Black Futures
Premise - A collection of essays, artwork, memes, recipes, transcribed speeches, and other popular media regarding the modern day Black experience and the hope for the future. The anthological nature of the book showcases a vast variety of interpretations and subcultures of Black life on a global scale.
Review - I truly cannot give a review of this book with full integrity due to the medium in which I read it. This is a book with highly visual components, including artwork, memes, and screenshots of Instagram and twitter posts. I did not realize this when I started the audiobook version, and feel like I missed out on so much of the value of the book. I think it's great that an audiobook was created for accessibility reasons, but it surprises me how popular this version is (it had hundreds of holds at the local library I use, and I waited months before I downloaded it). This seems to imply that the audiobook was an acceptable form of consumption. I disagreed - so much of the content was in one ear out the other because I don't think the content lends itself at all to this format. Story-telling, yes, absolutely, I love audiobooks. But not this.
I debated a few times if I should just give up the audiobook and buy a physical copy, but it is quite new and expensive. So I stuck with it and might as well not have because there was so little I could actually absorb. I can't recall the vast majority of the pieces I "read." Obviously, there was no narrative thread, so much so that readers are told to consume the book in whichever order they so desire. And each piece was exceptionally short.
The reason I read this book was because it was Roxane Gay's first pick for her new book club this year, The Audacious Book Club I think it's called?? I wrote down all of her recommendations excitedly, and I very much understand her attraction to this piece. It fits well with my impression of Roxane Gay, who is very much attuned to pop culture. The other reason I read it was to read a book about the future, which is one of the categories for my local library's reading challenge this year. It sort of fits - it's got "futures" in the title and it does talk about the future of Black culture. But it also talks about the present and past just as thoroughly. (41/100)
Quote - I can't find any quotes online and already returned the book, but for some reason I still remember the Sims essay because it mentions Simblr?? Which apparently is a subdivision of Tumblr specifically for the Sims fandom?? Who knew.
What to read for - Hmm, maybe the recipes? I obviously didn't memorize them as I was listening (another reason it doesn't lend well to audio), but if I had a physical book, yeah some of the recipes sounded pretty good.
If you liked this book, I'd recommend Feminists Don't Wear Pink and Other Lies! for the pop culture anthology feel
Edited/curated by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham
Published by One World
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