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The Burden : : African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery

Book - 2018 305.896 Ri, Black Studies 305.896 Ri, Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Race & Ethnicity / Riley, Rochelle 3 On Shelf No requests on this item Community Rating: 5 out of 5

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Call Number: 305.896 Ri, Black Studies 305.896 Ri, Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Race & Ethnicity / Riley, Rochelle
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Pittsfield Branch

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Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Race & Ethnicity / Riley, Rochelle 4-week checkout Due 03-17-2024

This book is a plea to America to understand what life post-slavery remains like for many African Americans, who are descended from people whose unpaid labor built this land, but have had to spend the last century and a half carrying the dual burden of fighting racial injustice and rising above the lowered expectations and hateful bigotry that attempt to keep them shackled to that past.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Summary / Annotation
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Outstanding... highly recommended submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on August 7, 2018, 6:21pm If you are White, and you have any inclination… even the smallest inkling… to want to understand what life in the United States is like for people whose skin is not the same as yours, this is the book for you. If you have one friend who is a person of color, and you discuss race, but you know that your one friend cannot and does not speak for their whole race, and you would like a broader perspective, this is the book for you. If you do not understand why “Black Lives Matter” or why there is a Black History Month, then this is the book for you. If you have read Howard Zinn and Ta-Nehisi Coates and know that most history is whitewashed but that you’re aware of that, this is still the book for you.

_The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery_ is a physically small volume, only 178 pages. It is edited by Rochelle Riley, an investigative reporter who authored one of the essays in the volume. She invited a wide variety of people of color to reflect on what burden they still carry because of the color of their skin and the history of their race. What follows is both accessible and painful. There were essays that I could read and move on, and ones that brought me to tears, and I had to put the book down. There are few avenues of life that are not brought into the light, from being a child to raising one, from memory to reflection, from deep history to projections about the future. Writers discuss the violence of slavery, the violence of mass incarceration, and the violence of being torn from the roots of family history and connection. We read about the struggle to claim financial independence, bodily independence, and freedom of thought. There are sufficient voices to make clear the message that no one writer can claim “I have the answer,” yet the collective can assert “There is a statement here.”

This is a statement that I needed to read; that I recommend to everyone who has even the slightest inclination to open themselves to hear.

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PUBLISHED
Detriot : Wayne State University Press, [2018]
Year Published: 2018
Description: xiv, 178 pages : illustration ; 22 cm
Language: English
Format: Book

ISBN/STANDARD NUMBER
9780814345146
081434514X

ADDITIONAL CREDITS
Riley, Rochelle,

SUBJECTS
African Americans -- Social conditions.
Slavery -- United States -- History.