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Book Review: “We Speak for Ourselves: A Word From Forgotten Black America”

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You could be rich someday.

That’s what they say: you could have a great job, a nice car, and a crib on the beach, if you want them. They say it could happen, if you seize opportunities that come your way. They say it’s possible to be successful if you just pull yourself up by some imaginary bootstraps. And according to D. Watkins in his new book “We Speak for Ourselves,” they are lying.

Oprah, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Kanye. Of course, you know who they are but did you ever notice that they aren’t like most black people?

That’s something D. Watkins sees in the books he reads on race, in the TV he watches, and events he attends: there are “different types of black people” and when it comes to news and “maybe even in society…. People from the street are absent…”

In Watkins’ world – “Down Bottom” in Baltimore – gunshot is a common background noise. It’s also common for multiple generations of black men to die by bullets, for girls to get pregnant early, and for boys to sling drugs.

What else do they know, except what they see?  Kids on the street are not “dumb,” he says, but a “street hustler mentality” is given to them as a sort of heritage because there aren’t a lot of choices, opportunities are few, and the need for money is powerful. It doesn’t help that education for black students is often underfunded, proper nourishment is sometimes lacking, housing may be sub-par, “open-air drug markets are real,” cops can be “more crooked than the crooks,” and “Black Taxes” exist.

And yet – Watkins is proof that success is possible, but it’ll take action: promote literacy. Teach a child something. Get to know people who are different than you. “Be the person you needed growing up.”  Speak up, but remember that your voice won’t mean a thing “if action is not added to those words.”

Sometimes it happens: your eyes are open but you can’t see. When author D. Watkins writes, though, you’re smacked with the very thing you’re missing.

Watkins, who starts “We Speak for Ourselves” with a cocktail party attended by elite blacks, turns his attention quickly to the majority of black people he knows, none of whom are rich or famous. This tour, if you will, takes readers into his neighborhood through a voice that quietly hammers home the realities of privilege, inequality, poverty, and feelings of helplessness, but Watkins doesn’t let us linger there.

Observant readers will find simple actions for change-making, and reminders that we always hold the power to act. There’s quiet advice for keeping a cool head when wrongs are presented, and a gently-urgent plea that differently-backgrounded people spend time together. There’s also one hilariously subtle thread of humor, so look for it.

No matter which part of the sidewalk you occupy, this short, quick book is a must-read if you worry about our future. “We Speak for Ourselves” offers the beginnings of a map forward, and in thought-provoking ideas, it’s rich.

“We Speak for Ourselves: A Word from Forgotten Black America” by D. Watkins, c.2019, Atria, $26.00 / $35.00 Canada, 208 pages.

Terri Schlichenmeyer, The Bookworm Sez

Terri Schlichenmeyer, The Bookworm Sez

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Activism

New Oakland Moving Forward

This week, several socially enterprising members of this group visited Oakland to explore ways to collaborate with local stakeholders at Youth Empowerment Partnership, the Port of Oakland, Private Industry Council, Oakland, Mayor-elect Barbara Lee, the Oakland Ballers ownership group, and the oversight thought leaders in the Alameda County Probation Department.

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iStock.
iStock.

By Post Staff

Since the African American Sports and Entertainment Group purchased the City of Oakland’s share of the Alameda County Coliseum Complex, we have been documenting the positive outcomes that are starting to occur here in Oakland.

Some of the articles in the past have touched on actor Blair Underwood’s mission to breathe new energy into the social fabric of Oakland. He has joined the past efforts of Steph and Ayesha Curry, Mistah Fab, Green Day, Too Short, and the Oakland Ballers.

This week, several socially enterprising members of this group visited Oakland to explore ways to collaborate with local stakeholders at Youth Empowerment Partnership, the Port of Oakland, Private Industry Council, Oakland, Mayor-Elect Barbara Lee, the Oakland Ballers ownership group, and the oversight thought leaders in the Alameda County Probation Department.

These visits represent a healthy exchange of ideas and plans to resuscitate Oakland’s image. All parties felt that the potential to impact Oakland is right in front of us. Most recently, on the back side of these visits, the Oakland Ballers and Blair Underwood committed to a 10-year lease agreement to support community programs and a community build-out.

So, upward and onward with the movement of New Oakland.

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

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Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.
Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

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Activism

Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear  the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

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Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.
Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear  the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing,  just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.

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