Colin Kaepernick, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, eds. Our History Has Always Been Contraband: in Defense of Black Studies. Kaepernick Publishing, in partnership with Haymarket Books, 2023. ISBN: 9798888900574.
The book is arranged as follows:
- Preface by Colin Kaepernick. This describes the book project and how it became a reality.
- Part One: How We Got Here. Two essays from the editors outlining the history of Black Studies and where we are now. This is a good overview of the topic.
- Part Two: The History They Don't Want You To Know. This is the core of the book. It contains 38 pieces from various works starting with "Walker's Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World" (1829) to "'Introduction: Black Health Matters' from Black Disability Politics" (2022). This is a sampling of the materials that certain people don't want you to read and are working to ban.
- Part Three: How We Fight Back: Three essays here on how to answer critics and censors as well as demonstrating how Black Studies are essential.
When I started reading the book, I thought I would read Parts One and Three, then pick and choose some selections from Part Two to get a sense of the arguments. I ended up reading the book cover to cover. The writings are interconnected, and the ideas build up on each other, so take your time and read the book in full. In addition, the readings overall are interesting and engaging. It is not often that an academic book keeps me reading. I could not put this book down, kept wanting to read one more essay. Before I knew it, I read the whole book. It helps that the texts are accessible. People hear terms like "critical race theory" and think it is a complex esoteric term. It is not. Read this book so you can learn about it and more.
This is an interdisciplinary book. The writings come from diverse fields including literature, politics, law, psychology, sociology, gender and sexuality, feminist studies, queer studies, and more. If the book has a shortcoming, it's that the pieces in Part Two are mostly excerpts. However, this is not a book meant to be definitive. It is meant to expose readers to the basics and then teach them how to stand up and defend their learning and history. The idea here is to keep on learning, keep on reading and searching, and to keep growing. To do so, you can seek out the full works. Additionally, the book includes a "Recommended Readings in Black Studies" list that can make a good reading list for those interested in learning more. It can also make a pretty good curriculum.
This is book is essential reading not just for Black History Month but at any time. Black history is everyone's history, and this book makes it accessible for anyone to read it and start learning. This is the kind of book I wish had when I took courses in Black Studies in graduate school. Yes, it took me a while to find such classes, but let's not digress. The book is an excellent and essential book that I highly recommend.
This book is essential for public and academic libraries. I would say it should also be available in school libraries. I ordered a copy for our library, and I will promote it on our library's blog and social media as well.
5 out of 5 stars.
Additional reading notes:
The editors' hope for the book:
"...I hope this collection of historical and contemporary essays-- some of which are original-- can be used as a resource to deepen our collective understanding of Black history through the discipline of Black Studies-- a dynamic field of study whose twentieth-century origins were birthed in resistence to the very foundations of Western thought and the U.S. university system" (x).
Carter G. Woodson quote, so relevant now, so urgent:
"It is strange. . . that the friends of truth and the promoters of freedom have not risen up against the present propaganda in the schools and crushed it. This crusade is much more important than the anti-lynching movement, because there would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom" from his book The Mis-Education of the Negro (qtd. in 2).
I admit that is a question I often ask myself: where are those "friends of truth and promoters of freedom" in the U.S.? They seem to shine by their absence.
Intention of the book:
"Our History Has Always Been Contraband is intended for students, educators, and policy makers, as well as general readers interested in the subject and seeking to understand then politics behind the current attack on critical education. The readings are by no means meant to be comprehensive or representative of what is truly a vast interdisciplinary field. We deliberately selected texts and authors who had been excluded from the AP African American Studies curriculum, as well as a few canonical texts in African American Studies appropriate for high school students" (4).
Carter G. Woodson, on how White supremacists and other racist enemies of freedom sought to keep Blacks enslaved through their minds. This remains so relevant today for Blacks (and other ethnic groups in the U.S.):
"If you can control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one" (42).
James Baldwin on education:
"The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then to learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society, If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it-- at no matter the risk. This is the only hope society has. This is the only way societies change" (53).
Karl Marx, in 1844, on how criticism needs to be ruthless, a principle that guided Robin D.G. Kelley and other activists:
". . . --I am speaking of a ruthless criticism of everything existing, ruthless in two senses: The criticism must not be afraid of its own conclusions, nor of any conflict with the powers that be" (qtd. in 138).
Kelley then tells us reading should not have limits in studying and learning. For me, also reminds me that you need to read your enemies to understand them so you can take their ideas apart:
"As self-styled activist-intellectuals, it never occurred to us to refuse to read a text simply because it validated the racism, sexism, free-market ideology, and bourgeois liberalism against which we railed. Nothing was off limits. On the contrary, delving into these works only sharpened our critical faculties" (138).
This book qualifies for the following 2024 Reading Challenge:
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