Un destello de libertad: De #BlackLivesMatter a la Liberación Negra by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Un destello de libertad: De #BlackLivesMatter a la Liberación Negra Reviews

• 
  Sarah Jaffe

  Read it. You'll learn things. And you'll like it.
• 
  Maki

  I am highly recommending this book!
  
  I read it on a long flight in December 2017 without having any expectations. The book is sharing historical contexts trying to answer one question: what does it mean to be black in the U.S.? “The black experience unravels what we are supposed to know to be true about America itself—the land of milk and honey, the land where hard work makes dreams come true. This mythology is not benign: it serves as the United States’ self-declared invitation to intervene militarily and economically around the globe." Although this book is essentially written in a critical way, it doesn´t lack objectivity and It’s offering an insight into different aspects of society. It’s addressing issues of black communities, but at the same time, it successfully regards questions that commonly confront us all despite our race.
  
  Some of the main topics in the book are:
  
  1. "colour blindness": "Colorblindness and “postracial” politics are vested in false ideas that the United States is a meritocratic society where hard work makes the difference between those who are successful and those who are not
  2. the essence of inequality
  3. black establishment
  
  Also, some historical perspectives are mentioned:
  
  "Marx was highlighting three things: First, that capitalism promotes economic competition between workers; second, that the ruling class uses racist ideology to divide workers against each other; and, finally, that when one group of workers suffer oppression, it negatively affects all workers and the class as a whole."
  
  "The long list of attributes that Reagan proudly recites is wholly contingent on the erasure or rewriting of three central themes in American history—genocide, slavery, and the massive exploitation of waves of immigrant workers. “This “cruel reality” made the “soaring ideals” of American exceptionalism and American democracy possible."
• 
  Destiney Linker

  Just finished, and the only thing I can articulate right now is that this is required reading for humanity.
• 
  Juan Pablo

  I don't think I've ever been so excited to get to a book only to be so disappointed at its conclusion.
  
  The bulk of the book is very informative & analyzes what current movements such as #BlackLivesMatter movement currently represent & how they can illuminate where black people & black consciousness are in regards to black liberation. Even going so far as to ask what exactly does black liberation mean?
  
  The first 3 chapters are about black people's history & experiences from slavery to the civil war up through the civil rights movement & to the black power movements. From there it goes onto who benefitted & who was left behind & the role of the black middle class in regards to the government allowing their rise to quell blacks fears & stem an upward tide in uprisings & movements. She makes plainly clear the emptiness that comes with black faces in high places whether you're talking about the black political elite in the past or present black political leaders & especially Barack Obama. Even highlights the over-representation of black people in poverty, jail, police brutality etc.
  
  All this & more leaves the concluding chapter a huge disappointment & the conclusions drawn even more baffling. There is talk of anti-capitalist approaches to society as it currently functions, which I'm totally for. What is unforgivable is the ignoring of the past & how racism & white supremacy influenced white working class labor as well as white leftist organizations. Yes, the communist & socialist parties in the U.S. that were connected to Russia were chastised by Lenin & other leaders but they also did not change in response to this overnight & ,in many cases, did not change at all in regards to the question of black people & why they weren't agitating amongst them as they represented a significant subversive force within the U.S. The fact that many American leftist were significantly influenced by racist ideas is completely ignored & she begs the question by comparing it to how men fall prey to sexist thought & so & so forth with all other forms of oppression.
  
  Many leftists did not take black people's issues seriously enough & do what many white leftists today do, suffer from class reductionism. Class warfare is significant & important but it is not the only issue. She makes the mistake of equating racism by whites & black people's response to it as if they are on the same level. Yes, it is an ideological tool by the ruling classes to divide & obscure to poor white people how they are being exploited by class but that's something I find THEY need to be told. Any black people who are close to or are actually leftists stand little chance of solidarity with them because of either class reduction if they happen to be left leaning or they as a white working class worker always choose whiteness over solidarity with black people or any other group oppressed by society where they have more in common with them than they do the elites. She talks about over-representation of black people in poverty, crime, jail, etc in regards to racism but goes on to quip but more white people are suffering from this than black people, which is to miss the point entirely. This is basic statistics, there are more of them than us so it is not surprising that there are more of them in jail than us in sheer raw numbers. While it is a problem for all to suffer from poverty & all its ill-effects, they aren't over-represented in relation to their numbers of total population. This is why black people call attention to it because they are over-represented out of all proportion to their numbers in the population. And while yes, it is plenty reason for solidarity, black people aren't the reason for that solidarity not being there. There is a consistent history of the white working class choosing whiteness above all else even if it is to their own detriment but that is somehow the fault of black people & our issue to mend, which is utterly ridiculous.
  
  Even goes so far as to say white supremacy wasn't about establishing superiority but about obscuring class exploitation & removing blacks from political power as if none of that was accompanied by all manner of things that promoted their supposed "supremacy" & as if the elites, while they may look down on poor whites, still don't actually believe in the concept if even for far fewer than the ideology itself as a tool would suggest. It was to the point that my reaction to this was "This is unbelievable." White supremacy is definitely a powerful divider but people defending themselves from it are not part of the problem.
  
  There were questions raised in regards to whom to side with in a situation where black political leader is advocating for the closure of public schools & opening of private charters which are inherently exclusionary or a white political leaders that, for the sake of argument, in this instance was on the side of something beneficial to the black working class in trying to save public schools, questioning racial solidarity. If black people do not trust white leaders or white people in general, it is moreso because of the history of their actions as opposed to blind racial solidarity & to miss this obvious reaction is unbelievable.
  
  Overall, the book was okay. Much information in it can probably be found elsewhere & in better written books. Don't know how to feel about this one. The concluding chapter is unforgivable.
• 
  Kevin Gosztola

  While there has been much attention paid to issues of police violence and the rise of #BlackLivesMatter, most coverage does not address the disinvestment in black communities, which plays a role in what happens day in and day out. Taylor provides an exceptional overview of the history of government and its response to black rebellions. At each juncture, the government then failed to enact the right policies necessary to meaningfully deal with poverty and segregation.
  
  The book is also valuable for its focus on black elites and their role in the American political class, especially the Democratic Party. The Congressional Black Caucus has become a protector of the status quo. Black politicians work to "transcend" race, or they practice a kind of "post-black" politics. Taylor puts forward a full analysis for why black elites engage in this politics and what the impact is on black communities.
• 
  Mikre-Ab

  My desire to read this grew out of a disconcerting feeling that I didn’t truly know what was going on. For a man of color I was, and remain, albeit a little less after reading this book, woefully unaware of the conditions that gave rise to the systematic disenfranchisement of Black people and minorities. You see, I knew we had been disenfranchised. I understood that to be the truth; I just didn’t know how it came about, and I, therefore, was inclined to ignore, willfully at times, the current state of Black folk in this country. This book, however, doesn’t allow for ignorance.
  
  Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor skillfully unveils the different ways in which surreptitious forces coalesced to give rise to the unfathomable rates of unemployment, incarceration, poverty, and police brutality that we observe in Black communities. The statistics and anecdotes are mind-boggling. One can only be amazed how, a nation that touts the lofty ideals of “Equality” & “Justice” can simultaneously be the breeding ground for a vehemently executed, and fervently implemented marginalizing agenda. In Taylor’s analysis, no stone is left unturned as every culprit that was/is complicit, from Nixon to Obama to Raegan to Black elites, is brought to stand trial. Though succinct (only 200 or so pages), Taylor is able to impart an incredibly/breathtakingly comprehensive analysis that barely leaves room for any error.
  
  I could cite and quote this book until pigs fly or Black people get their due, but I won’t. I will leave you with just one thing. ¾ of the way through the book, the term “state violence” is introduced, first brought to life by Alicia Garza, a co-founder of the #BLM movement. As Garza states in an excerpt used by Taylor, the conduct of the government IS state-sanctioned violence; its ability to cause suffering, death, and, even worse, stand idly by as these are happening to its citizens — done with absolute impunity — is a crime of the highest order. As Taylor states:
  
  “The focus on “state violence” strategically pivots away from a conventional analysis that would reduce racism to the intentions and actions of the individuals involved. The declaration of “state violence” legitimizes the corollary demand for state action”. It’s not merely that a random police officer killed a Black man; it’s not merely that a municipality sources 81% of its police officer’s salaries by heavily targeting black communities; it’s not merely that a significant portion of the working-class lives in abject poverty. It’s that all of these are connected; all of these issues, and more, are overseen and implicitly condoned by a government that is complicit in our suffering.
  
  I lied, I want to leave you with one more thing, something you probably already know but maybe not something you’ve come to terms with. Personally, I didn’t resign myself to it until I read this book.
  
  America has failed its people.
  
  If you already knew this, well — I apologize for my tardiness.
  
• 
  pizca

  Un destello de libertad de keeanga-yamahtta taylor editado por tintalimón.
  
  [" Tres temas centrales en la historia estadounidense: el genocidio, la esclavitud y la explicación masiva de trabajadores inmigrantes" Ta-nehisi coates].
  [Qué tenemos en esta ciudad?. Negros en puestos altos, caras negras en puestos altos pero las mismas ratas y cucarachas,los mismos barrios bajos y la ,misma basura, la misma policía azotando tu cabeza, el mismo desempleo y los mismos yonquis en los vestíbulos robándole a tu abuela" Amiri baraka].
  °
  Este libro es un ensayo donde entre otras cosas se analiza como surge el movimiento #blacklivematter durante la presidencia de Obama.
  Estudia las ideas de excepcionalismo estadounidense y cultura de la pobreza, conceptos usados para explicar la persistente pobreza negra, el origen del daltonismo, usado durante la era nixon para no aceptar el racismo institucionalizado.
  Estudia a su vez como emerge una elite política negra pero poco ha cambiado para una vasta mayoría de afroamericanos.
  Y en especial las raíces del movimiento #blacklivesmatter contra la brutalidad policial y como la rebelión de Ferguson se convirtió en centro de atención de la creciente rabia en las comunidades negras en todo el país.
  °
  ["Las protestas pueden exponer estas condiciones y sus relaciones con el estado,las protestas pueden atraer a grandes cantidades de gente, pueden obligar a figuras públicas a hablar en contra de estas condiciones... Pero las propuestas por si mismas no pueden acabar con los abusos policiales"] (tan sólo tenenos que extrapolar esto a otras situaciones, me pareció interesante).
  Desde la abolición de la esclavitud, pasando por la guerra fria, el nacimiento de los Panteras negras, el movimiento de los derechos civiles y el estudio de las diferentes rebeliones contra la brutalidad policial y la impunidad de esta ante el sistema judicial
  
  
• 
  Laura

  As a history book, this was awesome. There was a broad overview of Black political struggle in the US, discussing grassroots movements and the attempts to incorporate Black people into mainstream politics. I've always known Obama is a war criminal and deporter-in-chief-wall-street-bailer-outer, but holy crap there was a lot of information in here that I was unaware of. I've been really frustrated with the Obama nostalgia happening lately, because it feels like everyone has amnesia because Cheeto Man Bad. This book provided a lot of explanation and context as to why the Blacklivesmatter movement emerged under the first Black president. Information I learned in this book actually really helped me in some convos over the course of reading. So as a history overview, this was a really great book. Also really good for understanding in depth why Obama did not end racism & the failures of representational politics.
  
  The only problem I had was the fact that the title lead me to think that this book would provide answers/insight on how to move a movement from a hashtag toward liberation, and the vast majority of this book was history. That is extremely important, obviously, and of course you have to have historical context, and I don't expect one person or one book to have all the answers or a step-by-step guide on how to solve all these complex problems. Also, it is important to remember that this was written 6 years ago which is both encouraging and disheartening when I compare Ferguson era to this iteration of the movement.
  
  The conclusion chapter is where I had some issues with the book, which is actually because I agree with her and am on board. I am tired of the class reductionist theorycel online podcaster scene who ignore race,, and the anti-racism White Fragility selfhelp bullshit that makes people think turning inward in a inverse reagan style personal responsibility definition of antiracism is possibly even more pernicious. (obviously lots of other types of people out there I just spend too much time online). Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor dispels both of these framings and advocates for solidarity among all oppressed groups as it is in everyone's mutual interest. When she's bringing up Marx and Gramsci and Lenin all of a sudden I'm like hell yea! When she's attacking identity politics throughout the book I'm like yes!!!!!! But part of why I picked up this book is for insight on how to bridge the chasm between the # and real material improvement, and the chasm between the history chapters and the Marxist conclusion seems just as wide. There are HUGE barriers to solidarity that can't be addressed in a few sentences. In a dream world people would look at the atrocities of history and the material conditions existing today, be radicalized by that, and draw a straight line to anticapitalism, but instead we have this intense lean into identity or focusing on single issues. Idk I just think about arguing with my parents who are fully on board with the blacklivesmatter movement and are against police brutality, but then when I try to connect capitalism to this the conversation goes awry and they still believe in vote blue no matter who etc. She kinda addresses this Mark Fishery inablity to imagine other worlds/futures, but as I said this conclusion really rattles off a lot of concepts all at once.
  
  Again, I have to reiterate that I don't expect her to have all the answers and I fundamentally agree with her, I just think the conclusion was like a huge shift in tone that tried to address a lot of really complicated concepts really fast. Each chapter in this book could be its own book, but each paragraph in the conclusion could have volumes. And those volumes exist I just should read more theory lol. I would still really strongly recommend this book to everyone.
• 
  Franco

  An essential work to build empathy and solidarity. An essential work to wake up and see the country for what it really is and what steps to take.
• 
  Katie ratherbereadinggg

  4.5 stars
• 
  James

  Was worried it would be a rehashing of stuff I've already read; it wasn't.
• 
  Ardina

  This book taught me so so much. Still need to process it and go back to some central themes Taylor explores. This book gives a concise history of the Black movement and the various way the US government and people in power have slowed the progress the Black movement aimed to make. The ways the movement has been co-opted and coerced by various funding sources; the way issues have been explained away by capitalist, individualistic thinking. Taylor is an incredible writer and thinker; the way her ideas flowed was really wonderful to witness. Sometimes the order didn’t make sense to me but I think in the end, it concluded itself well and pulled everything together very succinctly.
• 
  Aaliyah

  I'm almost upset at how long it took me to read this but I've come to realise that reading non-fiction is an entirely different experience to reading fiction. Personally I find that I can only read non-fiction in small chunks. That being said, this is a brilliant book. Incredibly up to date and relevant, and a MUST read for anyone interested in the condition of African Americans as well as the relationship between capitalism and racism. Taylor compares the civil rights era with todays #blacklivesmatter movement beautifully, and seeing as that's pretty much what my dissertation is centred around I found this book to be wonderfully insightful.
• 
  sasha

  this was a very well structured historical and contemporary sketch of black struggle in the us.
  the author talked about institutional racism and flaws and drew a line from there across intersectionality to economics.
  with many quotes, the book has been interesting, understandable, shocking, aggrevating and eye-opening.
  it's definitely been worth a read even if it has loads of depressing contents and doesn't exactly end on a good note.
  
  (white person's perspective here)
• 
  Nathan Fisher

  Nothing objectionable here at all, though intended for a broad audience less familiar with Taylor's political leanings, it seems -- the outright Marxist appeal comes late and appended -- for those well-versed, mainly a recapitulation, but a strong one -- the chapter on policing particularly so.
• 
  Theodore

  essential reading. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor brilliantly contextualizes the historical and present day conditions of anti-blackness that has lead us to the current resistance movements against state violence we're seeing across the globe.
• 
  Cate Tedford

  This book is a mic drop. Racism is tied up in capitalism and class structure!! Period. Ppl be like, “but other non-capitalist countries also have racism!!” Babe, that’s not the point. “… the actual legacy of the political project of white supremacy expresses itself by obscuring the class antagonism among whites.” People of color disproportionately suffer at the hands of the capitalist, but white people are not discounted.
  
  Also, the police are the violent arm of the racist State (how this is not obvious to everyone, IDK!! See: the Black Codes, etc…. like?!??)
  
  “The aspiration for Black liberation cannot be separated from what happens in the United States as a whole. Black life cannot be transformed while the rest of the country burns. The fires consuming the United States are stoked by the widespread alienation of low wage and meaningless work, unaffordable rents, suffocating debt, and poverty. The essence of economic inequality is born out of a simple fact: there are 400 billionaires in the United States and 45 million people living in poverty. These are not parallel facts; they are intersecting facts. There are 400 American billionaires because there are 45 million people living in poverty. Profit comes at the expense of the living wage. Corporate executives, university presidents, and capitalists in general are living the good life—because so many others are living a life of hardship. The struggle for Black liberation, then, is not an abstract idea, molded in isolation from the wider phenomenon of economic exploitation and inequality that pervades all of American society; it is intimately bound up with them.”
  
  It’s not a phase, mom!!
• 
  Lindy

  4.5 stars—Sometimes this book felt like a list of facts and was less engaging, and other times I was right there with the author, exclaiming aloud as I listened to the audiobook. The ending was especially powerful and compelling. This book gave me two things I was really looking for (in addition to a lot of other valuable wisdom): 1–an analysis of Barack Obama’s failures as a president to actually do anything helpful for black people and other oppressed folks in America (and how he perpetuated racist stereotypes to chastise black people for their conditions) and 2–a brief history of the black left in the US, including a discussion about how it’s a myth that socialists/communists are all class reductionist (this assumes that socialism/communism is white, which historically is not the case). Overall I’m really glad I read this! I will definitely come back to the PDF I have and reread sections to get a deeper understanding of Taylor’s analysis (especially the final chapter).
• 
  Nora

  Great context to what's going on in the US.
• 
  RuloZetaka

  Tejer un hilo conductor como lo presenta la autora, mientras se participa en una movilización a nivel nacional que exige articulación y organización local es una absoluta locura. Taylor logra llevar de la mano la reflexión de la matriz racial de la violencia policial a una propuesta de inflexión para transformar su realidad.
  Se detiene a pensar en quien lee, pone conclusiones a cada capítulo para retomar y concretar, utiliza diferentes tipos de aproximaciones en cada capítulo: teóricas, periodísticas y hasta de sus vivencias. Es un deleite la forma en la que está escrito y también es profundamente retador al ver todo el camino que ha seguido el racismo en EU con una mirada histórica localizada en el hoy.
  Casi se puede tejer un hilo conductor desde la autobiografía de Malcolm X hasta acá, Keeanga señala los errores del pasado desde una postura profundamente crítica, pero también amorosa por la identidad que los une, no alejaría la posibilidad de proponer un orden de lectura o de estudio sobre los movimientos sociales negros en EU que incluyera este libro junto a Ángela Davis, Malcolm X o Bell Hooks.
  El capítulo final es una argumentación poderosa de por qué hay que pensar el mundo en matrices, que nos permitan observar intersecciones para encontrarnos con lxs otrxs, pues la opresión se ejerce sobre nosotres en clave interseccional. No olvide caminar el libro de pasta a pasta con sus experiencias entre las manos porque seguro encontrará muchos espejos, sea de la latitud que fuese, ante la mirada transversal que utiliza Taylor.
• 
  Tracey

  As a political strategy book on how to achieve Black liberation via intersectional working-class solidarity, I would say it's lukewarm, but that's fine with me- I did not pick this up anticipating a comprehensive, cohesive, cogent strategy for the future of the BLM movement.
  
  As a historical and political analysis book that economically details the events and conditions that led to the genesis of the Black Lives Matter movement during the Obama presidency, this was a fantastic. I have either studied or knew of most of the historical events/developments contributing to the racial oppression in this nation that were referenced, but had not connected them as creating and upholding structural racism until recent years (with the aid of lucid, deft writers like Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor). What this book newly articulated for me was the failure of having "Black faces in high places" in fundamentally improving the lives of Black working class people. The hope that went into believing that if Black elected officials were leading Black communities, if the community finally has power over itself, then that guaranteed brighter futures ahead. And what came out on the other side of Black electoral success: a different, perhaps more insidious, way to uphold and re-entrench the very systems Black communities thought they could change and be free from by electing Black representatives and leaders. I didn't realize I needed new language for the deep cynicism that I've developed around treating a singular focus on channeling political energy into voter registration and having non-white representation in electoral politics as a panacea for inequality, when it's at best a sorely inadequate proxy for the social, economic, and political change needed to eradicate anti-black racism and at worst a deliberate distraction from the policies and practices that could be truly transformational for Black liberation
• 
  Stephanie

     Taylor’s book presented me with the scholarship I most enjoy behind hot topics, balancing past and present and being wholly aware of not only what is being presented and how it is being presented, but also how readers might react to and interpret it. Taylor details a mostly linear presentation of the course of the Black experience in the United States, drawing precise examples to support strong conclusions as we advance in the book.
     I found this a thoroughly satisfying piece of scholarly yet accessible work, as it really dug into the heart of matters and didn’t flinch from any ugly truths along the way. It is presented in such a way that I think we could even get a conservative, somewhat racist person to read it through to the end without realizing just how opposite it is to their usual way of thinking – which can only be a good thing in this case.
     Mia Ellis also did a fine job narrating these hot topics, providing just the right amount of nuance, scholarship, and emotion.
• 
  Byron

  On the one hand, this is more thorough than any number of other books you can read on Black Lives Matter, police brutality and what have you. But on the other hand it's kinda dry and academic in tone. The Kindle version has all of the extra textbook features that allow you to do things like take notes? (I wouldn't know. I didn't even take notes in college.) So I guess technically it's a textbook.
  
  Aside from its lack of entertainment value (which I look for in books about police brutality), I had a few minor quibbles with the content. A lot of this has to do with the history of black people entering politics in the years immediately following the civil rights movement, but it wasn't always clear what any of that had to do with cases like Eric Garner and Mike Brown, which took places in cities run by white people. I get how all these things are ultimately interrelated in the way that your knee bone is connected to your elbow, but for the most part this seemed like the author trying to retrofit her own set of personal obsessions and academic interests onto whatever happened to be popping in the media at that particular moment—which, I'd never do anything like that. LOL
  
  Also, you can kinda read between the lines and figure out where the author's sympathies lie, but you can tell there were times she wanted to go in on people, or on certain ideologies, but she didn't, for the most part, and it isn't clear why she wouldn't, in a book that's destined to be read by very few people, all of whom I'm sure harbor more or less the same beliefs.
• 
  Wesley Bishop

  Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor has provided a must-read study of the origins and history of anti-racist movements in the United States. By placing #BlackLivesMatter into a larger historical context she has simultaneously shown the lessons and context we must keep in mind as activists, as well as the revolutionary potential our moment currently contains. This book is highly recommended to anyone who is currently in the movement.
• 
  Alicia Fox

  This is easily one of the best books I've read in a long time. I wish I were able to buy a copy for every person I know--actually, for every person in the country. I was expecting a history of black liberation in the United States through the current Black Lives Matter movement, which it is--but what I really got was the most well-written modern argument for socialism I've come across. All I can say is, "Read it!"
• 
  Tom Crehore

  A spectacular book by a spectacular author and speaker. The book looks at the fundamental aspects of how we not deal with race in America, and what can be done to further understand and act against discrimination and the oppression of others. If you are concerned about race and how it is currently affecting our society, please pick up this book. And, if you see she is coming to your town, please go and see her speak!