Amelia Halgren > Recent Status Updates

End of chapter 36... 💥

😂

“Now, many white people... conceive of blackness only as an experience defined by racism and unmitigated misery.... people would occasionally (and with a palpable sense of generosity on their behalf), say to me: “I don’t even see you as black” ...as if this was the greatest compliment they could bestow upon me... Don’t tell me you don’t see race, my blackness is something I have no desire to erase....”

Irun Didi

https://englishessaykce.files.wordpre...

The names ‘cornrows’ and ‘canerows’ harken back to crops cultivated by the enslaved:

“Unlike the English names which directly reference an enslaved past, the Yuruba names originate in world that exists prior to one in which slavery became the dominant signifier of black life. The names serve as a powerful reminder that we have identities that existed before, beyond, and outside the legacy of slavery.”

“Generally black people know that our hair takes time and effort to do so they don’t generally try to put their hands up in it. I think there is also more of an awareness of boundaries and personal space as well as the enduring (if these days almost implicit awareness) that our hair has a spiritual significance. Look, but don’t touch. White people, take note.”

“The ordeal eventually ends and my hair has been transformed into a style I can now recognize as Shuku”

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mPRWBRiZYo...

“In denying black people their humanity, the hair that grows from their heads was —one might argue still is— considered more similar to the wool or fur of an animal than to the straight, human tresses of Europeans.”

🥺

I’m feeling conflicted... not sure if I want to continue.

It’s always difficult to write a historic female protagonist with modern values and I like how Beverly Jenkins has handled this... but... I’ve reached the wedding night and I feel like I’m reading about two people who don’t really have mutual affection or respect yet... which I’m really struggling with.

OMG YOU ARE KILLING ME WITH CHOCOLATE CAKE! 🤤 😫 🤤 .... 🤣

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many pies!”

...oh... that’s because you’ve never attended our family’s Thanksgiving! 🤣🤣🤣

Seriously though... this book is making me laugh out loud every so often. “Did I shoot the sherif???”

This narrative so perfectly encapsulates the human experience of trying to figure out our personal identity, the way our memories work selectively through that process... the teenager in this case just happens to be trans.

The vulnerability of this narrative has me in tears. This might be a five star read for me:

“...to force me into a box... for their own comfort because...they are afraid of me. To know that there are people ...who hate me, want to hurt me, want to erase my identity... just like there are people out there who hate me for the color of my skin— it’s enraging, infuriating... but it also hurts.”

“I’m ashamed... I somehow thought that the sort of hate I see every day happening to other trans people would never actually touch me.”

“I know that as a trans person of color my life expectancy is in my early thirties, just because of the kind of violence people like me face every day. I know all of this. But somehow everything’s always felt so far away. I can exit out of the articles online, switch the channel from the news... and only worry about things like my future and what I’m going to do with my life...”

“I see the articles, the stories about transgender people being refused healthcare, students like me being bullied and forced into the wrong bathrooms, teens my own age being kicked out of their homes, adults being fired from their jobs just for being who they are. So many of us attacked and killed just for walking down the street. So many of us deciding to take our own lives because we aren’t accepted.”

“...I’ve never really had to experience this kind of hate for who I am before, not directly. I always see it on the news... the way the government is trying to erase me, the way politicians try to pretend transgender people don’t exist —even though we DO exist and ALWAYS have and ALWAYS will...”

This is my first Brenda Jackson novel... but... I’m not going to finish this.