Perhaps you can see off to the right in this image, little sticky tabs marking especially useful sections of the text. Which is to say, I use this book a lot. It came to me as an ‘examination copy’ – a publisher was attempting to entice me to order this as a class textbook. I don’t teach Black History; I do teach the history of religion. This book is vital for this topic, although restricted pretty much to the United States. I point students to it for study. Slavery is one of those topics where an old white guy such as myself must tread lightly and carefully in these end days of free speech. Being Canadian has of course made me polite to a fault, so I am not likely to say anything that causes offence, but who knows now what indeed might cause offence? My own predilections include a curiosity about the thoughts, feelings, experiences of others. I confess to a character flaw here: I cannot ever remember to judge others for their lives, thoughts, experiences, emotions. Mea culpa. Today one is expected to react emotionally in one way or another. I don’t. Mea Culpa. I just look at others with the unblinking eyes of a child. Mea Culpa.
But I am not a child and do understand how one must be very careful. An example: I have been watching TateShots on YouTube for some months now. TateShots are short (3-4 minute) video tours of artists’ work, usually studio tours, sponsored by the Tate and often Bloomberg in the UK. Every studio except one has been in some degree or other of chaos, to my non-painterly eye at least. Paint cans, mounds of brushes, finished works stacked against walls, etc. This particular studio stood out; it looked pristine. Everything seemed brand new, tidy and scrubbed if not new. Canvases were in sliding drawers labelled… it didn’t look real and it did look as though the artist was a very rich man. I commented on this. Instantly I was accused of racism as the artist is Black. So, tread carefully I say to myself now. The world has gone mad.
Well, this morning I decided I needed to write. I have been publishing some things and editing another in preparation for publication and haven’t done much writing and I need to write. So, I thought to myself – Bookstory! I looked at the messy pile of books in my home office – mostly academic books I use while teaching online and a few others. Slave Religion popped into view… but I thought… hmmmm noooo, better not… I might be accused of racism… what if I said the wrong thing? What if a book by a Black scholar about this very real part of history is something one no longer speaks about? Or, perhaps you have to be Black to say anything? Does reading a scholarly book by a Black American academic fall under that odd new crime ‘cultural appropriation’? I don’t know.
But here it is anyway. If you wish to deepen your understanding of the nature of religious belief; of Black history; of racism; of migration (forced or otherwise); of religious syncretism…. this is the book for you.
Bookstory 