Bone to Pick: Of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Reparation, and Revenge.Bone to Pick: Of Forgiveness Reconciliation, Reparation Compensation for an injury; redress for a wrong inflicted. The losing countries in a war often must pay damages to the victors for the economic harm that the losing countries inflicted during wartime. These damages are commonly called military reparations. and Revenge. by Ellis Cose, Atria Atria The heart has four chambers. The right and left atria are at the top of the heart and receive returning blood from the veins. The right and left ventricles are at the bottom of the heart and act as the body's main pumps. Books, April 2004 $22.00, ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-743-47066-4 In 2000, my 17-year-old son was wrestling with self-identity. Hip hop and rap, spreading their accretive gospel of preening commercialism and misogynistic mi·sog·y·nis·tic also mi·sog·y·nous adj. Of or characterized by a hatred of women. Adj. 1. misogynistic - hating women in particular misogynous ill-natured - having an irritable and unpleasant disposition narcissism, were still in ascendancy. So I took my son to Tulsa. The occasion was a dinner in Oklahoma City celebrating the survivors of the Tulsa race riot The Tulsa Race Riot, also known as the 1921 Race Riot, The Night That Tulsa Died, the Tulsa Race War, or the Greenwood Riot, was a large-scale civil disorder confined mainly to the racially segregated Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA in of 1921. Don Ross, a now retired Oklahoma state legislator, had invited me. Ross figures in Bone to Pick as the voice of advocacy and reason as to the merit of the state and city awarding reparations to those who survived the atrocities. In his description of the destruction of Greenwood, the successful African American community in Tulsa that suffered the jealous wrath of its European American neighbors, Ellis Cose is in his dement de·ment tr.v. de·ment·ed, de·ment·ing, de·ments 1. To make (a person) insane. 2. To cause (a person) to lose intellectual capacity. . He dearly knows America's psychology in the way of Du Bois's "double consciousness." He has a reporter's eye for detail, a keen sense of phrasing, and his use of language here and throughout the book, is lucid and, at times, elegant. Bone to Pick examines intolerance, cruelty and the possibilities of forgiveness and redemption. Cose's case studies range flora courageous individuals who have suffered horrific personal losses to intolerable acts of state sponsored slaughter. Cose allows room to hear the voices of vengeance. Nor does he omit dissenting voices. For example, those who rejected South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a feckless feck·less adj. 1. Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective. 2. Careless and irresponsible. [Scots feck, effect (alteration of effect) + -less. response to the aftermath of apartheid are present as well as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who headed it. Bone to Pick touches down on several continents and artfully captures intimate portraits of courageous human beings. Though my son's mental and emotional landscapes were broadened from seeing Greenwood and then meeting the over 80-year-old survivors, his time there was too brief. As competent and compelling as Cose's study is, there are analytical moments that would have benefited from a more lengthy immersion in political history and culture. Still, it is an excellent, thought provoking read. --Reviewed by Khalil Abdullah Khalil Abdullah is a writer, editor and business development consultant in Washington, D.C. |
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