On Juneteenth we reflect on the gap between legal freedom afforded by the Emancipation Proclamation and actual emancipation. In the period spanning from the surrender of the Confederacy on April 9, 1865, to June 19, 1865, while Union troops spread the news of freedom, many slave owners, despite knowing the Confederacy had surrendered, kept this crucial information from those they enslaved.
Worth noting is that the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to Confederate states. Lincoln did not free slaves in Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, Kentucky, and West Virginia - Union states where he actually had the authority to do so. While Maryland, West Virginia, and Missouri ended slavery in early 1865, Delaware and Kentucky did not abolish slavery until well after Juneteenth.
Books About Racial Identity / Race Relations
The following novels examine racial identity and race relations in a variety of ways, styles, and genres. Book lovers (like me) in search of fiction that not only entertains, but also examines the human condition, will find what they’re looking for. Particularly those who are interested in how black and white people often struggle to understand, accept, and get along with each other. Getting in the way are superficial prejudices along with issues central to who we are, why we differ, and how we nonetheless are tied together by our commonalities. The gap dividing the realities of our lives as fellow Americans and the more perfect union we're still headed toward remains in place.
Black Buck by Mateo
Askaripour – Darren graduated valedictorian
from his high school, yet rather than moving on to higher education, he works
at a Starbucks. He and his mother live in a spacious home, he is the manager at
his job, regularly hangs out with his best friend, and he has a beautiful,
supportive, girlfriend. So, he is content.
On a whim he talks a customer into trying a different drink than usual. From this interaction the man offers Darren a career opportunity. Darren and two other recruits go through what seems more like a fraternity hazing period than job training, and Darren (who is the only African American) is given the hardest time. He receives the nickname of Buck due to his previous place of employment, but its racial overtones are obvious. For every advantage that results, such as making good money from his sales abilities, there is a downside, such as alienating people he used to be close with. The plot veers from plausible to over-the-top as he eventually ends up running a worldwide top-secret organization that cranks out black salesperson success stories. Whether earnest or satirical in intent - Black Buck is a unique, easy read.
Caucasia by Danzy
Senna - For biracial people a layer of
complexity is added to the racial identity equation. If one’s skin color is
light enough to pass as white, such as is the case with Birdie (but not her
sister Cole who fits in with other kids at the Afrocentric school they attend),
passing can create an easier life. Is a half-truth equal to a lie?
Readers who love action-filled plots will find this book set in the 1970’s to their liking, as will those looking for introspection on social issues. When Birdie and Cole’s parents split up, their black father takes Cole away from Boston to see if racial equality can be found elsewhere. Birdie is left behind with their white mother, but they end up on the run, living under false identities. Birdie longs for a reunion with her sister and is wary of betraying her mother. Understanding yourself from a cultural viewpoint can get complicated when you belong to two sides but society insists on choosing one.
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow – A
girl is haunted by events that are only vaguely
remembered but form the fabric of each passing day. A father who has vanished
without a trace. A mother who left this world in the splashiest of ways, taking
her own life along with those of her other children by leaping from the roof of
a building. There is a witness and a survivor. This book is the latter's
story.
Go Set a Watchman by
Harper Lee –This book features characters
from To Kill a Mockingbird years later. Jean Louise (aka Scout) is now a grown
woman contemplating marriage to Henry who remained in their hometown of
Maycomb, Alabama and followed the footsteps of her father Atticus into the law
profession. If Scout wishes to return home and marry a father figure, she's all
set. She now lives in New York City, a far cry from the small southern town she
was raised in.
Much has changed from the period in which the events of Mockingbird take place to the 1950's setting of Go Set a Watchman. Closet bigots who once had enough good manners not to let it show in polite society now feel free to express hostility openly. Count Henry and even Atticus among those more willing to hear out the KKK than the emerging NAACP. Changing times to them means putting up a more aggressive fight against progress. Amazingly Scout has been clueless about her father's true social/political views until he is about 70 years old. Once in the know, she feels betrayed and must figure out how to come to terms with it. Perhaps the Atticus Finch we know and love from the classic is simply too good to be true. Maybe the Watchman version is the more realistic depiction of a flesh and blood man, rather than an idealized one, because his hypocrisy is made plain.
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler – A wonderful blend of science fiction with literary fiction.
The main character (Dana, a black woman recently wed to a white man in 1976)
must keep an ancestor (who is white) from dying on several separate occasions
to sustain the family lineage. She doesn't need to keep Rufus (who she first
meets as a boy) alive to old age, just long enough for him impregnate the woman
who will give birth to the most distant relative Dana is aware of.
To protect Rufus she is repeatedly transported to the era of slavery. He summons her subconsciously and perhaps consciously as he grows older whenever he is in grave danger. Dana can return to 1976 only when her own life is in immediate peril. The vehicle of haphazard time travel is used to show that what happened in the past impacts our present and shapes our future.
Little Bee by Chris
Cleave - Dual narration alternates
between two women. Sarah is a white magazine editor from England. Little Bee is
a black undocumented refugee who gets out of a detention center after escaping
from a violent landscape and must now stay under the radar.
The two women are as different from each other as the places they are from. Sarah is older, a mother, a wife when she first meets Little Bee along with being another man's mistress. Little Bee is a teenager from a small Nigerian village which is rich in oil, but the wealth generated by black gold does not make it to someone in her position. What reaches her is violence, the barbaric cruelty of men. Learning to speak like those from a safer place is not sufficient to stop them from ejecting Little Bee. Being born into privilege like Sarah does not mean tragedy cannot come calling. Despite superficial differences, common humanity allows them to connect with one another.
The Man by Irving
Wallace - This is a fictional account of
the first black president. Senator Douglas Dilman isn’t elected to the
position, but rather, the president, vice president and others ahead of him in
line are killed. The time is 1964 and Dilman is overwhelmed by an avalanche of
responsibilities and pressure, plus being burdened by a lack of confidence in
him from those in his cabinet.
On the job training is especially challenging when it's the most difficult job in the world, particularly when many are resentful of your ascendancy, condescending about your ability to be up to the task, or both. There is no shortage of crisis for Dilman to deal with on the national and international stage. Once navigated, there's the matter of deciding whether to run for re-election. Barack Obama later became our first non-fiction POTUS. His election makes it seem that we have come a very long way from 1964 but looks can be deceiving. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, sometimes fiction is far beyond the logistics of reality, and then there are occasions when fiction accurately predicts a reality we haven’t gotten to yet.
Pym by Mat Johnson - An African American Literature professor’s primary focus is
on examining Edgar Allan Poe’s only full-length novel. Poe’s race makes his
writing inappropriate for the syllabus, which costs the professor his job. The
name of the book is The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Chris
believes it holds the key to understanding White-Black race relations. After
being fired, he and various members of his inner circle head off on a quest.
Their destination is Antarctica. On this frozen terrain they discover a lost
race of creatures representing Whiteness that Poe wrote about in his novel.
When the world as we know it seemingly comes to an end, the motley crew members are perhaps now the lone civilized survivors of Armageddon. And they have become slaves of the primitive creatures in Antarctica. If they can escape, the opposite of the place they are being held captive, a tropical island representing Blackness that Poe also wrote about, possibly awaits.
The Sellout by Paul Beatty –Nearly
every sentence of this book is a rambling, rapid fire joke with multiple punch
lines delivered. Authored by a spoken word poet, it seems written to be
listened to rather than read silently to yourself. The plot involves a black
man who was home schooled by his social scientist father, with every lesson
being about racial identity. After his father is murdered by cops, the son
inherits the family farm along with acquiring settlement money. He lives in a California
town that has literally been erased from the map. In addition to providing
neighbors with incredible fruit, stellar weed, and crisis counseling in times
of mental emergencies, he is on a mission to reclaim recognition that the town exists.
He is friends with the last living cast member of the Little Rascals, a man named Hominy who voluntarily insists on being the narrator's slave. I don't have an explanation for motive beyond noting that this book is wildly satirical with every line meant to be taken with a large grain of salt added to the social commentary. Besides being a slave owner, he attempts to bring racial segregation back to their town one location at a time, starting with a city bus driven by his crush. Readers are hit with every cultural reference under the sun along the topsy turvy way.
When No One is
Watching by Alyssa Cole – This story of
gentrification is made even more sinister than it is off the page. The setting
is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY rapidly undergoing changes. The Gifford Place
community has been predominantly African American for generations, but lately a
lot of the black folks have been moving away, and in their place has been the
arrival of affluent white people. A black woman named Sydney Green encounters a
white man named Theo and his soon to be ex-girlfriend on a walking tour of the
neighborhood. Sydney disapproves of what the tour is highlighting and what it
is leaving out, the latter being contributions by the majority black
population. She decides to create a tour of her own to counter it, and
unemployed Theo volunteers to be her assistant.
Sydney does not hold back from expressing displeasure with gentrifying white people. Theo shrugs this off though and is not without charm. Since Sydney is conveniently single just as Theo is in the process of becoming, a potential love connection is in the making. The book is written in alternating first person point of view perspective - each chapter from Sydney's viewpoint followed by one from Theo's. Peculiar circumstances pile up and suspicions rise from mild to full blown conspiracy territory. Why are so many of their neighbors here one day - gone the next? When did the neighborhood bodega change hands and become a far more upscale store? Why isn't Syndey's best friend answering her texts? What does the company that's building a hospital in the neighborhood have to do with the various ominous things that are taking place? We find out in the closing pages as the book races towards a thriller genre conclusion.
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