How many harmless young black men have been injured or killed in modern cities in white countries this year, for the crime of exciting someone else’s racism? Too many, and it must end. Harkaway, Nick, Gnomon (William Heinemann, 2017)
Tag: racism
Detroit
Wow. This is such a great film. I mean, it is so intense and gripping that I never once wanted to look away. It tells the story of a group of people caught up in the riots in Detroit in 1967, and how police corruption and racism resulted in murder and horrible terrible injustices. I’ll […]
Hidden figures [based on the book by]
Oh, I really enjoyed this film. So much more than I thought I would. I mean a story based on maths doesn’t sound all that entertaining. But I suppose that isn’t really what this is about, it is about the women who fought to show NASA just how vital they were to the space program. […]
The hateful eight
Wyoming, just after the US civil war, and bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) is bringing in his prisoner, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). He is known as The Hangman, because when a warrant says “dead or alive” he always brings them in alive. His bounties don’t escape the noose. And his current prisoner has […]
God help the Child
When Lula Ann is born her mother is horrified by how dark she is. Sweetness is light skinned. So is her husband. The baby becomes a source of tension, and he leaves them both. Sweetness is determined to protect her daughter from the world and so she intends to make her better, to ensure that […]
To kill a mockingbird
I would guess that almost everyone reading this blog is familiar, to some degree, with Harper Lee’s To kill a mockingbird. The classic story of a good man (Atticus) in a bad world, trying to do his best, as seen through his young daughter (Scout’s) eyes. And of course, then there is Boo Radley, the […]
Between the world and me
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a name that has floated around me for a while now. Often in discussions on Metafilter about racism and America and what it is to be black, or what it is to think yourself white in the US. But I’ve never really read his work before, so this year’s Diversiverse [ref]What is […]
The Chimneys of Green Knowe
Tolly has returned to Green Knowe, his great-grandmother’s house, for the Easter break. But he is disappointed to discover that something is different. The painting of his previous playmates has been sent on loan, and may have to be sold in order to finance repairs to the house. And with the painting gone so too […]
Strange Days
Part of my 2015 Sci-Fi Experience. Made in the mid-nineties this is a film set in the final few days of 1999. It’s a sort of a dystopian film in that society has certainly gone downhill, although it hasn’t yet reached end of the world or total breakdown. Not as the film opens at any […]
Lucy
Lucy’s new boyfriend is trying to persuade her to deliver a briefcase for him. It’s a simple job and she’ll get well paid, he promises, after she weaseled out the fact that he is also getting paid for delivering these “papers”1. But she decides that this business is most likely illegal and wants nothing to […]
The Far Country
In Australia Jane and Jack Dorman own a prosperous sheep farm, or station. For the past few years most of the money they earned has gone to pay off loans and debts, but now, for the first time the wool money is all theirs, and its been a good year for selling wool. But Jane […]
Kindred
It is 1976 and Dana and her husband have just moved into a new home. They’ve only been married four years, but both now seem to be making it in their chosen profession, writing. But one day, while unpacking, Dana begins to feel dizzy and faint. She suddenly finds herself by the side of river […]