Suggested ’08 Summer/Fall Reading
It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of my Pointblank Booklists of top 10 choices of the most informative (in my humble opinion) reading. Most of the entries are new to the list, there are 3 from the previous list that I feel still warrant urgent reading (9,4 & 1). 2 of the authors are psychiatrists and 1 is a psychologist (not that I’m implying anything). You can save by ordering one or more of these books from my man Curtis at Moodmakers Books in Rochester; WNY’s only black owned bookstore. Just call 585-271-7010 and tell him I referred you. If he doesn’t have it now he can order it for you. Of course if no answer leave a message.
10-New-ObamaNation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality-Jerome R. Corsi Ph.D: This guy hates Barack Obama, but his research will probably help inspire you to vote for him. His book and radio interviews show Obama may be blacker than many blacks believe he is. No doubt written to scare whites, but buy it anyway.
9-Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of medical experimentation on black Americans from colonial times to present-Harriet Washington: The book I refuse to allow you to miss. Meticulously researched account, 500-pages (glossary 50 pages-long) of tireless, devious, white experimentation on blacks since colonialism, to the modern health care disparities.
8-Ass Backwards: A black police officer’s hatred for inner city criminals and their enablers-Kodiak: The title is just a summary of the way this black undercover cop sees urban youth, racist co-workers and the people who protect both..
7-Falling Through the Crack-Betty Jean Grant-Best known in Upstate NY as a Buffalo politician and hands-on activist, Mrs. Grant’s poetry takes no prisoners on the state of Black America (especially Buffalo) and praises great black women from Harriet to Horne (Cariol) to those four little girls. Read “Southern Style BBQ,” “The Red Mud of Tennessee,” and “Afrika Town.”
6-Black Inventors-Keith C. Holms History’s great black inventors from Africa to America.
5-A Human Being Died That Night-Pumla Gobodo Madikizela: A South African psychologist memoirs, she goes behind bars to interview a commander of a death squad who is serving a 212-year sentence for crimes committed during the Apartheid era.
4-Classic-The Mis-Education of the Negroe-Carter G. Woodson: An ’06 reprint by H. Khalif Khalifah. Even back in 1933 our great educator on black history saw where we were heading: “It has been said the Negroes do not connect morals with religion. The historian would like to know what race or nation does such a thing.”
3-Mandela: The authorized portrait. Edited by Mac Maharaj & Ahmed Kathrada. The former South African political prisoner/South African President gives us some more notes along with a little help from his friends. A must have in the year of his 90th birthday.
2-Classic-Racial Matters: The FBI’s secret file on black America:-Kenneth O’Reilly. Imagine an O’Reilly that knows what he’s talking about. Chapter-1 reads: “For better or for worse the history of the FBI and the history of black America have been linked together almost from the Bureau’s beginning in 1908… The Bureau’s decision to avoid protecting civil rights and to spy on blacks were more in reaction to directives from the White House and the Justice Department than results from it’s own policy.” During the Bush era you have witnessed an across-the-board shutdown of the FBI, the Department of Justice and other government agencies toward any willingness to correct injustice more than ever, especially when it has to do with black and white. O’Reilly’s book tracks this dangerous mandate to spy and meddle into the affairs of the blacks.
1-Classic-The Isis Papers: The keys to the colors-Dr. Frances Cress Welsing: This clinical psychiatrist started writing this book in the early ‘70’s during a time when black men on TV were wearing women’s cloths, talking like children, or portrayed as thugs. Hey that sounds like today. This sister breaks down the true origin of whites and slick ways black men refuse to face racism. More relevant today than ever before.