The Fire This Time

I meant to read this after I read Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, and instead I read it now after another set of unjust deaths at the hands of police and vigilante white people in the US. After another widespread series of protests that has won some concessions but seems to have fallen off the media radio atm.

It doesn't feel like much has changed, and it gets hard to see how we can get from here (casual disregard for Black life) to wear we want to be.

2.5
“Black and Blue” by Garnette Cadogan is the highlight ★★★★★

I absolutely loved this collection of essays and poems. I feel as if this is something that should be read by everyone. More to come as I process all of which I've read.

Really enjoyed essays by Jesmyn Ward, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, and Honoree Fanonne Jeffers especially.

Essential reading.

I thought this would make me too sad and angry, and it did, but there is also so much hope and optimism laced throughout the stories and poems when it was all done I felt energized.

Don't get me wrong, there were times when I stopped and hung my head because it hurt so much. There were times when I wanted to scream to someone ‘why don't you see this?! why can't we stop it?!'. Times when I only felt a glimpse of the debilitating fear a mother must feel watching her black child leave the house - and not for the reasons I might be afraid for my children - and even that was almost too much.

But there is strength here. And beauty and humor and hope. Always hope.