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I really appreciate the way Ta-Nehisi Coates weaves these disparate essays together. This is a collection most concerned with discussing the stories that get told and the ones that don’t, the people who are allowed to speak and those who aren’t.

He does this by taking you through a few different places he’s gone and experiences he’s had. A trip to Senegal prompts him to reflect on the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and its legacy, as well as how his perspective on the country changes the longer he is there. He breaks to discuss book banning in the United States, and personal experiences he’s had with his books being banned in the American South. And in the longest chapter and the most timely, he travels to Palestine, and witnesses firsthand the apartheid brought about by Israel’s colonization and occupation of Palestine.

If those topics feel scattered, it comes together fairly seamlessly. He never veers too far from the central discussion of storytelling, and how oppression of both people and ideas impacts journalism today.

This book reminds me most of Freedom Is A Constant Struggle by Angela Davis. That book features more essays and interviews and is told through the lens of political activism and reform. This book is much shorter and told through a journalistic lens. But I think the comparison stands.

Anyway, I am more appreciative than ever of good nonfiction that discusses those in power’s desire to suppress uncomfortable truth � whether that be in the form of book banning, pro-Israel media coverage, or whitewashing of the history of slavery in America.

Highly recommend!