Challenged My Thinking
Mechanics if a Nigga by Timothy Hollins was one of the most challenging books I have read in a long time, maybe ever. I felt like it was a dialogue that I have been privileged to hear but not welcomed to really participate in. From birth I was raised in a predominately black community of Seattle, WA where I attended school, played with and associated with friends and peers that were black. Strangely enough during the late 60’s to early 70’s (the Civil Rights Era) I was accepted in my community because my father is Japanese, I am of Japanese/ German descent. So, with that acceptance, I had no problems coming up. From the sidelines I would hear the conversations from my friends and elders about the word “Nigga/Nigger” and the displeasure that it brought them and in those days it was taboo for a black person to call another black person the “N word.” I understood at a young age that I was not really to have a voice in certain conversations, instead I listened intently with out speaking.
So reading this piece of literature challenged my thinking and more so, challenged how I would respond through writing a review. Do I have the right to have a react and respond? I know that I do.
Mechanics of a Nigga is educational and thought provoking., no matter who the person is that reads it. Addressing the African American/Black Community from an American true history perspective starting with the slave mentality of today, society perception, self perception, rising up beyond this state of oppression to self deprivation and low self-esteem.
It addresses white privilege, enslavement of mind and body with a sense that the writer wanting to push the reader to think about what would “change” look like after a cycle of unchanged history. Now we go from the use of a word “Nigga” being used in a derogatory way from a group of people that claimed privilege over all people, to it freely being used among a group of blacks addressing each other, when the larger demographics of blacks on a national and global do not use this word in addressing themselves. What is the change that is needed, how does the healing begin and what would it really look like a noticeable level and who would recognize and acknowledge an empowering shift.
I challenge you to read this piece and to find your words to describe your experience and thoughts. This piece is for all people. It is for those that are willing to read it with an open mind and to be honest with how you think and feel about to topic posed to us.
I know that Timothy Hollins has written other pieces along this line, which I will be purchasing copy’s to read and review. I look forward to pushing myself in my thoughts and feelings as I dig deeper into this authors mindset as he shares.
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