“Those girls” are the Vignes twins, who at a very young age, saw five white men lynching their black father. The neighbors predicted that the girls couldn’t be “right” afterwards, and indeed, both girls went on to make many questionable choices. This novel — a bestseller — appeared on many … Read More
Tag: Race
“Antiracist ideas argue that racist policies are the cause of racial inequities.”
It is easier to blame people for making mistakes than it is to consider the role that policies play in determining outcomes. Ibram X. Kendi writes, “Americans have long been trained to see the deficiencies of people rather than policy” (28). For example, when my book club discussed of … Read More
“Michael reciting the Declaration of Independence was an echo of something that existed elsewhere.”
In The Underground Railroad, Michael is a slave in Georgia in the 1850s who was taught to recite, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” This is one of many powerful scenes in this novel that show how the ideal of “equality” fell short … Read More