Finna by Nate Marshall

fin-na /ˈfinə/ contraction: (1) going to; intending to. rooted in African American Vernacular English. (2) eye dialect spelling of "fixing to." (3) Black possibility; Black futurity; Blackness as tomorrow.

dispatch from the 6th circle

Crawfordsville, IN

I count the Confederate flags

around town, a surprise considering the geography.

what earnest confusion, honest mistake it takes

to fly a rebel flag in the North. this makes the most

sense: us turning against us, the cannibal instinct, the

vote against self. self-hate is something i've known.

hear the way my voice lilts too many 

ways, my vocabularies wrestle themselves, scrap

amongst the street in between my teeth. watch my mouth slang

& stutter into eloquence. watch my mouth whistle

this simple Dixie.

~p. 86

If you hang around my blog much, you might remember that I accidentally bought the wrong book entitled Finna. I mean . . . you wouldn't think there'd be two by that name, would you? Here's a link to the other Finna, by Nino Cipri.

Finna by Nate Marshall is the book I intended to buy, a book of poetry from which I read an excerpt online somewhere (Instagram, maybe?) that I absolutely loved. Although I didn't buy it specifically because of the fact that the author is Black, that's a definite side benefit because I am trying to buy more books by people of color to amplify their voices. 

You can see the author is both serious about racism and playful. I enjoyed his ability to stab the heart with irony.

Highly recommended - An outstanding poetry collection. Sharp, insightful, descriptive of both pain and anger but with humor. I love this collection of poetry about blackness and claiming one's name, place, and people. I gave it 5 stars and am so glad I bought a copy so I can return to it. 

©2020 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD

Expressing [...] deep frustration in response to [George] Zimmerman's acquittal, Alicia Garza, a community organizer based in Oakland, California, posted this message on Facebook: "I continue to be surprised at how little black lives matter . . . Black people, I love you. I love us. Our lives matter." Garza's friend, Patrisse Cullors, a Los Angeles-based activist, shared the Facebook post and added the hashtag, powerful in its simplicity, #BlackLivesMatter. Opal Tometi, a social-justice activist living in New York City, reached out to Garza and offered to help build a digital platform that could mobilize action for meaningful change. [...] The #BlackLivesMatter message resonated with many across the social media platforms of Facebook and Twitter, and with that amplification a rallying cry for the millennial generation was born. 

~p. 27

I chose this quote because I watched a video, a few days ago, in which a White man held a sign saying "Black Lives Matter" and people yelled abuse at him, calling him a traitor to his race, flipping him off, asking him, "What about White lives?" Maybe those people will never get it but it's always been clear to me what the protesters in the BLM movement are saying has never meant Black Lives Matter More Than Others. If they did, I'm sure that's what the hashtag would say. No, it's always been about the fact that Blacks are treated with less value and dignity, killed by police and incarcerated at a higher rate, discriminated against quietly through societal structure. Black people in this movement —a peaceful movement started by women— have done their best to explain, although it shouldn't be necessary. But, the anger amongst certain groups who choose to take offense persists. And, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? makes it crystal clear why such a movement is necessary, why it's particularly necessary for young people of any color to find their people, at least for a time.

The author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? is a psychologist who was charged with teaching about racism at university level, way back in the 80s or 90s (I didn't mark the date mentioned), who has been researching, talking about, and living racism as a light-skinned Black woman, for decades. She knows her stuff. The book I read is the updated 2017 version; the original was published in 1997. And, it is not exclusively about Blacks. It's about the psychology of why Black kids cluster together (the short answer: because they need to, at least for a time, to understand who they are) but the book is also about dominant groups and how those who are dominant convince the people they consider beneath them that they are, in fact, lesser. That includes women and other minorities.

The relationship of the dominants to the subordinates is often one in which the targeted group is labeled as defective or substandard in significant ways. For example, Blacks have historically been characterized as less intelligent than Whites, and women have been viewed as less emotionally stable than men. The dominant group assigns roles to the subordinates that reflect the latter's devalued status, reserving the most highly valued roles in the society for themselves. Subordinates are usually said to be innately incapable of being able to perform the preferred roles. To the extent that the targeted group internalizes the images that the dominant group reflects back to them, they may find it difficult to believe in their own ability. 

~p. 104

The comment about the targeted group internalizing images reflected back by the dominant group explains the women who claimed Hillary Clinton should not be president because women are weak.  If you've never seen the video in which a woman said Hillary shouldn't be president because she might have a hormone swing and start a war to Jordan Klepper, and then he asks, "But, haven't all wars been started by men?" you should. It's both hilarious and a good object lesson.

I'm getting off-track. There is so much depth to this book that I feel like I can't adequately describe it but it's a 5-star read that talks not only about the importance of developing identity for Blacks but about the concept of redlining that's kept blacks in less affluent neighborhoods, Affirmative Action (how it started and what it does and not do; the false concept of "ratios" as a legal imperative, for example), the ideology of "color blindness", White identity, multi-racial identity, and also that of Latinx, Native, Asian and Pacific Islanders, Middle Eastern/North African . . . everyone has some need to band together with other people who bear some similarity to them as their identities are developing. Tatum also goes into the importance of making sure children of other races and ethnic backgrounds adopted by White parents are exposed to people like them and how damaging it can be to not do so.

Highly recommended - I wish every adult would read this. An incredibly detailed and easily digestible book about race that goes far, far beyond what you expect from the title of the book but also explains the reasoning for banding together as one is developing his or her identity in a way that has completely clarified it, at least for this reader. In my case, I felt like I learned a lot about myself, as well. For example, while my friends were not entirely homogeneous, I mostly hung out with Christians because my identity was so thoroughly wrapped up in church, as a child. And, it was the Native Americans clustered together on the steps at lunchtime that I always wondered about, not Blacks. There were not many Blacks or other minorities in my hometown, in fact. It was White Bread City, probably 98% White. I'm fortunate that I grew up with a father who made it clear to us that racism was wrong. Most of my friends from home didn't learn that lesson.


Link to review of another book I recommend highly:

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrice Kahn-Cullors and Asha Bandele


©2020 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok

Sylvie and Amy Lee's grandmother is dying. Amy doesn't really know her but Sylvie spent the first 9 years of her life in the Netherlands, living with her aunt and uncle, her cousin, and her grandmother. Their parents live in the United States and Amy is still living at home, taking a break from school, when Sylvie takes off for the Netherlands to say her final goodbye.

Sylvie is the smart one, the pretty one, the successful daughter with a husband who comes from a wealthy background. Amy has dated around but lacks her sister's confidence and success. Sylvie has helped support her family. But, now she's disappeared in the Netherlands.

Mrs. Lee, known as "Ma" in the book, does not appear to be particularly happy. During her early years as a mother, she and her husband were struggling. So they sent Sylvie to live in the Netherlands and then brought her to the U.S. when her little sister was 2 years old. Ma still doesn't speak English well and keeps to herself.

When Sylvie disappears, Amy flies to the Netherlands to look for her. There, she discovers the strange relationships between Sylvie and their aunt and uncle are not at all what she expected and that their grandmother's treasure, a bag of jewelry she's kept for decades, has gone missing. During the weekend of their grandmother's death, Sylvie went on a quick trip to Venice. What happened in Venice? Could the people who traveled with her have anything to do with her disappearance? Did Sylvie take the gold? If she did, did someone kill her for it? What happened between Sylvie and her husband? Why was Sylvie taking music lessons in the Netherlands and what's the deal with the man who taught Sylvie and insinuated himself into Amy's life?

Through the voices of Sylvie, Amy, and Ma, we get to know the stories of 3 Chinese-American women, their experiences as immigrants in two different nations, the secrets they've kept, and how racism and family dynamics effected their lives, against the backdrop of a mystery.

Highly recommended - So many questions to keep the pages turning. I found Searching for Sylvie Lee utterly gripping. The only problem I had with it is the fact that what became of Sylvie is given away (but not in its entirety) about 2/3, or maybe 3/4, of the way into the book via a newspaper article. I'm not sure why the author chose to insert the news articles (there were 2 or 3) but that particular one was a little deflating and I took a point off for that. Still, there were plenty of mysteries remaining and by the end of the book, Amy and Ma's stories had become dominant as Amy's time away from home helped her build confidence and a surprising revelation explained much about why Ma behaved as she did. All of which is to say, Searching for Sylvie Lee was a very intriguing read.

I received an ARC of Searching for Sylvie Lee from HarperCollins in return for an unbiased review. Many thanks!


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Friday Black: Stories by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is a collection of short stories and, as such, half of the people I know will probably skip right over this review. I'm here to tell you that you need to stop that. Short stories can feel incomplete, true, and less satisfying than novels. But, that's not always the case and you're missing out on a potentially amazing form of writing if you reject them out of hand.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's stories are astonishing. They can be equally quirky and deep at the same time. In one story, for example, the author tackles the rampant, even vicious, consumerism of Black Friday. "Friday Black" is the name of the story, the one from which the book gets its name. In "Friday Black" an employee climbs to a safe spot from which he pulls down jackets with a pole. He's up high to avoid being trampled. The customers have developed their own language and he speaks it, so he understands what they want and is able to quickly retrieve their requested items, making him a top salesperson. During the lulls in business, employees pick up the dead bodies of those who have been crushed by the crowd and move them to a part of the store set aside especially for the dead. It's a strange story and yet you see the truth in it.

The trouble with reviewing a book of short stories is that I almost never think to write down my thoughts about the stories as I'm reading them and when I get to the end of the book, I'll think, "That was great/awful/[insert other generic thought]" but I won't recall the stories themselves because they tend to be so diverse. The stories in Friday Black are unusually memorable, but I think it's interesting what I wrote about the first three -- not a paragraph, but a word or two (or five) about each. I'll write the words I wrote down in my notebook in bold.

"The Finkelstein 5" - Emmanuel has nightmares about the five children who were murdered in front of the library and the growing backlash in which his friends are being swept up. As he prepares for a job interview, Emmanuel worries about how to present himself. At the same time, an acquaintance shows up on the bus nicely dressed, as if headed for work. But, he's one of the people involved in the violent retribution for the deaths of the Finkelstein 5. 

There are two things that are particularly fascinating about this story. Emmanuel has a mental scale that he uses to adjust his blackness. He knows, for example, that if he wears a hoodie and allows his pants to sag, his blackness level goes up and so does suspicion. He's more likely to be followed by security or employees at the mall, police in the streets, the blacker he appears.

At the same time as Adjei-Brenyah gives you this blackness scale to ponder, he has created a scenario in which a white man claimed to be so frightened of black children that he went to his vehicle to fetch a chain saw and chopped all their heads off. As I recall, he claimed to fear for his own children's lives. In this aspect of the story, you can't help but see the insanity of George Zimmerman's claim because, while the method of killing is different, the reason for fear is not all that far removed. A kid with a bag of Skittles vs. a guy with a gun? Same thing. By the time he gets to the end of the story, you have an understanding of why Emmanuel makes the choice he does. But, it's still shattering.

"Things My Mother Said" - A mother shows her strength, dignity, and good parenting by managing to put a warm meal on the table after the gas, water, and electricity have been turned off. At only two pages, I described this deeply meaningful story as a gut punch and a revelation.

"The Era" - A futuristic tale of a world in which a happy drug is doled out as needed unless you overdo it, I described this one as a phenomenon because of its uniqueness.

Strong reactions, strong stories.

Highly recommended - A spectacular set of short stories with particular focus on racism, poverty, and consumer greed that will knock the breath right out of you. The stories in Friday Black reminded me a bit of William Saunders' writing and coincidentally (or not?), Saunders blurbed the book and is mentioned in the acknowledgments. So, maybe Adjei-Brenyah was his student? There's definitely a similar quirkiness and level of impact and meaning to the writing. I can't wait to read more by this fabulous writer.

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Minis: Al Franken, Giant of the Senate by Franken and The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

I've decided I'm going to do several sets of mini reviews to get myself caught up (again) since a good portion of the books I have left to review are from my personal stacks. Any books from publishers will get separate, full reviews.

I ordered Al Franken, Giant of the Senate because I figured it would be a funny book about life in the Senate and I've liked Al for as long as I can remember. Boy, was I surprised. Al Franken, Giant of the Senate is more than I could have imagined. It's funny, yes, but it's also educational. Rather than just describing his senate years, Franken goes back to his early life and explains how and why he became a liberal, a satirist (he prefers "satirist" over "comedian"), a Harvard grad, and a senator, his difficult entry into politics, and the challenges he faced specifically because of his background in show business.

The only things I really knew about Franken as a senator (as opposed to Franken the satirist) before reading Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, were the facts that he's a Democrat and that he asked by far the best questions of any senator when he vetted people for cabinet seats in the current administration. I'd paid little attention to him, otherwise, but I was definitely impressed at the precision of what he asked and the clear knowledge and/or research behind his questions. And, it turns out there's good reason for his amazing questioning skills: Al Franken did his research.

By the time I read Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, Franken had already been forced out of the Senate by female senators who ganged up on him without granting him the investigation he was willing to go through and deserved. So, it was particularly interesting to read about the ways he had to defend himself in the past, the challenge of trying to get the Democratic party to endorse him, the vetting he submitted to in order to make sure that nothing like what ended his career in the Senate would happen, and the sacrifices of Franken and his family to do a job that he felt driven to do because of his passion to help others. I never believed he got a fair shake, in the end, and I'm doubly convinced after reading his story; but, I do believe I understand why he gave up so easily. Al Franken was one of those rare politicians who was in it for his constituents, not to make himself piles of money. An excellent book, highly recommended. I'd like to go back and read some of his older books, when I have the time.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is a book I read with an online book group. Seemingly everyone else on the planet has read and reviewed the book, so I feel like I'm a little late to the ballgame and I liked it perhaps a bit less than most, but it's a powerful story that I'm very glad I read.

16-year-old Starr lives in an impoverished neighborhood but attends a school in an upscale part of town, so she's learned to shift between the two worlds. On her home turf, she speaks the dialect of those around her; in school, she softens her language to match that of her fellow students. Putting on a different front at school takes effort, but it becomes even harder to hide her true feelings and self after an old friend is killed by a police officer when the officer mistakes the handle of a hairbrush for a gun. Starr is in the car when he's shot and sees him die.

Shocked by her experience, Starr does everything she can to see justice served but is stunned to find that nobody takes her seriously. Is there anything Starr can do to change the outcome and prevent more of the same, or will Starr's childhood friend always be known as just another drug-dealing black guy who made the wrong move, even though he did nothing wrong?

I thought The Hate U Give was excellent, powerful, important, and necessary. I only had one real problem with it and that was the vernacular. I did try to look up some of the words and expressions that I didn't know but was unable to find all of them. In general, I tend to really dislike books that are written in dialect. But, it was crucial to Starr's character to show the two sides of her. So, I looked up what I could and guessed at other words. Fortunately, I was eventually able to ask around and find out the meaning of the words I was unable to locate definitions for online. But, not knowing while I read frustrated me and that's why I gave the book 4 stars. Still . . . an emotional read that is truly of the moment. The Hate U Give shines a light on a uniquely American problem.

I read The Hate U Give electronically, so it won't appear on my stack of February reads when I get around to posting my Month in Review (running late on that, clearly). It was a good one to read for discussion because of both the difficulty I had with the lingo and the fact that the people in my discussion group had a lot of unique insight to contribute. I really appreciated reading other viewpoints. Recommended.


©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.