Written by: Margo Jefferson
First line: I was taught to avoid showing off.
Why you should read this book: In a prose memoir that reads like poetry, Jefferson recounts her own story, steeped in the influence of race, class, and gender, set in the context of her family and community and everything that came before her. Born in Chicago among the Black elite, she is taught from her earliest memories that she must be impeccable in word, deed, and appearance, to uphold the image projected by the privileged, perfected society that molded her: a group intentionally set apart from, and quietly superior to, other Black people along with all of white America. As she grows up through the civil rights movement and finds her own path and her own personality, the weight of inequality and expectations causes her to question and examine the principles of her own upbringing, her own individual identity, and her right to perfect imperfection.
Why you shouldn't read this book: Your parents didn't raise you at all.
Buy Negroland: A Memoir here!
No comments:
Post a Comment