Review: Black AF History

 

The cover of the book shows the remnants of a painting of white USA politicians (likely including the "founding fathers') with a large chunk of the center torn out leaving a black background. In the black space, in large gold letters is, "Black AF History: The un-whitewashed story of America" and the author's name "Michael Harriot." Scrawled in red on the remains of the painting has various mens heads circled or scratched out with the words, "mediocre, petty, thief, just rich af, human traffickers, and drug smuggler" labeling different men.

I love it when an author, teacher, or other information sharer captures my attention with a history lesson. Growing up, I hated history class in grade school. We were taught history by white football coaches and, I didn't yet know at the time, that it was mostly lies. This affected me, including the type of books I would seek out or media I would watch. Why would I want more of what the coach was telling me? It was not until college that I got a dose of what history class could be like and what real history was. Since then, I have sought out texts on histories of various things, recent and far past. Michael Harriot's Black AF History is a welcome addition to that list.

One of this books biggest strengths is that it is hilarious without being degrading or dismissive of the horrors of USA history. This is no easy feat. The book centers Black folks and thus, the humor is centers them as well, but I still found myself regularly laughing at the author's delivery (and at myself.) He gives the reader relief at the right times even when we are learning about slavery and genocide. I do want to note that he also makes an effort to cover indigenous struggle, at least in the beginning. The book is very accessibly written as well, not just in the language it uses, but how Harriot uses it. It's fun. He peppers it with little bits of memoir here and there. If this was our textbook in high school, I think many people would have liked history class a bit more. It even has a textbook structure with questions at the end (though they are often borderline or completely rhetorical.)

The book is also very strong in how it tells the human histories (mostly in the USA.) The colonizers, enslavers, white supremacists, and so forth are not the hero main characters, unlike in most USA history books. Rosa Parks is not just a tired woman on a bus and Abraham Lincoln is not the great liberator. Rosa Parks is the highly organized racial justice activist who bravely added her actions to that of many other resistors of oppression and Abraham Lincoln is a boring dude who made it very clear that liberating slaves was the last thing on his agenda. The book cover gives a little taste of this. Both of these facts and the many others in the book are backed up by extensive research and reliable sources. Harriot tells the reader of the nuances in Black thought and belief throughout the centuries up until around the late 1900s (dang, it still feels weird to say that.) He re-frames stories of abuse, struggle, resistance, and victory from the side of the Black folks who went through it. There are many things in this book that I did not know about, even in reading histories that are actually grounded in reality. This book is one of the few that really takes apart the way history is told and completely redesigns it, rather than correcting it in a familiarly boring or whitewashed language.

The section on Black churches was very interesting to me. I admit that I was one of many people who, an atheist from a young age, thought Black Christianity was something that seemed forced upon them by white colonizers and grew with time. I've always known the importance of community that (some) churches provided and thus, like most religion, generally stay out of it. Harriot details the histories of Black churches as more complex sites of enslaved and formerly enslaved people combining belief systems from varied African countries of origin and Christianity to create their own belief systems and practices. This was really eye-opening and fascinating. I did feel myself pushing back a little, though. LGBTQ Black folks I have known have often cited people super involved with Christianity as a negative influence on their lives, just as have white LGBTQ folks despite their churches being different within and between groups. Since I am pretty ignorant of religion aside from what I read and what folks who have been involved tell me, I cannot say much more than that.

My other criticism is the liberalism at the end of the book. I mean liberal as in USA democrats (aka slightly less right wing than republicans) who ignore when their own politicians do the same thing as republicans. It's odd because, throughout the whole book Harriot makes it clear how the problems with oppression are USAmerican problems, not political party problems. He details how the non-Black North and South, "left" and right, etc supported things like slavery in their own ways. But, in the end, he ends up coming for modern day conservatives and Donald Trump while conveniently leaving out when dems did similarly horrific things (such as Obama's war-criminal foreign policy and border/immigration atrocities.) His point is that republicans are worse (true,) but is that really how you are gonna end this book? After all of that time teaching us about the USA, all of those stories of Black revolt and community, democrats are all we get? It almost felt like that section was from a different author or book. 

All of that said, I think this book will benefit a wider variety of readers than even more radical history texts. It has the academic info without the dry or insufferable jargony lingo. It is funny, yet dead serious. And, for the most part, it reveals much of the heart and soul of USAmerica (and the people who really built it.)

This was also posted to my goodreads.