Adam Shields
Summary: A black history textbook wrapped up in a comedic wrapper.
I am all about a good Black history book. And I also really appriciate history told by comedians because they are trying to get around the way that many people are resistant to dry dates and events presentations of history.
Black AF History is not a dry presentation. The humor mostly works to get to the heart of the presentation. I think some of the voice of his uncle sections fall a bit flat. But the vast majority works well.
I think on of the by products of the presenation is that this is not a universal Black presentation, but a particular black presentation. That should be obvious becuase there is no universal Black experience that is true of all Black peole at all times. Harriot grew up with a rural southern Black cultural experience. That experience will be differnet from an northern urban Black experience and different from a midwestern farmbelt experience and different from California suburban experience. And all of these are still stereotypical in some way which makes them also incomplete.
It is a very rare history book that doesn't give me new information or nuance that I have not heard before. There is just too much history for anyone to know it all and no book can present it all. I think this is a very good presentation, but part of the benefit of the comedy is that he can pull out little known aspects of history and focus on them, because he isn't trying to do a complete survey, but point out how the history is not known well enough.
One of those figures that was new to me here is Mary Ellen Pleasant, arguably the first Black woman to be a milionaire. And adjusted for inflation, she may be considered the first Black billionaire. But she was also an abolitionist and is reportedly the funder of John Brown's Harper's Ferry raid. If the evidence is accurate she donated more than a million dollars in today value toward the raid. She underwrote court cases around desegregation and was an active abolitionist before the civil war. But she is a figure that I didn't know existed prior to this book.
I originally posted this on my blog at https://bookwi.se/black-af-history/
Originally posted at bookwi.se.
Summary: A black history textbook wrapped up in a comedic wrapper.
I am all about a good Black history book. And I also really appriciate history told by comedians because they are trying to get around the way that many people are resistant to dry dates and events presentations of history.
Black AF History is not a dry presentation. The humor mostly works to get to the heart of the presentation. I think some of the voice of his uncle sections fall a bit flat. But the vast majority works well.
I think on of the by products of the presenation is that this is not a universal Black presentation, but a particular black presentation. That should be obvious becuase there is no universal Black experience that is true of all Black peole at all times. Harriot grew up with a rural southern Black cultural experience. That experience will be differnet from an northern urban Black experience and different from a midwestern farmbelt experience and different from California suburban experience. And all of these are still stereotypical in some way which makes them also incomplete.
It is a very rare history book that doesn't give me new information or nuance that I have not heard before. There is just too much history for anyone to know it all and no book can present it all. I think this is a very good presentation, but part of the benefit of the comedy is that he can pull out little known aspects of history and focus on them, because he isn't trying to do a complete survey, but point out how the history is not known well enough.
One of those figures that was new to me here is Mary Ellen Pleasant, arguably the first Black woman to be a milionaire. And adjusted for inflation, she may be considered the first Black billionaire. But she was also an abolitionist and is reportedly the funder of John Brown's Harper's Ferry raid. If the evidence is accurate she donated more than a million dollars in today value toward the raid. She underwrote court cases around desegregation and was an active abolitionist before the civil war. But she is a figure that I didn't know existed prior to this book.
I originally posted this on my blog at https://bookwi.se/black-af-history/
Originally posted at bookwi.se.