After just a few pages, I knew I was going to love Mateo Ashkaripour’s Black Buck (2021): smart, funny, relevant, incisive. A few chapters in, Buck says: “I should’ve known from the Middle Passage to never trust a white man who says ‘Take a seat.’ It could be your last.”
This clever and witty novel is about the paid workforce, about the stories we tell, ourselves and one another, about the sticky territory between consumption and choice, how we yearn and persuade. But there’s no question that profit is exploitative, that capitalism fuelled the slave trade.
“If slavery were an American state it would have the population of California and the economic output of the District of Columbia, but it would be the world’s third-largest producer of CO2, after China and the United States.”
In Blood and Earth (2016), Kevin Bales outlines many reasons. When I was growing up, I believed that slavery was something that happened in some other time and some other place. Now that I am grown, I know that the land currently called Canada played and plays a role in this system and I, as a consumer, am implicated as well. We can no longer “plead ignorance, only indifference” and either “we act to make our ideals reality or we do nothing and attempt to un-know what we know”. Bales’ book is optimistic and determined; he outlines the statistics and how patterns can be shifted to prioritize human rights.
“We are mining by proxy every time we buy a cellphone or a piece of gold jewelry. When we choose to load up the barbecue with shrimp, we are fishing by proxy. When we buy furniture or cars or kitchen sinks, we are cutting down forests by proxy, turning them into charcoal by proxy, and smelting iron by proxy. What we eat, or choose to wear, the things we buy for our homes, or choose not to buy, all link us in one relationship after another to people in slavery, national economies, and protected forests.”
Understanding the pernicious persistence of this institution can fuel your determination to un-learn and re-learn. Jerald Walker’s title essay in How to Make a Slave (2020) embodies the adage that the personal is political—in one minute you’re helping a child with their homework and in another you’re up-ending centuries of tradition. This collection is the perfect combination for me: easy to chew through—five or six pages each, usually—but digestion can take some time. (Yes, I just reread the essay about shopping as a Black man in Whole Foods.)
There’s a sense of intimacy in that he shares his individual experiences but with a gentle polish to it so that it’s easy to slip into thinking about universality. (I’ll be looking out for more books published by Mad Creek, an imprint of Ohio U Press.) “My [early] stories showed people being affected by drug addiction, racism, poverty, murder, crime, violence, but they said nothing about the spirit that, despite being confronted with what often amounted to certain defeat, would continue to struggle and aspire for something better. That old slave song ‘We Shall Overcome’ pretty much says it all.”
Although more of a memoir than a cultural study, Ben Philippe’s Sure I’ll Be Your Black Friend: Notes from the Other Side of the Fist Bump (2021), does not shy from the historical legacy of enslavement. In his glossary, one of the funniest parts of the books, under “Field Dreams”, he writes: “I dream a lot about being a slave these days. It’s very off-putting; like a weird set dressing over otherwise perfectly mundane, borderline-cliched dreams.”
Robert Jones Jr’s The Prophets (2021) is set in those fields, rooted in a love story: “Meanwhile, Isaiah turned on his side to face Samuel and all his soft parts were open and free, tingling without shame. They looked at each other and then they were each other, there, both of them, in the dark.” This is what drew me in, Isaiah and Samuel’s connection. But what held my interest so securely was the way that the narrative spirals outward from there; as new characters are introduced, readers are connected to them through these new voices’ proximity to the young lovers. This statement, then, is ironic: “There are many stories to tell. Here is one….”
In this way, readers witness everyday life on the plantation, Empty. There is a lot of sorrow, even beyond the Black community’s experience of slavery: “The house itself was built on top of bones. She could hear them rattling every once in a while because the shacks, too, were essentially tombstones for the land’s First People, often unengraved.”
And enslaved lives are afforded a complexity that reminds readers that there was not just one way to experience this institution: “Everywhere a girl existed, there was someone telling her that she was her own fault and leading a ritual to punish her for something she never did. It hadn’t always been this way. Blood memory confirmed this and women were the bearers of the blood.” But, did I say that it’s a love story? It’s beautiful.
Earlier this year, Rebecca recommended Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard (2006) which feels like what Andrea Stuart might have written if she was a poet. This is very much a family story but, within that framework, there are so many historical elements and events that a few dozen pages feel saturated with the past.
Even when it comes to the cover—pulled from a diary page, which was reproduced in Thank God My regiment’s an African One: The Civil War Diary of Colonel Nathan W. Daniels—we have the past beneath the title of the poet’s collection.
You can’t separate past and memory (familial, personal, national) from what’s unfolding in the present, including the attempt to unravel and embrace what’s come before.
In “Southern History”, for instance:
“History, the teacher said, of the old South—
a true account of how things were back then.
On screen a slave stood big as life: big mouth,
bucked eyes, our textbook’s grinning proof—a lie
my teacher guarded. Silent, so did I.”
When I began this project at the beginning of the year, I wondered how readily available 32 books on this subject would be, what kind of an impact they would have on the nature of my stacks. As with my climate crisis reading list, there are so many interesting authors and works on this subject that this project seems poised to continue.
Any new recommendations for me and other readers following along?
And caffeine fuelled capitalism! LOL
I just added a bunch of these to my list on Goodreads and my list at the library – so many goodies! The only one I’ve read is Sure, I’ll be Your Black Friend (except I listened to it). I especially enjoyed hearing about his own family’s history. And all his half-siblings that he doesn’t seem to have an interest in! (Because they are associated with their father?) And his experiences as a boy in school. Which brings me to a suggestion for your project… Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy. We have it at the library, and I’m very tempted by it.
So true! And not only is most of the world’s coffee supply implicated, but the sugar poured into it too.
His books are readily available in Canada because of his Montreal connection, but I’m very happy to see he’s getting so much international attention now! (I started watching a show this summer, because he’s the main writer…now, if only I could remember which one ).
That’s a great suggestion, thank you. Did you know there’s a 2020 copy titled Man, presumably the original book, and the 2021 is titled Boy, guessing for younger readers (like the dual Kendi books)? (At first I was alarmed that the Canadian edition had retitled it and been very disrespectful!)
A very thought provoking piece, of course all our choices are political. And lots of things we may choose to buy might come with a chain of unacceptable realities behind it.
It’s true: these consumption patterns are everywhere. The irony is tidily illustrated by the idea of a #BLM T-shirt being produced in a slave-labour establishment.
I have never thought of my consumption in terms of slavery – in terms of sustainability always, but slavery, no. And it’s not really on my reading radar either so I’m not sure what I’ll do about that.
I do think that timber for furniture is both sustainable and desirable. Timber for woodchipping is a problem, which some think may be solved by flax; and timber for house frames involves a lot of plantations. Land clearing to feed pigs and cattle to feed people that’s the biggie.
My parents’ generation congratulated themselves that they treated the Aborigines well, gave them every opportunity to pull themselves up by their boot straps. We (liberals) now know that was not true, that our treatment of the Indigenous population involved concentration camps, slavery and mass murder and that continues today – state governments refuse to pay back wages stolen from (“banked for”) Black workers, police prejudice leads to obscenely high rates of incarceration (all the children in jail in the Northern Territory are Aboriginal), health and education and affordable vegetables are denied to remote communities and so on.
The problem is that none of this is accepted, or is only beginning to be accepted, as true by the general population, let alone by our right-wing Federal government.
If you’re interested in sustainability, Kevin Bales’ book would be of interest. The link between slavery and the climate crisis is clear, and he has an excellent way of explaining historical developments and consumption patterns with clarity and precision. You and I share a weakness for sweets, so you’ll be particularly interested in the ongoing exploitation in the sugar “trade”. (Which is not an historical phenomenon, turns out.)
Same here, in (the country currently called) Canada. All the same unjust patterns. Just last week I heard an interview on NPR about Australia’s evolving response to Covid and the guest was speaking about the inaccurate reporting of an old lumber camp that is now being used as quarantine housing for repatriating Australians returning “home”, and the complex having been portrayed (in right-wing media) as a “concentration camp”, while overlooking the reality of the present-day existing camps offshore (New Guinea and another island too, I believe), the implication being that the reporters don’t object to these structures being used for “those people” or “those purposes” as though they somehow “deserve” such treatment.)
The Prophets sounds excellent! But so many good options here. I love how Blood and Earth puts the responsibility so squarely on our shoulders as consumers. So many of the major producers are just as bad as each other, so it can feel hopeless sometimes—I don’t want to go without modern technology, but I know about the rare materials inside them and how they’re mined. But there are alternatives, e.g. Fairphone, which I’m planning to buy next time I need a new one.
Thank you so much for sharing the Fairphone idea (I’m linking the site here too); we had located a modular option that we were planning on but this looks like an even better option (not only resource-aware but human-rights-aware too). One of the reasons that I am obsessively trying to change various other consumption habits, is that I know I haven’t adequately resolved that cobalt question, and it haunts me. The components in our phones were apparently sourced as conflict-free, but I’m not confident in their process.
Ooo… Thanks for the link to Fairphone!
You think the kids would be willing to sacrifice cutting-edge tech?
I tried to write a response to this last night and my computer completely seized up. I had to go to bed.
I think what I said is that sometimes I yearn to return to my time of ignorance so I didn’t have to be always second-guessing myself about doing and saying the right and fair thing, but then I realise what a privileged thing to be able to even think – so I pick myself up and soldier on.
Slavery is a fraught point in Australian history but what happened to Indigenous people here was slavery – forced labour, payment in food and clothing, needing permission to move, etc etc.
Yes, that’s true here, too. I’m still hoping to include The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andrés Reséndez in a post later this year, but the weeks are flying past and it’s proven to be such a rich reading theme. For an informative but not entirely grim take on the indigenous experience, that still casts a light on these shadowed historical elements, I recommend Thomas King’s Inconvenient Indian. Very short and sharp, and one of those books that makes you want to read aloud clever passages. (From HarperCollins, I believe, so hopefully he’s crossed the ocean on the page.)
I think I need to read The Prophets.
You’d appreciate the romantic side of the story, I believe.
I really want to read Black Buck, I’ve heard so many good things about it. And I’m looking forward to reading Roots with you this month!
It’s longer page-count-wise than I’d expected, but it reads very quickly; I think you’ll find it a great read. Oh, yes, I should have taken the opportunity to repeat the offer that anyone else interested in reading Roots with Liz and me, and two other readers, just let us know. We’ve barely begun reading, so there’s still time to be included without a hiccup!
Glad you enjoyed the Jones and Trethewey. I’m sure The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois (Honoree Fanonne Jeffers) is on your radar. Too long and sprawling for me, but it’s been very well received. I’m more likely to reach for The Sweetness of Water (Nathan Harris) since it made the Booker Prize longlist, but it’s still not widely available over here. You could have spent the whole year reading on this topic!
I remember that you weren’t fond of the Jones? but I think you mentioned that you thought I would respond differently? Trethewey is now on my MustReadEverything list informally (the one I run in my mind, because it’s become too stressful to look at the actual pen-and-ink list having grown to such unmanageable proportions). Thank you for the nudge about Love Songs; it was on my radar but I hadn’t placed a hold (though ironically it’s not a very long hold list in comparison, so I’ll only have to wait a couple of months). A whole year just on American-history related titles, which isn’t actually what I’d envisioned…
There were aspects of the Jones I didn’t care for, but still a 3.5* read. (His 10 pages of acknowledgments made me laugh, too! I don’t think a debut author should be allowed more than 5 pages. He’s not the only one I’ve noticed that habit in recently.) Trethewey’s memoir Memorial Drive was very good. I don’t know any of her other work.
LOL I absolutely LOVED those acknowledgements. IIRC, he also thanked the books and songs that had given him strength while writing? I could relate to that. Though, yes, I was surprised that the publishers afforded that number of pages for his gratitude; I’ve heard stories of publishers having limited that portion of the book (cost having been cited as the reason).