Month: February 2017

Book Review – The Blackbirds by Eric Jerome Dickey

This was a 500+ page turner that took me a while. I took so long to finish because it was so full of knowledge that sometimes my brain just wasn’t ready. I needed short, sweet, and fun to make it through the day. While The Blackbirds is long, lush, complicated, and both fun and not so much simultaneously. I had to take my time reading the tale of 4 girlfriends living in Los Angeles who happen to be Black and African. They are in their twenties now, but their lives have been intertwined and filled with heartache, despair, turmoil, misunderstandings and the simple human longing for love and understanding. As we go through each of the ladies’ present lives on the occasion of their birthdays, we learn their struggle, their abiding love and support for one another above all and finally their acceptance with themselves.

Kwanzaa, Indigo, Destiny, and Ericka are shaped by bad choices, wrongs perpetuated against them, health issues, familial and cultural ties that don’t always fit, and an abiding friendship that keeps them grounded while allowing them to experiment and figure things out for themselves. This book of life felt so true to me, I felt that the women here could be any group of friends but even more surprisingly me and my friends. The writing about them is lush and full of sentiment that makes you feel for them and root for them. They remind you of your own mistakes and how blessed you are to have been able to move past them. It is a small slice of life that feels immediate and relevant, especially to black women who don’t often see themselves depicted in literature in a way they can relate too.

Towards the end Mr. Dickey gives us a surprising twist that seems to be contradictory, but helps tie the end of the story back together, as you have been separated in each woman’s immediate story. I won’t give out the end, but will say I felt it was brave and left a large feeling of truth in me. I felt I had the answer to the final page and I liked it that way, I liked thinking what I would of the continuing story of Kwanzaa, Indigo, Destiny, and Ericka. I don’t usually like stories that compel you to come to your own conclusion of what the author might mean, but this time, I was right with Mr. Dickey to the end and was pleasantly surprised to be so satisfied at the conclusion.

I will lastly say that these women have appeared at earlier times in their lives in earlier books by Mr. Dickey, as he says in his remarks at the end. I have read other books but don’t really remember these characters and admit it didn’t change my involvement in their current story and I don’t feel I missed anything by not having really ‘met’ them before. I say, if you hunger for a deep read that will speak to you about life and choice and coming back from the brink, pick up The Blackbirds by Eric Jerome Dickey, I don’t think you will be disappointed. Go here for your own copy!

Thoughts 2 Weeks Later

After approximately two and a half weeks with the 45th President of the U.S.A. I am seriously at a loss for the right words to convey the utter confusion and exasperation I feel almost daily. When people voiced their exasperation with the loss of livelihoods during the 44th Presidential term, I listened and understood their concerns. What I didn’t really get was how the practises of the Republican nominee could be overlooked because of his vociferous voice for change based on the marginalization of seemingly every group of people who were not of white, European descent. I mean, really. You want me to overlook a person’s own words, which have not changed in content at all, when many can not look past the words, actions, mistakes of people different from them the world over. Many view the actions, words, and mistakes of people different from them to be all that defines them, that there is no change of heart or personality no matter what happens in that person’s life later. People of color are painted with a broad brush colored by any past misdeeds and placed before the world as a strategic problem of their ethnic origins or country of origin. White people of European descent on the other hand are often portrayed as acting alone, mentally ill, and hardly ever branded as terrorists. In America today, we seem to be showing the world that it takes large amounts of money to a targeted group, agreement that anything that uplifts others is to be suspect, and voices of difference are to be mocked and discredited at all costs, to be the standard bearer. People have long been leery of difference, strangers, and anything that questions the status quo, but the only real change comes from these things. It was true in the 1700’s and it is still true today. If the white founding fathers of this young country hadn’t been adventurous strangers who questioned the rule of the day, there would be no U.S.A. As a woman of color I have been looking into the face of discrimination and fear of change for all my life, yet most of that time it was well hidden behind seemingly courteous people who would never dream that they were in anyway oppressors of others. We have all been biased towards people and places for a myriad  of reasons, yet today we are divided in ways I can’t recall since the Black Civil Rights Era or even the contentious American Civil War. People of color are often told to forget their roots, change their dress, language, mannerisms, all in an effort to be excepted in this country. Everyone else must acclimate but white Americans have the privilege of keeping your ancestral roots, language, and customs intact. You are even held in awe when you do so and devote festivals and days to this very thing. What we are telling these people of color now is none of that matters. No matter what you do, sacrifice, or learn to be in this country, we (white America) will not accept you. I have white friends who are sickened by this idea and its blatant visualization in America today. They have always been sickened by this and were often vocal about abuses of power and injustice. Yet many others are just awaking to a world that puts their own in jeopardy which they find unacceptable. These would also be the places here injustice that doesn’t personally touch them is viewed as suspect and not their problem. (This is another post itself) But, my friends of color are not surprised at all. We have been fighting this same fight to be seen on equal footing for hundreds of years and no matter how many apologies, reparations, or laws passed, what never changes is the learned perception of them versus us on the color spectrum. Unless we teach and show equality along with the systematic dismantling of the very system set up to run this country in a way that applauds and rewards a person’s white(ness) and connections, there will always be oppression, hate, and fear running rampant. Am I happy that many people seem to have awaken from a coma to question the power and reach of the 45th President? Sure I am, more people armed with knowledge usually leads to productive change for all. Am I sometimes disillusioned that it took something so drastic to make others take notice? Yes. Do I pray that these times bring a lasting change for the better? Constantly. I also work locally, speak in my small platform, educate whenever I can and seek knowldege so that I am doing my part to be an agent of change, not just a voice crying in the night about injustice that I won’t lift a finger to help eradicate. Why don’t you join me?