Black lives, American love Essays on race & resilience

Explorations of Black selfhood and community-building. Maroon, a cultural anthropologist and CEO of an urban research institute, explores the status of Black identities in America and the possibilities that exist for cultivating redemptive love. In a series of essays, the author mixes personal reflections with a scholarly view of broader social realities as he takes on a series of pressing topics, including the social construction of race, the politics of the 1619 Project, and the origins and consequences of police brutality. At its best, Maroon's writing is engaging in its reckoning with the complexities of Black experience. In "Mahicantuk: An Ever Giving River," the author subtly argues for the significance of questioning dominant cultural narratives--and of recovering buried histories--in order to live authentically in the present. "Creating Blackness" and "Black Spectrums" provide insightful commentary on the urgency of--and inevitable difficulties involved in--constructing a racial self linked to community and tradition. In "Hope and Rage," one of the most memorable essays, Maroon poignantly recounts her involvement with the Black Lives Matter movement and confrontations with astonishingly virulent prejudices in her community. "The density of hate, the volume of anger, dazed me," she writes. "It felt like falling through a time hole and turning up in the jarring black-and-white footage of civil rights protestors being swarmed by hysterical anti-Black crowds." The most personal and moving essay, "American Love," vigorously affirms the author's journey to self-acceptance as the necessary foundation of loving others properly. Though much of the collection highlights the suffering inflicted by historical and contemporary injustices, what stands out most vividly is Maroon's conviction that, with the proper effort and encouragement, enough of America will "continue to embody the best of agape kindness" and make possible greater collective understanding and healing. An eloquent and perceptive series of essays on Black lives in America. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.