluntarily relinquishes its hold short of an almost fanatical resistance. Evil must be attacked by a counteracting persistence, by the day-to-day assault of the battering rams of justice. We must get rid of the false notion that there is some miraculous quality in the flow of time that inevitably heals all evils. There is only one thing certain about time, and that is that it waits for no one. If it is not used constructively, it passes you by.”
Sky Full Of Elephants by Cebo Campbell
4.0
At no almost point did this book go where I expected it to. Some of the choices were a little heavy handed, but it didn’t take away from the enjoyment enough to be anything but five stars. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while!
Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow. by Noor Hindi
5.0
“What does it mean to love? A country? A book? A people? To say “I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty,” while thinking about Palestine. While holding the key to your father’s first home. While While While. The news keeps screaming”
This collection tore out my heart and stomped on it and I absolutely needed that.
This collection tore out my heart and stomped on it and I absolutely needed that.
Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi
5.0
“She treated her patron saint as one of her relatives, a member of a family that had been torn apart and dispersed. He was the only person she had left, apart from Nabu, the cat, and the specter of her son, Daniel, who was bound to return one day. To others she lived alone, but she believed she lived with three beings, or three ghosts, with so much power and presence that she didn't feel lonely.”
Grim and funny. I really flew through this and now I regret not spending more time with it. Who is the real monster and the nature vs nurture debates were brought in again and again but in new and creative ways each time. I never knew what was coming next and it was exciting to see how each character reacted to every new turn.
Grim and funny. I really flew through this and now I regret not spending more time with it. Who is the real monster and the nature vs nurture debates were brought in again and again but in new and creative ways each time. I never knew what was coming next and it was exciting to see how each character reacted to every new turn.