Not a Nation of Immigrants

Not a Nation of Immigrants: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (2021) 400 pages

This book appeared on my radar after reading an article based on a speech given by the author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. The subtitle is very clear about the themes in this well-researched book. "'A nation of immigrants' was a mid-twentieth-century revisionist origin story." Each of the eight chapters are so packed with historical detail and critiques of interpretations of that history that are problematic that it feels as if you are reading eight different non-fiction books connected to the theme of correcting this revisionist origin story of America. We explore a critique of the popular musical Hamilton, the genesis of settler colonialism, the racial capitalism of slavery, the continental imperialism of manifest destiny, Irish settlers and policing, the efforts of Americanizing Columbus, the Western panic against Asian immigrants, and the history of aggression against Mexico. She wraps it up by discussing how actual refugees and immigrants are treated in our settler state, a place where white supremacy still holds a strong grip. It is a call for a more honest understanding of our American history.
 

Ring Shout

Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark, 192 pages

It's 1922, and the Klan is raging in Macon, Georgia. Maryse is a young Black woman who's making a living bootlegging and fighting demons — specifically, the pointy-headed, hate-fueled Ku Kluxes that the human Klans may turn into — using the magic of Shouters and a Gullah woman, as well as a mystical sword that responds to her thirst for revenge. As the Ku Kluxes grow in numbers, and as other hate-filled creatures manifest around the screening of Birth of a Nation at Stone Mountain, Maryse must decide whether she's going to let her own hatred and quest for vengeance rule her, or if she can fight these demons in another way.

This is an AMAZING dark fantasy novel that reverberates through the last 100 years of U.S. history, and strips bare the white supremacy and problematic politics of today. It's powerful and unrelenting, and I can't recommend it heartily enough. This book needs to be read.

*This book will be published Oct. 13, 2020.

A Changed Man / Francine Prose 421 p.

This was a re-read of one my favorite authors.  Vincent Nolan is an extremely half-hearted member of a White Supremacist movement in upstate New York when he decides to break free, under threat of retribution from his former friends.  He takes sanctuary at the Manhattan office of Meyer Maslow, a holocaust survivor who runs a Human-Rights-Watch type of organization.  Vincent's story, although seemingly implausible, becomes believable in Prose's hands.