Whitney Houston's I'm Your Baby Tonight (33 1/3) by Brandon Tensley

 Whitney Houston's I'm Your Baby Tonight  

(33 1/3) by Brandon Tensley

I'm Your Baby Tonight cover

Author Brandon Tensley

I was a little hesitant to read this book since I’m not a huge Whitney Houston fan, and I really was not that familiar with her 1990 album I’m Your Baby Tonight. Weirdly enough, I felt like I grew up with Whitney’s earlier music in some ways, as one of the few cassettes my mom had in her car was Houston’s 1985 debut album Whitney Houston, featuring “The Greatest Love of All,” one of the few secular songs we sang in Catholic school. Although my mom didn’t have Whitney, I distinctly remember seeing the videos for songs like “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” and hearing “So Emotional” on the radio when my emerging musical tastes were diverging from my parents’ influence. I can’t also forget her rousing rendition of the National Anthem for Super Bowl XXV as the nation tuned in to watch the Bills lose on a last second missed field goal as it was grappling with its involvement in Desert Storm. I’ve never been overtly patriotic, but Whitney Houston definitely brought people together, conservatives and liberals, white and Black, young and old, and used her voice to evoke positive feelings about our country, and as author Brandon Tensley notes, she also was able to radically reclaim this ode to freedom, making “ ‘free’ the emotional centerpiece of the song.” Reading Tensley’s entry into the 33 1/3 collection made me appreciate Houston’s overlooked and sometimes maligned career and life, as he not only serves as a champion for Whitney’s career and often overlooked album, but he also ends up championing the harsh realities that female artists, especially Black female artists, face in maintaining pop supremacy while also being artistically authentic. I didn’t expect to be so challenged and have to interrogate so many assumptions about pop music, but Tensley’s research and analysis provides a clear entryway to further analyze one of the most successful and misunderstood female artists of the 1980s and 90s.

Rather than taking a traditional approach to examining Houston’s 1990 album I’m Your Baby Tonight by discussing its creation and production, Tensley frames this album in the greater context of Houston’s other albums and pop domination. However, as Tensley explores Houston’s success with mainstream (and white) America, he notes that she faced backlash and frequent accusations of selling out or not being Black enough as an artist. Tensley sees I’m Your Baby Tonight as both a statement to Houston’s Black critics, bringing in more of a new jack swing style, which was popular in the late 80s and early 90s, from producers LA Reid and Babyface, and also asserting more of her sexuality with songs that thematically discussed sex and one night stands more than the love songs on her previous two albums explored. It’s interesting to consider, especially when I think about many of the female R n B artists that followed Houston’s lead from TLC and SWV to later acts like Monica and Brandy in the later 90s. Houston, along with Janet Jackson, challenged the ideas of Black female sexuality and love in popular music, and while Houston didn’t necessarily have the dance moves of Janet Jackson, Tensley argues that Houston’s background in Gospel music and her relationship with Robyn Crawford enabled Houston to craft a more complex and nuanced idea of love and sexuality in R n B and pop music than was previously presented. Tensley analyzes each of the songs, and while he does present information about the song’s production and recording, he also takes the time to analyze the sound, its evolution from Houston’s other work, and the lyrical content, exploring how the song’s offered more nuanced meanings and interpretations than her previous love songs that often followed a forlorn more abstract approach to love as a feeling. It’s interesting to consider, especially as Tensley reminds readers that many of these songs came out at the height of the AIDS crisis, which Houston was impacted by.

Beyond the musical content of Houston’s third album, Tensley also explores her later work, as well as Houston’s championing and support for other female artists, including Brandy and Miss Lauryn Hill, another New Jersey artist whose own struggles with the music industry and its expectations for control of her artistry and image, have led to labels and perceptions about her personality, similar to Whitney Houston’s. Tensley also takes some of the last chapter to reference Britney Spears, who serves as another cautionary tale for how the control of these female artists’ image and the public’s desire for spectacle and their suffering can have tragic consequences, as it did with Houston’s own death at age 48. Again, I was not expecting to think this much about how the music and entertainment industries will put these female artists through the wringer to extract what will be most entertaining and profitable, but Tensley provided many different examples and reminded readers of the ways in which Whitney Houston sought to reclaim her own identity rather than be controlled by record labels. For Tensley, this started with the album I’m Your Baby Tonight and proceeded to future decisions from marrying Bobby Brown to her later work on recording breaking Waiting to Exhale and The Bodyguard soundtracks and starring in The Bodyguard and The Preacher’s Wife. This is a fascinating look at one of the most important and beautiful voices in music from the 80s and 90s. A few years ago, I heard an acapella version of “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” and I was amazed at how beautiful and joyous Houston’s voice was. It gave me chills, but it also brought about a sense of sadness since I realized she was no longer going to sing new songs. Although I’m not as much of a Whitney fan as Tensley, like a lot of 80s and 90s kids, I can say that her music was definitely a part of my early musical awareness. Even in high school, songs like “I Will Always Love You” were always on at dances. Even now, if I hear her voice, I get so emotional (pun intended). She possessed an extraordinary voice, and while artists like Brandy, Miss Lauryn Hill, and even Beyonce have forged their own place in popular music, they might not have made it this far without Houston’s trailblazing work.

I love the 33 1/3 books because they highlight the importance of an album, even if that album might not always be the most well-known or best achievement by an artist. While some writers highlight the creation of the album, others provide historical, background, or contextual information about the album’s significance. Some of my favorite 33 1/3 entries provide personal connections, with authors exploring how the album connected with or serves as an important marker in their own lives. I was so glad that author Brandon Tensley adds in his own personal experiences and connections with this album, not only making the argument for why it’s Whitney Houston’s best and most personal album but also making the case for why I’m Your Baby Tonight is his favorite album. His own personal connections, memories, and discussions with friends highlight how important Whitney Houston’s artistry is and why she remains a complicated but important artist who needs to be celebrated. Many thanks to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of this wonderful addition to the 33 1/3 series. Highly recommended! 

Excavating the Past to Analyze the Present: The Savage Mind: an American Legacy by David Treuer

 The Savage Mind: An American Legacy 

by David Treuer

The Savage Mind book cover

Author and anthropologist David Treuer

Pete Hegseth, the embattled Secretary of Defense, recently announced a new spectacle for Americans. While his stewardship of the largest department in the government has been marked by firings, sharing classified information, leaks, and presentations that border on bizarre. Yet he made the announcement that convicted killer Nidal Malik Hasan, whose brutal murders of 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009 rocked the country, would be executed by firing squad. Hasan’s execution by firing squad will mark the first carried out by the military since 1945, but what is even more shocking is that Hegseth said he plans to broadcast the execution, making the death available to watch live for Americans. Hegseth, who purports to be a Christian and regularly invokes Jesus’s name in his speeches, has claimed that broadcasting the execution will act as a deterrent, despite no evidence that public executions or other forms of punishment deter people from committing crimes. As one of the most brutal attacks committed on an American military base, Hasan’s violence surely stands out, and its also possible that Hegseth’s purported religious beliefs call for the kind of old testament idea of an eye-for-an-eye type justice, not necessarily the same turn-the-other-cheek philosophy that Jesus and early Christians espoused. Rather, it’s a brutal and barbaric reminder of what David Treuer deems The Savage Mind, a mindset that “is American violence” that often used violence as a policy to remind others of America’s uniqueness, its power, and its strength. I couldn’t help but think about Treuer’s book when Hegseth made this awful announcement since the call to broadcast a live death follows on the heals of countless social media videos showing militarized henchmen chasing suspected immigrants, breaking windows, slamming people to the ground for an obvious reminder of America’s power. It follows on the taxpayer funded spectacle of the UFC fights at the White House, where opponents not only fought one another, but also dehumanized one of its former residents. David Treuer’s reflective and timely new book The Savage Mind: An American Legacy comes at an important time, when it seems like “the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…The ceremony of innocence is drowned;” In fact, Treuer quotes Yeats’ poem to remind us that this kind of violence and upheaval is part of a cycle, and in the words of Gil Scott Heron, it “ain’t no new thing.” Nevertheless, Treuer’s The Savage Mind is one of those books that I’m going to start recommending to all my friends and family. It’s an important and urgent book, and much like his earlier book The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present invites readers to reconsider their conceptions of stereotypes and ideas from the past that persist in the present. However, unlike the hopeful and sanguine tone of The Heartbeat, where Treuer identified stories of resilience and survival across Indian reservations and tribal communities in America, The Savage Mind examines the frontier and the history of American violence that has contributed to making American what it is. As I was reading The Savage Mind, I couldn’t help but also think about Eddie Glaude Jr’s recent America, U.S.A. and how his tone towards the ideas have shifted from his earlier book Begin Again, which took a hopeful tone in reexamining racism and false myths. While violence, racism, intolerance, and political divisiveness continue to be at the forefront of the news, Treuer’s book reminds readers that this is part of the frontier mentality that has helped to push not only the physical boundaries of America’s geography but also extended the boundaries of what is acceptable to attain these advantages and privileges. Both books call for readers to reexamine the past, but to also consider how past myths, stereotypes, and belief systems have encouraged the present divisions and inequalities that continue to persist. The Savage Mind, like America, U.S.A., is also an important book to read to not only consider what is happening today, but how we can make changes that promote more healing and acceptance, to lessen our divisions and work towards promoting more equality.

While it’s not always an easy book to read, I love how Treuer frames the book as a kind of letter or dialogue with his children, interrogating his own complicated feelings as the son of an Ojibwe mother and a Jewish immigrant father and what America’s history of violence, slavery, stolen land, and bad faith treaties, among other disparate practices means to him. Like Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me, Treuer presents the history and his own ideas like a dialogue with his children, framing his experiences, family, and concerns not only as hopes and fears for his children, but also a part of the multitudes of American life.

I loved the way this book was written, with careful consideration for each line. I also learned that Treuer studied with Toni Morrison (he calls her Professor Morrison) while he was an undergrad at Princeton, and I can see that influence in each line, carefully wrought word choices with repetition, inversions, and the kind of mirrored syntax that creates a reflective and critical mood in readers. He also referenced one of Morrison’s greatest quotes that I was not aware of: “If you can only feel tall if someone else is on their knees, then you’ve got a serious problem.” This line resonated with me, especially in how so much of the current administration’s approach to governing requires that kind of submission.  I found myself going back over lines to think more about the history, events, and ideas that Treuer was excavating and analyzing. Although he’s trained as an anthropologist, as he recounted on his first day of class with Professor Morrison, she informed him that he wrote better than most anthropologists, which was good. Although Treuer examines history and current events throughout the book, the personal parts recounting his memories of working with Professor Morrison or learning how to fence while at Princeton were some of my favorite parts of the book. He even makes a reference to his kids as his “best thing,” which I found both heartwarming and brilliant in later learning about Morrison’s influence on his writing. Treuer connects these experiences, feeling like an outsider, possibly experiencing a kind of imposter syndrome, with his own desire to challenge the stereotypes of Indians. There’s also a great story about meeting Clifford Geertz, arguably the most significant figure in 20^th century anthropology, and not allowing Geertz to get a word in, challenging him about fencing. As these stories entertain, Treuer eventually brings readers back to the violence, and how its not just embedded in American culture or the frontier mindset, but possibly even a part of human nature. From examining Geertz’s analysis of deep play in Balinese cock fighting, where the roosters are extensions of the man, to Freud’s cynical later work Civilization and Its Discontents, Treuer provides evidence of the influence of the frontier on American and European conquests to expand land and property at any cost, even if it means denying the humanity of others.

I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect with this book, and I was amazed at how it straddles many different genres and styles- it’s part memoir, part historical analysis, part instructions to his children, and all heart, where Treuer helps readers understand the implications of The Savage Mind and the legacy of American colonialism, stolen land, broken treaties, starvation, paternalism, and the other forms of physical and symbolic violence on Indians, the enslaved, and others denied rights, opportunities, and equality. I was amazed at how deftly Treuer moves from the past to the present to personal connections, whether it was through his parents’ or grandparents, his brothers or cousins, and how these experiences all serve to represent elements of The Savage Mind and the frontier, the purportedly unknown land and space that allows for lawlessness, greed, and the rapacious development of the manifest destiny. As Treuer demonstrates throughout the book, this kind of cyclical violence is often condoned through the calls for progress and growth, and is often justified as part of the entitlement of this progress. The Savage Mind is a book that all Americans should read, and its an especially important book for students to read to confront many of the myths about American exceptionalism that often skirt the kind of systemic violence and displacement that have bloated our land. I was aware of many of the events, but Treuer’s analysis and revisiting these events throughout history, both American and world history, allows readers to reconsider the consequences of colonialism and imperialism and the calls for expansion and domination, especially from a cultural and human perspective that we often do not confront in textbooks. Whether it was learning about Columbus’s crimes against humanity or Andrew Jackson’s attempts to exterminate Indians in America (and how these laws and Jim Crow laws influenced the Nuremberg Laws in 1930s Germany), The Savage Mind offers much for readers to consider and reconsider. Although there is a lot to confront and wrestle with throughout the book, Treuer framing these historical atrocities challenging situations as a letter and dialogue with his children also brings readers into the conversation, making it feel more dialogic and inviting them to not only consider the perspectives and experiences of others, but also to empathize with them and our shared history of violence, even if we may not have experienced the violence in similar ways. Furthermore, Treuer ends the book with stories of hope and redemption, sharing how the Big Drum Ceremony originated for his Ojibwe tribe. Interestingly, it was brought to the Ojibwe by a Dakota Sioux woman who survived an attack by the US army and received a vision of the ceremony during her time hiding. Part of the vision instructed her to share the ceremony with the Ojibwe, who had fought with the Dakotas for years. Although the Dakotas shared the ceremony, it became an Ojibwe tradition where members who were touched by violence led the ceremony. Treuer explains it much better, but he spends time with two Ojibwe veterans who recount how the Big Drum Ceremony has helped them heal their trauma from war. It’s an incredible story of healing, and especially how community like the Ojibwe tribe can help to shoulder grief and sorrow so that individuals do not need to feel this heavy burden. Treuer once again weaves the past, the present, and the personal to offer insights into how we continue to feel the ramifications of the past, but this experience is much different from the incidents of violence that are continuously revisited on American people. Rather, it’s about healing, peace, community, and recognizing our shared humanity. It’s a beautiful ending to a complicated legacy of violence, stolen land, broken treaties, and mistreatment. And while Treuer doesn’t call for forgetting and moving forward, he does recognize the significance of community in helping to forge forward. The Savage Mind is an important and engaging read. Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for allowing me to preview and advanced copy of this amazing book. Highly recommended! 

Necessary Reading for Today: End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

 End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

End Times Fascism book cover

Author and journalist Naomi Klein

Author and filmmaker Astra Taylor

In their new book End Times Fascism: And the Fight fort he Living World, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor provide an important observation from Joyce Carol Oates about Elon Musk, where she questioned his lack of enjoyment or celebration on social media. Where other tech moguls like Mark Zuckerberg have proclaimed social media’s ability to bring us together, Oates observes how other social media platforms have devolved into a space for harboring grievances and complaints. It’s a fitting observation that Klein and Taylor lean into to raise questions about how these wealthy elites with seemingly more resources than some countries and many people can find so much of the world problematic that many of them seek to develop charter cities or autonomous zones of exclusivity or even isolated bunkers that will allow them to disengage and shield themselves from the rest of the world. End Times Fascism explores the hard shift in the tech industry from progressive ideas and thoughts towards fascism and dictatorships to how they have exploited millennialism and apocalyptic thinking and partnered with other fascistic political movements in America and around the world in order to demonstrate their need for exclusivity and shelter. After reading Gil Durán’s excellent new book The Nerd Reich, which also details the fascistic shift in Silicon Valley and its determination to accelerated the collapse of society to form their own autonomous enclaves and feudal systems, End Times Fascism provides a complementary if not a broader view in how 21^st century fascism and its links to technology and apocalyptic thinking are different from the 20^th century fascism that we’re often warned about and keep vigilant eyes in order to prevent its resurrection. These books are not only timely and relevant, but also necessary in helping to make meaning and understand the motivations of the individuals and groups who not only hold much of the world’s wealth but also are able to leverage that wealth to change the world, often to benefit themselves.

An important lesson Klein and Taylor explain at the beginning of their book is how this modern version of fascism differs from earlier iterations, examining its evolution as “humanity has entered an era of unprecedented, global-scale existential crises.” While in the past, we might trust our leaders in industries and governments to mount challenges to these crises, but today’s approach is much different and more self-serving. Furthermore, Klein and Taylor explore how this approach to accelerating the end and the apocalyptic thinking limits resources for others while allowing the world to burn. That is, with the end of the world fast approaching, there’s no need to help others out, but rather only to prepare for its imminent demise. This book not only highlights the apocalyptic thinking of Silicon Valley, but also their symbiosis with the conservative, right-wing political world to wrest more control and dominion over society.  

End Times Fascism is organized into 4 different sections that examine the history of fascism and millenarianism in the 20^th century and how it has led to an increasing belief in end times and the hypervigilance of these end times symbols. While it is still a little unsettling to see how many people are increasingly banking on the end of the world being near, Klein and Taylor’s book is also a reminder about how often this kind of thinking and belief system arises during manufactured crises and unprecedented events. In Chris Jennings’s End Times, he explores the Ruby Ridge standoff and tragedy, and how it arose from the millenarianism that permeated the Christian nationalism of the 70s and 80s, and how Hal Lindsey’s book The Late Great Planet Earth was among the best-selling books of the 1970s. Even though this kind of thinking isn’t novel, the apocalyptic thinking and hastening the end of the world remain a popular belief system for some groups of people. The second section details how Silicon Valley is working to hasten the end times and how AI and data centers in particular are proving to be part of the accelerant that is hastening the end for some communities. While there has rightly been considerable pushback against data centers in communities, it was shocking to read about Musk’s Colossus, a massive data center in Memphis. Named after a 1960s sci-fi movie computer, Klein and Taylor document Musk’s late-to-the game approach to AI, and how this facilitated his hasty and dangerous construction of basically a private powerplant to fuel his AI, which the authors also note has a reputation for generating racist and misogynistic content. As Duran’s book noted, many of the Silicon Valley’s companies are named after sci-fi and fantasy book characters, yet these CEOs and leaders often misread or omit the warnings and ironies in these characters, and it seems like Musk missed the irony of naming his vast AI data center after a murderous robot- man-made technology run amok and seeking to end humanity. It was shocking to learn about Musk’s secret deal with the Memphis city council that allowed him to unleash pollutants, toxic chemicals, and waste in neighborhoods that have often been the site of other economic and environmental injustices. Although there’s been more and more pushback regarding data centers recently, Klein and Taylor’s reporting helps to further emphasize the environmental and human toll that our use of AI has on communities and individuals. This book raises important awareness of these issues and frames the damage done to communities in a way that identifies its toll on individuals and families, making this an important read. It’s also one of the many travesties and atrocities that are perpetrated around the world in the name of technological progress and efficiency. While we may think our lives are improving, Klein and Taylor remind us of those voices and victims who are often stifled, maligned, or silenced by the powerful and affluent.

Although Klein and Taylor focus on the institutional, racial, economic, and political violence that has become more prominent with the rise of 21^st century fascism, their book also offers signs of hope through resistance. Although they report on Musk’s data center and the damage it has inflicted on the Boxtown neighborhood of Memphis, Klein and Taylor also highlight group and individuals like Keshaun Pearson who helped organize the Memphis Communist Against Pollution, which has collaborated with other organizations to fight the encroaching environmental pollution from these data centers. They also spend time discussing how communities and groups in Minneapolis supported neighbors and immigrants when DHS invaded its neighborhoods and murdered two citizens. For all the attempts to malign these victims and paint them as radical terrorists, Klein and Taylor highlight the kind of supportive communities and neighbors who put themselves as risk for the care and good of one another. It’s an important reminder of the connections that help to sustain us during these wild, violent times. It’s also an important reminder of the kinds of dichotomies and sides that are set up as our society continues to break apart due to polarization. We can choose the side of exclusivity, of rejection, of violence and condescension, or we can choose to be part of a broader collective, working to protect others against harm. While Klein and Taylor don’t necessarily frame their arguments in this way, they do end their book with a reminder of the doomsday clock, and how both the UN and Bulletin of Atomic Scientists raised concerns about the destructive powers of nuclear technology. Both organizations arose from the wreckage of World War II, seeking to prevent further wars and the use of destructive technology. While Klein and Taylor acknowledge the limitations of the UN and the frequent failures to recognize the destructive power of nuclear technology, they present important warnings and reminders of what lies ahead if we continue down this apocalyptic path while indiscriminately using technology without thinking. Klein and Taylor report on many of the interconnected fascist factions not only in the US but around the world, and although breadth of this coverage can feel daunting, it’s also important to recognize their coverage of the communities of resistance that have risen to challenge the encroachments on our rights. My thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of this book. Highly recommended!

Examining Linguicide and Revival in How to Kill a Language

 How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words by Sophia Smith Galer

How to Kill a Language book cover

Author and journalist Sophia Smith Galer

Many thanks to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for the advanced copy of How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words by Sophia Smith Galer. While the book’s title reference the precarious nature of many languages throughout the world, Smith Galer’s work focuses more on the efforts to save and reclaim these languages, and the many individuals and grassroots organizations working to recruit speakers, teach and raise awareness of these languages, and to promote the language in areas where it remains a minority to other dominant languages. A few years ago, I read a great book by Ross Perlin titled Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York. Perlin, who is a linguist from NY, chronicled his efforts to work with others to preserve the speakers and written language of many of the world’s most endangered languages in NYC. Sophia Smith Galer, who is a multi-lingual journalist, details a similar effort to explore and chronicle the efforts to save endangered languages, or those she deems as threatened with linguicide, which often results from the policies and efforts of a state toward a minority language. Although Perlin’s efforts explore the many reasons why NYC is home to and in some ways furthers the endangerment of these minority languages, Smith Galer takes readers on journeys throughout the world to learn more about the places, policies, and history that have all worked to silence many of these indigenous languages and dialects, which makes How to Kill a Language not only a fascinating study of the history and cultures of these languages and their speakers, but also something of a travel book that often details the geographic features and regions that also help to shape and sometimes isolate many of these languages, making them distinct from dominant languages like English, Arabic, French, or Spanish.

Smith Galer starts her exploration of these languages and regions close to home, which is London. It may seem odd to start a story about linguicide where English is the dominant language and where many of the colonial experiments to eradicate native languages in far-away and close to home colonies originated, but her personal connection to an endangered language starts with her grandmother, or her Nonna, who spoke dialët, a language she describes as an “angry French, with some strong nasal twangs and words that end abruptly, not like Italian with its ever-flowing vowel sounds.” Geographically and nationally, Nonna was from Italy but from a mountainous region that was isolated from the more dominant Florentine Italian that became the standard for spoken Italian in the 19^th century as Italy began to unify. The differences between dialët and Italian, as well as her Nonna’s age and decreasing health prompted her to question how many dialët speakers were left, and how she could work to preserve the language.

Smith Galer’s questions and interest in preserving dialët then prompted her to further study Italian, to learn how the various regions, which all have distinct pronunciations and some entirely distinct languages like dialët, eventually settled on the Florentine Tuscan dialect as the standard. This first chapter is a fascinating framework to explore how countries and populations with power can promote their chosen language or dialect as the standard, which can bring about unity in communication, commerce, and education, but it can also push language minorities to the fringes of society, especially when a sense of privilege, politics, or promotion is assigned to the dominant language. As Smith Galer’s observations with other languages demonstrate, frequently younger generations educated in the dominant language will be less likely to speak their native language and may even view the language with a sense of shame or embarrassment. These languages then either remain around smaller, isolated regions or are only spoken at home or in secret in some cases when there are consequences to speaking or writing in the language (like the chapters on Karuk and Kurdish explore). Each subsequent chapter explores how different policies, histories, events, and movement have impacted specific languages. I loved learning about the different cultures and languages throughout the book. Each chapter serves as a kind of case study for how countries and historical events influence the linguicide- the decline of these indigenous languages. However, the Smith Galer doesn’t necessarily dwell on the demise of these languages, but also chronicles individuals, groups, and organizations who are working to keep the language alive, whether it is through online community and advocacy, translations, subversion and resistance, or education and work with younger generations of speakers. There are so many incredible stories found throughout this book that complement the well-researched historical, political, and social elements that influenced how these languages were often relegated to lesser spaces in these nations. Furthermore, Smith Galer effectively describes linguistic elements of the language, making familiar references where possible or clearly defining the spoken, written, and communicative aspects of these languages for non-technical or linguistic oriented audiences. The chapters focus on Śhert, which I’m struggling to write accurately in word, an Arabian language spoken in regions in Oman; Ukrainian and its resistance to the Russianization of its language in Ukraine; Ladino, a fascinating Spanish derived language spoken by Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain after the Reconquista and ended up in Greece and Turkey, adapting the elements of these languages and some others; Karuk, an indigenous Californians from the Klamath area. While all of the stories featured upsetting stories of colonialism and conquest that led to the loss of language, Smith Galer details how many of the tribal Karuk were sent to notorious Indian schools in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries where speaking their native languages was often physically punished, creating a sense of fear and shame among the speakers that nearly wiped out the language and traditions of the Karuk people. Yet stories like the Karuk also feature dedicated community members like Julian Lang who helped to start a Master-Apprentice language program that created time, space, and lessons for older and younger speakers to meet in order to continue passing on the language to the next generations. It’s a fascinating look into the kind of grassroots efforts that are maintaining these languages for future generations, but as Smith Galer notes in her conclusion, the work of these dedicated individuals and groups may not be enough to sustain these languages without future policies and resources like government funding (the Karuk program receives funding through California). The book also explores Kurdish and the efforts of countries like Iran and Turkey to criminalize and punish Kurdish speakers. I also liked learning about Kichwa, an indigenous language from Ecuador as well as Peru. This was also a fascinating way to see how community members work to include language instruction and ensure future generations are speaking these indigenous languages, even recruiting pregnant mothers and encouraging them to speak to their unborn children. Interestingly, there’s a chapter on the kind of revival that Hebrew experienced with zionism, and how the demand for Hebrew only speaking in Israel has created further tension with speakers of other languages. It’s also a fascinating look at how a language that was deemed for religious purposes only became the lingua franca of a country. The last chapter was equally fascinating as it detailed Dagbani, a language from Ghana, a country that has nearly 80 distinct languages, but uses English as the official language. This chapter was also fascinating to learn more about how a country with so many different languages can often ignore these indigenous languages and fail to support them when their focus is on STEM studies or arts related to languages like French or English.  Smith Galer returns to dialët, and visits the region her Nonna was from to learn more about where and how this language that shares more qualities with French than Italian originated. This chapter offered some further insight into how regions and geography can lead to language development and variations, and how practices like education and policies can impact the further speaking of these languages.

How to Kill a Language is a fascinating and insightful book, where readers are able to learn not only about these different languages but how countries and governments can impose policies, education, and other measures that can bring about the demise of languages. Nevertheless, the book also offers hope in detailing the efforts of groups and individuals who are working to maintain and transmit these languages to future generations. If you enjoy learning about different cultures, languages, histories, or regions of the world, this book will be a great read. Recommended! 

 Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America by Greg Tate

Flyboy in the Buttermilk cover

Author and Critic Greg Tate

Big props to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and NetGalley for allowing me to preview an advanced copy of Greg Tate’s powerful collection of essays from the 80s and 90s Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America. I’ve heard of Greg Tate, but I can’t believe I’ve never read anything by him up until now. Reading the three introductions by Questlove, Henry Louis Gates Jr, and Hanif Abdurraqib provided some great context for understanding not only Greg Tate’s interests and subjects for his writing, but also his vast influence on music, popular culture, and writing in general. While the introductions are awesome, they don’t entirely capture the breadth of Tate’s interests captured by the essays in this book. Whether it’s funk, pop music, hip hop, reggae, art, literature, sci-fi, or movies, Tate’s writing clearly and enthusiastically shows his passion for these arts and more importantly, his emphasis on promoting artists uplifts many Black voices that were often silenced or relegated to the underground at the expense of more mainstream pop acts and artists. Tate’s collection is the kind of book that requires some notetaking to follow up on the many different references, albums, songs, and titles he champions, and I’m so appreciative for it.

One of my favorite elements of this book is Tate’s unique voice in his writing. I absolutely loved his writing, especially about music. The only music writers/critics I could liken him to are Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus, who are both passionate and emphatic champions and critics of music they like and dislike; however, Tate also has his own unique register, adding elements of funk and hip-hop to his writing that emphasize his own distinct voice in criticism. I noticed that this approach changes somewhat when he writes about literature and politics in the latter sections of the book. However, the first section that focuses primarily on his writings about music is so much fun to read; I can only imagine Tate reading these essays out loud. Furthermore, I was amazed to read phrases and lingo Tate uses in his early 80s essays that are still in use today. I think this speaks to not only Tate’s influence, but also his close ear and understanding of culture.

Although this book was originally published in 1992, it’s still completely relevant today. In fact, I was surprised to see how much Tate’s writing about African American literature and history was relevant to my undergraduate studies, which again made me wonder why Tate wasn’t included in any of the anthologies or required reading lists from my professors. Whether it’s discussing the battles between Black leadership in the early 1900s in the quest for either assimilation or equality or the burdens of Black writers and artists to represent culture or to capitalize on the larger market for white audiences, Tate’s writing remains relevant and trenchant, focusing on important considerations for Black culture, artists, writers, and America in general. I double checked my Norton Anthology of African American Literature edited by Gates Jr. just to see if Tate was included in my 1997 edition, but he was not. I hope that Gates Jr. has eventually included Tate in either subsequent editions or other anthologies since I feel like Tate’s approach to many of the canonical texts and arguments from African American literature and history is such a unique, relevant, and engaging voice that challenges readers to question and rethink their understandings of these texts, figures, and events.

The book is divided into three sections. Part One focuses on music criticism, Part Two focuses mostly on literary and art criticism, and Part Three focuses on current events and politics, mostly from the late 1980s and early 1990s in New York. My favorite section was the music criticism section, which was also the longest section in the book. This section is where we see not just the breadth of Tate’s interests (Funk, Jazz, Blues, Rock, Hip-Hop, House), but also the depths of these interests that Tate is willing to pursue to further untangle and share with his audience. I loved how much he writes about Miles Davis, especially reevaluating the electric and later stages of Miles’ career, looking at Miles’ role as not just a Black artist, but an American force of culture who reshaped art and popular music by pursuing his own passions and interests. Tate also explores areas in Jazz that fragmented in the 1960s and 70s, examining the kind of schisms that created paths for standard bearers like the Marsalis family and the paths that diverged to other space ways and areas carved out by avant-garde and free jazz artists. It’s an issue about Black art that re-appears throughout Tate’s book in different forms including fine art vs. graffiti, R & B vs. Pop Music (Prince and Michael Jackson), and literature (Amiri Baraka). Tate seems to update DuBois’s notion of the veil but situates it in the context of American popular culture and the cultural marketplace of the latter 20^th century, where an artist’s existence is sometimes dependent on an audience. One of Tate’s targets is Michael Jackson, whose most popular albums Thriller and Bad, Tate criticizes for their emptiness and pursuit of mass audiences at the expense of the kind of soulfulness or artistic integrity that are apparent in other Black contemporary artists of Michael’s time. My favorite pieces, though, were focused on Public Enemy, whose music from the late 80s and 90s is such an integral part of my life. Tate’s writing about Public Enemy is so accurate and fun, and he captures the energy and power of the band’s sound and vision and how it helped to shape and redirect the hip-hop scene into something more conceptual rather than commercial.

Although Section Three deals with events from NYC in the late 80s and early 90s, I was surprised to see how relevant Tate’s analyses and criticisms are for today. Furthermore, since I was younger and not living in the NYC area at the time, I wasn’t as familiar with the murders of Michael Griffith in Howard Beach or Yusef Hawkins in Bensonhurst, except from the references from PE. Tate critically examines these incidents and contextualizes them along with the Central Park Five injustice to criticize the press, the police, and leadership at all levels for allowing racial violence and intolerance to continue to fester in the city. Even though Tate’s book was originally published nearly 35 years ago, his critiques and observations are still relevant and on point. While I have many annotations throughout the book, the last essay “Love and the Enemy” has a particular quote at its end that surprised me with its relevance and prescience. The essay is powerful in its message of love for and in the African American community, in which Tate calls out white supremacy for fomenting hate among African Americans. He cites both Malcolm X and Bob Marley as calling for love for self rather than the love and desire for the oppressor. For Tate, these power structures enable people to ignore systemic inequalities because they are more concerned individual status. “When reactive rage is the dominant form of our politics, when it takes police or mob violence to galvanize us into reaction, it means that there is an acceptable level of suffering and misery.” I’m not saying this is still true, but I think it’s a powerful quote that should move all people to recognize that the fight and struggle continues today as politics and culture remain reactive rather than accepting or accommodating. This is an incredible and important collection of essays, and I’m so glad that it is being republished. I can only hope that Greg Tate’s voice reaches more eyes and ears as a result of this new edition, and people can learn to appreciate the critical eye and humor in his work. Even though the essays are between 35-45 years old, they are still relevant, prescient, observant, critical, and engaging. Highly recommended! 

Exploring Racial Identity and a Notorious Word: Something We Said by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor

 Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor

Something We Said book cover

Historian, researcher, and author Dr. Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor’s heartfelt and thoughtful book Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me. While the book is categorized as a memoir, it’s much more, as Pryor, a professor of US history and race at Smith College, shares her reflections growing up as a multiracial daughter of Richard Pryor and Maxine Silverman in the 1970s and 1980s, navigating her Black and Jewish identities as she forged a deeply loving, but complex relationship with her famous father. Blended between these childhood and adolescent memories are more recent recollections of Professor Pryor’s teaching and research and how she grapples with the notorious n-word, which her father made a staple of his comedy routines during the 1970s, reclaiming a complicated and racist term, and according to her research, shifting the term into another direction, creating a bifurcated meaning and usage. It’s a fascinating look at not only growing up multiracial at a time when racial identities seemed to be either/or, but also examining how Professor Pryor’s racial identity evolved as society and racism shifted and evolved in the 70s and 80s, helped along by her father’s fearless and groundbreaking comedy addressed race head on.

First, I’ve always loved Richard Pryor. Although my introduction to him was in some of his more forgettable 80s films (I wasn’t allowed to see his concert films until I was older), I didn’t appreciate his comedic genius until more recently, especially after reading Becoming Richard Pryor by Scott Saul. This book is more of a critical biography of Pryor’s evolution from his attempts to be the next Bill Cosby to a revolutionary comedian who embraced Black power and challenged racism and inequality through his routines and movies. While the book is excellent, it also details Pryor’s messy personal life, which in the 70s and early 80s included many relationships with women, addiction, and run-ins with police. Although Pryor became tabloid fodder, he also became the highest paid Black actor at the time, and signed studio deals that were unheard of for Black actors and writers, opening the doors for more Black creatives in Hollywood. While Professor Pryor’s book examines a similar time period, it paints a much different picture of Richard Pryor as a loving, doting father, who despite growing up in Illinois with an abusive, brutal father and a stern grandmother who served as his mother, tried his best to be an attentive and engaged father to his many children. I was nervous reading about her initial visits to Pryor, meeting him and staying at his house when she was young, and one story about bringing home the class pet was a little wild, Stordeur Pryor’s experiences show that Richard Pryor was a caring father who made many efforts to take care of Elizabeth, or Dizzy as she was called, and his other children. As their relationship develops and she spends more time with him, I was moved by how Richard involved his daughter (and other children) in his life. There are some great stories about Elizabeth playing around the house with Rain, her sister from another mother, or going to Georgia to be with Richard while he filmed Greased Lightning.

Although Professor Pryor presents a touching and heartfelt view of her father, showing how he cared for his children, she also remains observant about the racial and class differences that she experienced moving between her white Jewish mother in Boston (and later LA) and her father’s extended family and friends who also were in the house. Professor Pryor also notes that at school, her complexion and hair were different from her peers, leading to questions and occasional name calling about her racial identity. One word, whose use in her father’s home among his friends and family and on the playground directed at Professor Pryor, seemed to raise many questions for her. Professor Pryor recounts how her father (and her great-grandmother, Mama) taught her lessons about being Black in America and to be proud of her racial identity.

Nevertheless, Pryor recounts the confusion in understanding the difference between the n-words usage among her father’s friends and family and when it was directed at her on the playground or in one unfortunate recollection, from her mother. While the n-word continues to remain a complicated word with a fraught history, it wasn’t until Professor Pryor was teaching and a white student deployed the n-word in class quoting a line from Blazing Saddles that her father wrote that rekindled the complicated feelings and questions about the word. As a teacher, I loved reading these challenging classroom moments when we may have to challenge students’ misconceptions, biases, or attitudes, and show solidarity and support for students’ whose voices may be misrepresented or misunderstood. Professor Pryor not only shares this incident, but also the challenges she grapples with in trying to call attention to the word, support the Black students in her class, and establish rules and procedures for the word’s usage in class. The incident seemed to not only serve as the catalyst for Professor Pryor’s research into the history of the n-word but also reconnects her to her relationship with her father (who had passed away at this point) and listen to some of his groundbreaking comedy from the 1970s that directly confronted racism with humor and satire. Furthermore, Professor Pryor includes these interludes that trace the impact of the n-word in US history, society and popular culture. These range from examples of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington to the Harlem Renaissance, Gone With the Wind, and NWA. It’s fascinating to see how this word’s use evolved and split, largely because of Richard Pryor’s comedy. Interestingly though, Professor Pryor notes that her father eventually disavowed the word in the 1980s, refusing to use the n-word in his comedy anymore. As Professor Pryor notes, it was Richard Pryor’s visit to Kenya that brought about this epiphany realizing that the word was no longer necessary to define Black people. Her recollections and memories of her father also show the evolution of a Black man and his complexities and interests that were often hidden or shoved aside for more of the tabloid fodder that the public craved from Richard Pryor’s life. I loved learning how interested Richard Pryor was in African and African American history and culture, and how his racial pride as a Black man never wavered but gradually evolved to a different kind of appreciation and insight about his identity. Professor Pryor similarly experiences her own kind of evolution of her own racial identity, as the later chapters chart her journey through college, questioning her belonging to different friend groups and navigating relationships. While the later chapters move quickly through the 80s and 90s, it’s still fascinating to read her experiences about developing her racial identity in her late adolescence and early adulthood. While this book is not necessarily an academic treatise on the n-word and racial identity, it is written by an academic, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether Professor Pryor had encountered researchers like Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark, whose research was used in Brown vs. The Board of Education, or Beverly Tatum, whose book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? addresses similar issues of society and racial identity development among Black children and adolescents. Nevertheless, Professor Pryor also recounts the challenges of young adults leaving college and searching for their professional identities, and it was exciting to read about her challenges and how she eventually ended up as an academic studying African American History.

While I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book, it’s more than just a straightforward memoir. Professor Pryor fearlessly recounts her search for love and acceptance from her famous father but also details her own questions and quests to define her racial identity, recognizing that it’s not always an either/or, but it can be an and/also. I also didn’t expect to be so emotionally moved by this book, especially the sections that present a more tender and loving side of Richard Pryor that rarely is discussed. It’s a beautiful book about parenting as well, showing how important that kind of interest and attention can be, especially as Elizabeth sought to learn more about and connect with her famous father. However, what makes this book stand out as a unique memoir is Professor Pryor’s research and insight into the history of America’s most notorious word, which her father helped to reshape and popularize, breaking the word off from its racist connotations and injecting it into mainstream Black and popular culture. Her experiences in the classroom only further add to the complexities of this word and highlight her own complicated relationship with her father. Something We Said is the best “memoir” I’ve read this year, and it is one of the best books I’ve read so far this year. I was unable to put this down not just because it’s about Richard Pryor, but because it’s about a Black and Jewish daughter’s experience connecting with her father and navigating her racial identity in an America that is still wrestling with the color line. Highly recommended! 

The Fire This Time: Eddie S. Glaude Jr's America, U.S.A.

 America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. 

America, U.S.A. book cover

Author and professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr. 

Many thanks to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of the urgent and necessary new book America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries by Princeton professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr. I read and thoroughly enjoyed Glaude’s book Begin Again about 5 years ago. I found that book, which uses James Baldwin’s works and ideas as a way to examine race and injustice in America in the 21^st century, to be both critical and hopeful in making the case that America has continuously faced issues of racial injustice, but that Baldwin’s writings and ideas can provide useful insight to examine these issues. Glaude never presents the ideas as solutions, but rather uses Baldwin’s life and experiences as like a lens for seeking understanding and contextualizing issues of race, injustice, violence, and inequality that we’ve experienced during the 21^st century. I really appreciated how hopeful the book is while maintaining a critical eye on the injustice. Furthermore, I loved how Glaude revisits Baldwin, using literature, essays, and criticism to explore how other great thinkers and writers have navigated challenging times. I wasn’t necessarily expecting the same thing, but America, U.S.A. takes on an entirely different tone and approach in examining the existential questions surrounding the coming semi-quincentennial (250^th anniversary) of the founding of the country. Nevertheless, like Begin Again, Glaude turns to other writers, thinkers, and activists, as well as the history of other celebrations of America’s founding, to examine how ideas of history and race have been co-opted, revised, or excluded in order to redefine the idea of America. Although this is a challenging and difficult book to read, it felt like the book I needed to read at this time, as I’ve been inundated with images of flags, stars, stripes, and Uncle Sams presented in a celebratory manner that don’t always seem to reflect my own complicated feelings about the country.

Glaude’s writing is clear and dynamic, not overwrought or dense. It’s not the prose of the book that is challenging, and if anything, the challenge and my own struggles with the book are necessary and contribute to a kind of growth and understanding. One of Glaude’s premises is that 250^th celebration of America has been taken over, and with executive orders demanding a fictionalized history that fails to acknowledge the role of racism in the country’s founding, Glaude questions what kind of history and celebration will take place this year. It’s his call to interrogate the past, to reckon with the injustices of slavery that continue to be pushed aside or swept under the rug that plague America, creating a kind of storybook nation that only exists for certain groups of people. To quote spoken word pioneer Gil Scott Heron, this hagiography of history “ain’t no new thing”; it’s been happening since America’s first celebration in 1826, when African Americans couldn’t vote or even petition their representatives, for those who were not enslaved. Glaude examines how America celebrated these varying anniversaries, and how often African Americans and their contributions to the country were often excluded from these celebrations.

Glaude examines the history of these celebrations in Philadelphia, which I found fascinating since I’ve lived in the Philadelphia region my whole life and did not know about some of the events and instances he discussed in the book. Furthermore, it’s important to note that much of Glaude’s analysis examines Frederick Douglass’s seminal speech in 1852 “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” to further interrogate how history and celebrations of the ideals of America ring hallow. Douglass is an important figure to me. I graduated from the school where Douglass gave his last speech, and when I returned there a few years ago, I was excited to see a statue on campus memorializing not only his speech, but his contributions to society and Pennsylvania in particular. Glaude’s chapters not only present Douglass’s most famous speech as a reminder of how exclusionary the fourth can be, but also as a way to encourage readers to further interrogate history and the symbolism and meanings of what we sometimes take for granted as a day off to spend with friends and family at a barbecue or down the shore. Both Douglass and Glaude remind readers of how the “more perfect union” has failed to live up to its lofty standards set forth in the Declaration of Independence, where its initial lines clearly state that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, including Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Glaude also presents a story about how Douglass was denied a seat at the centennial dais in Memorial Hall during the centennial celebration in Philadelphia. Apparently police did not believe that a Black man would have anything to contribute to the celebration. Although he was later allowed to enter the exposition, he was never allowed to speak at the centennial celebration. Glaude presents this story to explore how it is emblematic of how African Americans are often silenced or pushed to the side during these celebrations of America, U.S.A. He later notes instances when Dr. King petitioned Kennedy for more recognition of the contributions of Black Americans, but he and A. Philip Randolph only received an invitation to dinner.

It was also fascinating to learn more about the 1926 celebration in Philadelphia. I’ve visited Memorial Hall, and spent time in the Please Touch Museum’s exhibit about the centennial celebration, but I wasn’t really aware of the 1926 celebrations, probably because, according to Glaude, these were plagued by lower interest and attendance and more funding problems, often related to graft and corruption. Nevertheless, as Glaude documents, it provided an opportunity for A. Philip Randolph to speak, which Glaude notes is an interesting choice since Randolph was the President of the Sleeping Car Porters, who helped to organize key Civil and Labor Rights events. The chapters between these “celebrations” focus on interludes, demonstrating key events that continued to represent the conflict between inclusion and exclusion of African Americans in the portrayal of the history of America. It’s fascinating and important to think about the different ways in which American continued to promote its ideals as it grew to be a global power, yet failed domestically to live up to its standards of liberty and justice for some, but not all. There’s much to unpack here, and I learned much from reading these chapters. However, I think that the book also made me feel so many complicated emotions, and that is even more a reflection of how important and necessary this book is today, especially as we approach a “celebration” that feels so dour and funereal. The last few chapters that focus on the last 50 years are fascinating to read, and I could not put the book down. Part of it is that these are the years which I’ve lived through and learned about through experience. It’s fascinating to learn the different battles and conflicts that have emerged and shaped the ways in which history and our own understandings of the country have been shaped and evolved over time. For me, it was important to know the myths and fairytales we tell about the founding of the country are continuing to erode, and that there are many who are interested in continuing to learn more about and reshape the truth we present to students and others. Yet, it’s also disheartening to know that there are many others who wish to grasp onto the myths and fairytales that we learned as children, and that when confronted with the facts of history, continue to pervert the truth and perpetuate the lies, choosing comfort and complacency over the struggles and challenges of learning and change. Glaude’s book is an important book for many people, but I think that this book is especially important for educators and others working with young people. It’s not only important to learn about the complicated feelings about this nation’s history and why “celebrating” it comes with its own complications and contradictions, but it’s also necessary to learn the kind of propaganda war that is being waged by those with positions of authority and voice in our government and media. It’s important and necessary to recognize the kind of whitewashing they intend in bad faith and disinformation they continue to spew about the diversity in America. Glaude frames this battle as one of consensus versus conflict, where over the past century, America has moved to an idea of consensus about the role of African Americans, and this consensus often neglects the more radical or revolutionary voices, who more often than not, reflect the kind of revolutionary spirit that won freedom from England. Again, it’s part of the complex and complicated nature of our country. However, as Glaude notes, Trump has moved from an idea of consensus that presidents from Reagan to Obama exerted about African American history, to one of imposition and erasure. In the past year, the Trump administration has authored executive orders that sought to erase Black, Indigenous, and other non-white voices and contributions from museums, parks, military libraries, websites, and classrooms. Not only is it a way to shape the history that students learn, but, as Glaude notes, it’s a way to indicate who deserves freedom and citizenship in society. Although Glaude ends the book with the annoyingly whiny words of VP Vance, he also ignites a call for resistance and change, to not only reclaim history, but also to continue to push against the untruths and the unserious and unsettling presentation of the storybook version of America, U.S.A.

There’s more that I need to unpack and examine from this book as it really made me experience a lot of different emotions. There’s much to learn from the book, but I wanted to mention Glaude’s references to DuBois throughout the book as well. Glaude not only includes music to begin each chapter, like DuBois did in Souls of Black Folk, but he also shares DuBois’s acknowledgement that the problem of the 20^th century and beyond. DuBois declared that the color-line was the problem of the 20^th century, and Glaude acknowledges that this continues to be a problem in the 21^st century. It’s also important to call attention to Glaude’s references to DuBois, and that DuBois didn’t frame this as a problem of White people or Black people, but rather the division based on skin color and the oppression that results from this division. However, Glaude notes how DuBois’s color-line problem has evolved to the “desperate avoidance of self-awareness- its refusal to know itself fully, and the deadly consequences for people and the world that follow from that refusal. Ours is a time of shattered mirrors.” This line, and the shattered mirror reference from Baldwin at the end of the book, really resonated with me, and I felt like this demonstrated not only Glaude’s scholarship and references, but also his astute analysis at the ways in which the avoidance of race, injustice, and inequality continue to haunt us, leaving our homes with shattered mirrors that fail to reflect who we really are. Highly recommended and important book!  

More Morbid Mayhem with EC's Catacomb of Torment Vol. 1

 EC Catacomb of Torment Vol. 1 

EC Catacomb of Torment Vol. 1

Big thanks to Oni Press and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of the latest EC installment EC Catacomb of Torment Vol. 1. This volume cranks up the gore, torment, and cosmic irony to 11 by not only having excellent stories with a graphic and fun twist but also introducing a new narrator -The Tormentor- who introduces a few of these terrifying tales of torment. I loved this collection, and I really appreciated the timely and contemporary focus on issues and topics of today. The first two stories focus on privileged younger people, and present a hilarious twist on politically correct speech and cancel culture (“What’s the Deal with Voodoo?”), while “Quintana Roo” was a quick tale of some spoiled Americans experiencing the native foliage of Mexico, and if you’ve ever seen or read The Ruins, this story is somewhat similar but with some shockingly gory artwork. I also loved “Garden Variety” which tells the tale of a mycologist/chef who uses a special fertilizer to grow his fabulous fungi. It’s a wild trip of a story with some gory body horror. In fact, this was not the only story that featured a kind of blending of human remains as compost or ending up in the food supply. “Mary, Mary How Does Your Garden Grow?” and “Red Blend” both feature gory garden stories with perfect plotting. “Hostile Architecture” examines the issue of how design is used to prevent homelessness, and how violence and pain serve as reinforcers to prevent this kind of behavior when taken to this logical end point. It was an interesting premise to think about how so many policies today operate on a kind of pain, humiliation, and suffering rather than really addressing the root causes. A few of the stories also examine issues like post-partum depression, spousal abuse, and gaslighting, and provide some perspective of how women are impacted by these issues, and how they might get revenge. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how these stories took on misogyny and presented women characters who fight back (“Intrusive Thoughts”, “Mary, Mary, How Does Your Garden Grow?”, “The Dressmaker”). One other story, “Movie Night at the Marigold Inn,” was an interesting tale that left me haunted and still thinking about its implications. It’s not only a meditation on violence and evil, but also left me thinking about things like the kind of desensitization to violence that we may experience through continued screentime, and how our access to entertainment and screens can gradually lead us to accept the violence we see on these screens. I’m not even sure if that is the theme of the story, but it is an eerie story that has multiple layers.

I loved this collection, and it was great to see this EC collection getting back to the irony, dark humor and tormented twists that made other collections like Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror so great. Everything about this collection from the writing and stories to the artwork and visuals is excellent. I highly recommend this, especially if you are a fan of Tales from The Crypt, The Vault of Horror, Creepshow and the like. 

 

 

The Battle of Little Bighorn retold in Tom Clavin's Vengeance

 Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull by Tom Clavin

Vengeance book cover

Author Tom Clavin

A corrupt government is populated with friends and relations of the president who seem to plunder and take advantage of lax oversight in the bureaucracy. The government displays animosity and weaponizes the military towards a disempowered minority, attempting to silence critics and minority factions that resist attempts at command and control. American society has been torn apart by serious issues of race, identity, and the economy, while politicians and people grapple with the future direction of the country.

Although these events seem like they may be ripped from today’s salacious headlines, it’s really a summary of some of the events that gripped America nearly 150 years ago 1876, as America grappled with westward expansion and removing the indigenous plains Indians from their roaming ways and proposing a more farmer like existence for these nomadic people. Tom Clavin’s excellent new book, Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull, captures much of the turmoil and resentment that festered between the government and the Plains Indians, resulting in one of the most stunning military defeats in American history.

I’m generally fascinated by this time period, and have read some other books about Indigenous People, but Clavin’s book was one of the more compelling and engaging books I’ve read about the frontier expansion. Maybe because he focuses on three of the primary characters in the Battle of Little Bighorn, Clavin is able to create a story where three distinct individuals collide in a violent fashion in this epic battle of the plains when America was still expanding its western territory, frequently making and breaking treaties. Clavin acknowledges that he’s not the first to write about this battle, and some of the other authors who he references throughout the book have wrote distinct and significant books outlining and analyzing the factors leading up to the battle and its aftermath. However, Clavin likens the story to a myth, where we recount the deeds of epic heroes, seeming to result in tragedy, whether through hubris or ignorance, and learn something new every time we recount the story. Thus, his contributions to this epic battle frame the battle by following the paths of Custer, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse, and how they all ended up converging in June 1876 on this field in the territory that would become Montana.

I loved how Clavin organizes the chapters to focus on each individual, and he keeps them brief, which kept me reading. The book is organized into 6 parts- The Invaders, The Defenders, The Expeditions, The Searchers, The Avengers, and the Last Stands. Each section focuses on events leading up to the battle, and Clavin’s keen eye for details limits overwhelming readers with too much information about how the Indian Plains Wars against the Sioux especially started. Nevertheless, he provides a fair amount of information to let us know about how Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse eventually came to power, as well as how Custer, a lackluster West Point graduate, leveraged some heroics and bravado during the Civil War to eventually become a general. Through Clavin’s recounting and analysis of the events, it seems like some of Custer’s meteoric rise and bravado created a kind of arrogance that brought about his violent end. Interestingly, I learned that Crazy Horse, while exalted as a great Lakota warrior, also experienced his own downfall in claiming the wife of another man before they were officially divorced. It’s these kinds of little details that provide a broader idea of the decisions and strategies that Custer, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse may have implemented during other events, giving us a sense of the kind of flawed heroes that our textbooks or high school history don’t always present to us for various reasons.

Clavin not only isolates these individuals but provides some important background in the policies of the US around the time of the Civil War, and how the focus was off westward expansion, during this time. When the war ended, it seemed like there was a large army in need of work and vast lands where gold and other resources were with people looking to move out of overcrowded cities for new opportunities and adventure. This led to threats and attacks on settlers, necessitating the building of forts and protection of the US Army on certain routes, like the Oregon Trail. It was fascinating to learn more about how these events and policies boiled tensions between different plains Indian tribes and the federal government. Along with broken treaties, reduced rations, and disease and illness, readers can also learn how the plains Indians were reduced in numbers and spirit, and yet leaders and warriors like Sitting Bull and Red Cloud arose to challenge the authority of the US government and the great father in DC.

Clavin’s recap of the battle alternates between the US forces, and the divisions of Custer’s men, who split up into separate groups, which ultimately led to their demise, and the warriors who followed Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Clavin’s even-handed research presents much of the arrogance and mismanagement, including the drinking from Major Reno, and the friction with Captain Benteen, which also seemed to factor into the poor decisions and fractured strategy in this campaign. Although there were no survivors in Custer’s actual group, Clavin referenced other books and the Sioux and Cheyenne survivors who participated and provided accounts of what exactly happened. It presents an important recounting that challenges many of the myths and heroic portraits of Custer that were pumped out as propaganda after the battle. As Clavin notes, Custer was considered a potential presidential candidate and was set to speak in Philadelphia for the Centennial celebration about a week later. However, due to the vast distance and limited reporting at the time, people were unsure of where he was or what happened in the battle. This kind of limited access to information allowed the military and Custer’s widow, Libbie, to reshape the narrative, which ultimately painted Custer as a hero and victim, a view that persisted for many years.

The last section of the book went by quickly, and it moves from the summer of 1876 to the aftermath in the next few years, and how this led to the last stands of Crazy Horse shortly after and Sitting Bull more than a decade later. Clavin also frames this idea of the government and military continuing to seek and harass these tribes for the defeat at Little Bighorn. Sadly, it ends with the slaughter at Wounded Knee, where nearly 300 Lakota people, mostly women and children, were murdered by the military. Clavin notes like Little Bighorn, the limited information available at the time worked to the military’s advantage, allowing them to frame this as another battle like Little Bighorn, but that was ultimately prevented from major military casualties. In fact, there were several commendations and awards given. Tying these events to the present, Clavin notes that there have been recent attempts to rescind these awards and commendations, although the current administration has fought that, despite legislation that has authorized taking these awards away from the unjust murder of hundreds of Lakota women and children.

Clavin has written a compelling and important story detailing the history and facts of a inflection point in American history, one which has been mythologized and used to create a kind of narrative about American exceptionalism while denigrating the role of Indigenous people in American history, and has helped to educate and reframe the narrative. I learned a lot from this book. Furthermore, Clavin’s clear and engaging prose and his focus on the main protagonists in this tragedy, Custer, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse, creates a compelling story of three flawed men who converge on a hot battlefield in June of 1876. The story still resonates today, and it serves an even more important lesson in understanding the truth in history, and how events can be twisted and propagandized to either avoid accountability or to create American heroes. This is a really important and engaging read. Highly recommended! Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of Tom Clavin’s latest historical book Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull.