How the Word is Passed

 

"How do you tell a story that has been told the wrong way for so long?"

Read this book. Just order it, go check it out, download it on your magical book-reading device, whatever. But, read. this. book.

I had read quite a bit about Clint Smith's book before I checked it out, but I was honestly worried it would read too much like a text book. I could not have been more wrong. Smith's writing is eloquent and beautiful and in stark contrast at times to the horrific stories that he reveals (he describes his grandma's voice as sounding like the front porch of a home where everyone you love is inside. Are you kidding me??) 

This book should replace what all of us learned in school about slavery. It should be required reading.

In Smith's book, he sets out to reveal the real history about slavery in America, most specifically in places where it has somehow faded into the background. The story is told through visits to places like Monticello, the Angola Prison in Louisiana, and the House of Slaves in Senegal. What we find through his writing is that most of what we've all been taught is the surface history of slavery in this country. We've largely ignored, for example, that much of what Wall Street is built on was once slave markets and burial grounds. 

I have talked to so many people about this book and I keep giving away key lessons and key parts. I want YOU to read it, though. To see how even the people trying to tell the full story of slavery have managed to manipulate it for their own purpose. I want you to read about the conversations Smith has with white women at Monticello about their thoughts on Thomas Jefferson. I want you to picture black men working the fields in Louisiana - not in the 1800s, but now - in a state prison where their labor is still a commodity. 

I want you to know what the tour guide means when she tells people on her tour of slavery sites in New York City "Don't believe anything if it makes you too comfortable." 

I want you to read it so we can talk about it - with each other and with everyone else.