Hillbilly Elegy - A Companion Reader from the View of a Black Person

INTRODUCTION

J.D. Vance starts  his memoir with a confession. I will start this commentary with one. I confess that I did not want to read this book as it seemed nothing but an excuse for why poor, rural, white people voted for Donald Trump. It may yet turn out to be that.

I am struck,  however,  by what I think Vance's actual goal was: to explain the effects of poverty and its attendant social isolation without the distraction of the racial filter.

What Vance does not know though is that there is always a racial filter. Even the fact that he seeks to explain poverty in a white environment so people can "get it" has the cloud of the white filter.

Trust me. Black people of all socioeconomic levels get how "deep anger and resentment" lead their communities to despair, turning them into "hub(s) of misery". Nevertheless, Vance diligently and earnestly seeks to explain how the demons of that life, even when "left behind" continue to haunt a life.

This is evidence  that the racial filter simply cannot be dropped: what Vance doesn't seem to know is that  black people do not ever get to leave that life behind - even if they were never actually in it (me); even if they transcend it. Just ask Obama.

Still, I will  continue to read and reflect as I go, but as a black, city-centered woman, I expect I will learn much more about living in rural America than I will about climbing the jungle gym to The American Dream. But if Vance thought I would be surprised about the desperate lives of some poor white people,  he has another think coming.

Film review - “BlacKKKlansman”

“BlackkKlansman” -
Spike Lee is back.

I posted this online review because it highlights a crystalline statement in the film about the role of white women, the majority of whom voted  for Trump. The epitome of gluttony and American Pie, the wife of a white supremacist cannot see her actual position within the flaming circle of hate.

Washington plays Ron Stallworth like  Shaft-  calm, confident and aware.
 
With his character, the always excellent Adam Driver exhibits a form of racism that is often frowned upon as an individual failing, but he does it with such delicacy that the universal question is posed: if a racist fells a tree and you aren’t there to hear it, did it happen? Does it matter?
   
The use of  classic films and real life images is exquisite and powerful. One scene is eerily reminiscent of the massacre/christening scene in The Godfather.
   
This film does not preach because Lee knows that you already hear the message. With gut wrenching accuracy he ties the past  to the present or rather, shows how the past ties the present, damn near strangling the future.

Yes, Spike Lee is back.