Lawrence Hill Books

Post Black: How a New Generation Is Redefining African American Identity

admin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Post Black reads like a young, or relatively young, African American’s manifesto. Specifically speaking, it brings home points of declaration from the Generation X and Y African American crowd. Ytasha Womack thoroughly, interestingly, and comprehensibly covers the various aspects that make up the Black population in America. Some of these aspects include African immigrants, young Black professionals, hip-hop participants, and feminists.

I appreciate what Womack is not trying to do with this book, which is establish Black leadership, crucify certain Black men and women, browbeat the generations before us, and preach. There have been many writings on how Generations X and Y see the world, but few of those, if any, do so from the lens of those who have inherited slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and institutionalized racism. When compounded by those factors, the entrepreneurial spirit that is characteristic of Generation X often affects what type of business is started, who that business caters to, and the very success of that business. The mistrust of authority that is also said to be characteristic of this generation can offer a whole new understanding when the historical basis for this mistrust is legitimate and validated on a continual basis by a society that refuses to acknowledge the historical relevance of entire groups of people. While Post Black does not blame or dwell on this historical reality, the effects are profound in how Black identities in America are shaped and molded by this reality.

Womack details not only the cultural legacy Blacks in America have inherited, but also the struggles of breaking free from the many limitations this legacy has placed on Blacks. Being bound by expected obligations of young Blacks to uphold and preserve this legacy have forced many to abandon it altogether, while others have adapted to the political, social, and economic climate of today. Womack points out that social issues that were previously ignored, dismissed, or viewed as negligible (e.g., homosexuality, feminism, and the large immigration of Africans from the African diaspora) have expanded the perceptions of what it means to be Black in America.

Womack gives a wonderful treatise on how Black is defined according to the individual experiencing it, not solely on what she thinks it is. She includes her own experiences, but uses them to explain the points and experiences she is trying to convey to those who may not understand. I understand thoroughly, because I am the product of the African and African American cultures while falling into that infamous generation known as X. Even for the reader who does not fall into a category of color, the ability to identify with what is said in Post Black should not be lost because negotiating a path that is only a handful of generations away from slavery has affected the realities of all those who have inherited its legacy.

Written by: Olupero R. Aiyenimelo, March 29th 2010

Conversate Is Not A Word: Getting Away From Ghetto

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Jam Donaldson

Lawrence Hill Books

I admit it: I bristle when my students talk about conversating. At the same time, I try to catch myself, remembering that decades back no one spoke of googling or used the word text as a verb either. Language, like social mores, constantly changes.

African American author, provocateur, blogger, and lawyer Jam Donaldson understands this, and her message is simple: Everyone, but especially people of color, needs to know the difference between slang and proper grammar, and everyone needs to take responsibility for the things they can control. For her, this means dressing age-appropriately and not parading the family jewels—whether a belly button or a pair of Joe Boxer’s—in public. Indeed, Donaldson is so miffed by “ghetto chic” that she created a website to showcase violations she considers particularly egregious.

Called Hot Ghetto Mess, the site has, since 2004, urged readers to send in outrageous photos and commentary. Dozens have been compiled, exhibiting a wide-range of missteps, from a little boy in a faux pimp costume to a woman with a tattoo proclaiming her prowess as “cock sucka.” But Donaldson is about more than style and she uses her writing to push African Americans to own personal failures.

“Sure, there’s racism,” she writes, "but those things in our lives we can control we should control. Fighting injustice and racism is not incompatible with getting a job and acting like you got some damn sense. How about we do both?”

Men who walk away from the children they sire are particularly irksome, Donaldson writes. So, too are women who neglect to use contraceptives to protect against STDs and pregnancy. While her vision of optimal two-parent childrearing is absurdly narrow—and heterosexist—her point about family planning is on the mark: “Decide if you even want children. Having children should be a conscious choice, not a default.”

Like Bill Cosby, Eric Michael Dyson, and Oprah Winfrey, Donaldson values education and sees knowledge as power. She rails at those who spend money on jewelry and designer duds, but not books, and rants that not learning computer basics is essentially acquiescing to subordination. Furthermore, Donaldson believes that a standard work ethic is essential and is aghast at those who eschew the nine-to-five. “Many young people no longer equate hard work with money. Hard work is for suckas… But that’s like all those young white girls trying to look like the air brushed models in magazines. They are chasing a dream. Idolizing a fantasy.”

Her recommendation? Find work you can tolerate, do it, save some money, be realistic about purchases, avoid excessive debt, and remember to give back to those who are less fortunate. She zooms in on churches that continually beg for cash and lambastes them for preying on people’s generosity. “Churches should be about service, not self-serving,” she quips. “Give us something we really need, like food, clothing, shelter, or a mortgage payment. You have the opportunity to be a lifeline for so many. And really, isn’t that what Jesus would do?”

While Donaldson never discusses the N-word, an odd omission in a book about Black pride, Conversate Is Not a Word is engaging and frequently amusing. Few readers will agree with her on every point, but the debate generated will make it well worth the purchase price.

Nelson Mandela once said that “to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” That statement is Donaldson’s starting point. How progressives, whether white or of color, interpret this injunction remains an open question.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, March 16th 2010

Sexism in America: Alive, Well, and Ruining Our Future

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:07:00 +0000

By Barbara J. Berg, Ph.D.

Lawrence Hill Books

Barbara J. Berg and I have something in common—we both hate the term post-feminist. An omnipresent myth exists that ours is a post-feminist society in which women have achieved absolute parity with men economically, politically, and socially. Because of this, the myth states, there is no longer a need for a feminist movement, or feminist ideas, conversation, outrage, struggle, or participation in any national dialogue. Berg's book is an exhaustively researched screed that quite easily proves this to be patently untrue.

The first several chapters of Sexism in America detail women's struggles throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and the rise of second wave feminism. The ground lost in the Reagan years is covered extensively. Ronald Reagan often espoused the myth of the “welfare queen,” slashed many social programs that benefited lower-income women and their families, and used rhetoric in his speeches connecting the pro-choice movement with infanticide, pornography, drugs, adultery, and teenage sex. The media (an ongoing problem for and frequent enemy of women's progress, as noted throughout the book) did its best in the Reagan era to push women out of the workplace and back into their homes. Magazines and newspapers often published unfounded articles with shoddy research and questionable sources indicating that women themselves were unhappy in their jobs; scare pieces about children growing up essentially motherless due to women being in the workplace were also _de rigueur. _

Women as a whole made much more progress under President Bill Clinton, and the double-edged sword of the media became more female-friendly as well, carving out niches for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and making room for the riot grrrl movement. The tragic election of George W. Bush, decided by a Supreme Court decision in 2000, proved disastrous for women over the eight years he held office, and a complicit and compliant media rolled over and reverted back to its prior winking and outright misogynist behaviors.

Where we previously had Buffy, we now had dating/courtship reality shows in which women humiliated themselves for a chance to marry a virtual stranger, as well as competitions like America's Next Top Model, Beauty and the Geek (hint: the titular “Geek” is not a woman), and _Pussycat Dolls Present: __The Search for the Next Doll._ Police procedural shows such as _CSI_, _Criminal Minds_, and _Killer Instinct_ compete with one another to see who can outdo whom in a battle of “Mutilated Dead Woman of the Week.” Women are rarely if ever featured as leads in prominent Hollywood films without the movie being derided as a “chick flick.” The Disney Princess brand is a billion-dollar industry, as is plastic surgery, since the “ideal” body image, weight, and shape to which women must aspire is a goal with ever-moving posts. We know more about women who are beautiful than women who are activists.

Sexism in America is an often infuriating book to read, and serves as a fantastic primer for young women and those either suspicious of or new to feminist ideas. Barbara J. Berg handily documents the last sixty years of American history to state her case that ours is most definitely not a post-feminist society, that women's voices are being drowned out in a chorus of media backlash and right-wing ire, and that there are still plenty of men who'd rather we be decorative objects rather than fully realized, actualized persons.

Written by: Natalie Ballard, December 10th 2009

Not All Black Girls Know How to Eat: A Story of Bulimia

admin — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:00:00 +0000

By Stephanie Covington Armstrong

Lawrence Hill Books

When I was growing up, I thought of bulimia and anorexia as "White girl problems." Through the media and interaction with peers, I had been given the impression that Black women did not experience body image issues or struggle with eating disorders. As I got older, I realized that these assumptions were wrong, but I still could not find stories of African American girls or women who had contended with anorexia, bulimia, or compulsive overeating.

In Not All Black Girls Know How to Eat, Armstrong tells her story of growing up poor and hungry in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn and Norfolk, Virginia. Armstrong's childhood is transient—her mother moves her and her sisters often—and characterized by a constant hunger for food, love, and acceptance. She writes of choosing her childhood friends based on their afternoon snacks and the content of their refrigerators. Armstrong endures foster care and is sexually molested by an uncle when she's a preteen. The emotional pain and sense of betrayal eventually leads her to compulsive overeating and bulimia in isolation. She continues to live out the transience of her childhood by moving back and forth from New York City to Los Angeles while trying to escape herself and her disease.

Armstrong experiences difficulty in finding help with her disorder; she writes of a particular incident in which she is treated like an oddity because of her race. To make matters worse, Armstrong feels the need to keep the secret of her bulimia from her family and friends because she wants to project an image of a strong Black woman to the world, even while going home at night to binge and purge. Thankfully, Armstrong eventually recovers through attendance at twelve step programs and support from her family and friends.

Not All Black Girls Know How to Eat is an important contribution to writings on anorexia, bulimia, compulsive overeating and body image among women of color. Armstrong presents an example of how a woman can free herself of food addiction and help others by telling her story.

Written by: Rekesha Spellman, November 24th 2009