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The author justifies her deplorable historical standards by babbling something about "ourstory," implying that "history" is only for white folks. "Ourstory," because it somehow empowers black folks, is evidently exempt from any sort of academic standards. Anything goes, apparently.
Not only are the academic standards totally lacking, but the book at times borders on incoherence. Herbal remedies pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, in the middle of narratives unrelated to the remedies. The author frequently rants about the evils that white folks do, in jarring digressions that serve only to detract from the overall narrative.
The real shame is that the subject of people of black heritage "passing for white" is indeed a subject that deserves serious study. In fact, serious scholarship has been devoted to the subject. More Americans than we realize have artfully concealed, sometimes from their own families, their true ethnic heritage. People within the same family will choose to live either as white or black, and it is intriguing how this shapes their descendants perceptions of themselves. This is a very important topic, but the author, with her rampant speculation (she seems to believe that every single white American is hiding a black ancestor somewhere), only serves to undermine the scholarship surrounding this subject.
This is a worthless book in every respect. It isn't even good for a cheap laugh. Please do not regard this as good history in any way, because it is more about the author's personal agenda than responsible history.
Several chapters are simply weird. The author's poems and even a herbal remedy for hoarse throats are scattered throughout the book and she goes off on these wild tangents. One minute you'll be reading about Abe Lincoln, and in the very next she's accusing Eleanor Roosevelt of being a lesbian. The sad thing is that the book doesn't settle down and get serious until the middle. The section on Harding, who probably had black ancestry is very good. The chapter on Eisenhower is pretty good but other than a picture of his mother there is no credible proof offered that he was black.
As a black person and a historian I know that the truth of history is often not what we were taught in school. Lies have been told about black people and our contributions to this country but that doesn't justify making up a mythos of our own. So, to sum up I have to say that this book doesn't cut it as serious history (except for the Harding section) but it does do one thing: It makes the reader curious about J.A. Rogers and his books.
Several chapters are simply weird. The author's poems and even a herbal remedy for hoarse throats are scattered throughout the book and she goes off on these wild tangents. One minute you'll be reading about Abe Lincoln, and in the very next she's accusing Eleanor Roosevelt of being a lesbian. The sad thing is that the book doesn't settle down and get serious until the middle. The section on Harding, who probably had black ancestry is very good. The chapter on Eisenhower is pretty good but other than a picture of his mother there is no credible proof offered that he was black.
As a black person and a historian I know that the truth of history is often not what we were taught in school. Lies have been told about black people and our contributions to this country but that doesn't justify making up a mythos of our own. So, to sum up I have to say that this book doesn't cut it as serious history (except for the Harding section) but it does do one thing: It makes the reader curious about J.A. Rogers and his books.
With our country being such a rich mixture of cultures, there can be little doubt that at least a few of our leaders have come from other than pure Caucasian stock. What a treasure it would have been to have a book about the real history of the White House residents. But instead of giving us little-known tidbits of history, Auset Bakhufu does little more than raise questions. And what's more, ideas that she first presents to us as a question ("Could it be...?" "Perhaps..." "It has been said...") are treated as facts throughout the rest of the book.
Auset Bakhufu's anger leaps off of every page. That's fine, I guess... a lot of people write books because something has made them angry. But it was disappointing that the writing was so poor and her tone so hostile.
Bakhufu, instead of presenting evidence that some of our presidents have had African blood, presents only rumors and innuendo. Some of these men fathered children with Black mistresses, some were considered insane, and some had bad marriages. That doesn't make them African-American--it makes them human. Her 'psychobiographies,' as she calls them, are nothing more than character assassinations. She had nothing positve to say about any of her subjects. Also, no direct evidence or documentation was presented that actually proved any of her claims of a U.S. president having had an African heritage. You would expect to see at least one birth certificate, diary entry, or family Bible record in a book about who the true parents of our presidents were.
One of the most annoying aspects of the book is Bakhufu's tendency to make up her own words to use in the place of standard words she does not like. For instance, 'history' becomes 'ourstory', and 'pass-for-white' becomes 'fail-for-white', etc. The author also defines these terms parenthetically each time they are used, rather than defining them once and trusting us to be intelligent enough to remember them. I would like to have seen the Chicago Manual of Style in her list of references.
Although Bakhufu does include references, I seriously question their reliability (i.e. mud-slinging election campaign material from opposing parties/candidates). She appears to have used her references to back up what she already thought, instead of using them to come to a full understanding of her topic of research.
