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A review by sarah_thebooknerd
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith
challenging
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
This book captured me and I read it over the weekend and did not want to put it down.
Clint has a way to showcase American slavery history in such an honest and raw way that will make you have to sit with it all and realize that we (white people) are failing the true history of this country.
Reading this book will make you sit with the fact that until we acknowledge the harm we (white people) caused harm through colonization, slavery and racism we will not be able to tear down the current racist infrastructure that is built in everything from the Bill of Rights, monuments, street signs, founding fathers, educations system and beyond. If we continue to blatantly ignore and whitewash history in protection of our ancestors we are at the same time dismissing all the pain and hardship to another set of ancestors.
It was not until I was in college for my master's degree in social work that I was confronted with the reality of slavery from Dr. Joy DeGruy at a Race and Poverty summit. She talked about how slavery has changed the fabric of Black people and caused Post traumatic slave syndrome and how gruesome slavery was with images and photos, stories etc. and I was so shocked that my education had never showed me this side of slavery. It make me realize I had some work to do. So for the past 10 years I have been working to dismantle internalized racism and continue to work to support and use my privilege to help those that are marginalized. This book just continues to showcase just how much we need to do this at a younger age in an effort to stop racism from continuing and to help change perspectives. When you know more you can do better and it is time that we do better by the Black people and their history. We have to let go of preserving whiteness and white people being seen as all good when in fact we have not been and continue to not be good for Black and Brown people. But we can change our path too and be better.
I think this book should be mandatory in schools and used as a blueprint for how American History is taught. After all, Clint is a history teacher and he has shown me and others that it's time to show the truth in order to not continue our current racism and for not repeating the atrocities that were done in the past.
Clint has a way to showcase American slavery history in such an honest and raw way that will make you have to sit with it all and realize that we (white people) are failing the true history of this country.
Reading this book will make you sit with the fact that until we acknowledge the harm we (white people) caused harm through colonization, slavery and racism we will not be able to tear down the current racist infrastructure that is built in everything from the Bill of Rights, monuments, street signs, founding fathers, educations system and beyond. If we continue to blatantly ignore and whitewash history in protection of our ancestors we are at the same time dismissing all the pain and hardship to another set of ancestors.
It was not until I was in college for my master's degree in social work that I was confronted with the reality of slavery from Dr. Joy DeGruy at a Race and Poverty summit. She talked about how slavery has changed the fabric of Black people and caused Post traumatic slave syndrome and how gruesome slavery was with images and photos, stories etc. and I was so shocked that my education had never showed me this side of slavery. It make me realize I had some work to do. So for the past 10 years I have been working to dismantle internalized racism and continue to work to support and use my privilege to help those that are marginalized. This book just continues to showcase just how much we need to do this at a younger age in an effort to stop racism from continuing and to help change perspectives. When you know more you can do better and it is time that we do better by the Black people and their history. We have to let go of preserving whiteness and white people being seen as all good when in fact we have not been and continue to not be good for Black and Brown people. But we can change our path too and be better.
I think this book should be mandatory in schools and used as a blueprint for how American History is taught. After all, Clint is a history teacher and he has shown me and others that it's time to show the truth in order to not continue our current racism and for not repeating the atrocities that were done in the past.