Two book reviews: One on apartheid & one on Jim Crow
I'm probably the very last person in Berkeley to read Isabel Wilkerson's
excellent book, "The Warmth of Other Suns". And how do I know this?
Because when I filed a hold-request for it at the Berkeley Public Library, I ended up
being something like 60th in line for the next of 25 copies then out on
loan. However, it was well worth the wait. https://www.amazon.com/Warmth-Other-Suns-Americas-Migration/dp/0679763880
Wilkerson's book describes the insanely brutal Jim Crow practices that
took place in the American South -- and in such scary detail that it
made me cry. Jim Crow policies were in several ways even worse than
slavery. "But, Jane," you might say, "nothing could have been worse
than slavery in the Ole South." Yes it could.
With slavery, at least slave owners were slightly constrained with regard to the physical damage they could do because of limitations inherently imposed on them by not wanting to damage their own property. With Jim Crow, however, there were no such constraints. Torture and lynchings were every-day occurrences in the "post-bellum" South -- and they were common occurrences there for over 70 years. This book was chilling.
With slavery, at least slave owners were slightly constrained with regard to the physical damage they could do because of limitations inherently imposed on them by not wanting to damage their own property. With Jim Crow, however, there were no such constraints. Torture and lynchings were every-day occurrences in the "post-bellum" South -- and they were common occurrences there for over 70 years. This book was chilling.
Then author Richard Hardigan asked me to review his new book, "The
Other Side of the Wall," which is about every-day life in Occupied
Palestine for the last 70 years. And it was deja vu all over again. Jim Crow had apparently left the American South and moved over to Palestine. http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-photo-ban-article-1578539473
Hardigan's book is a fascinating account of a heinous caste system in
Palestine that is very similar to the heinous caste system in the
American south under Jim Crow -- and just as cruel too. And, much to my
surprise, Hardigan's book was also an intriguing page-turner --
although, unlike Wilkerson's book, no one yet knows how this story will
end. However, reading these two books side by side at the same time, I
was struck by the parallel similarities between how White Southerners
had set up their caste system and Israeli neo-cons have set up theirs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2W3aG8uizA
PS:
Sometimes referred to as the Negro Holocaust, untold numbers of
lynchings took place in the American South before the Civil Rights
movement tried to put a stop to this ghastly behavior. And in the
Jewish Holocaust, approximately six million Jews were murdered.
Imagine what it would be like if the troubled souls of Negro Holocaust
victims could look down on us today, only to discover that much of
America is still almost as racist as ever.
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