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When They Call
You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir
by Patrisse Khan-Cullors & asha bandele, with a foreword by
Angela Davis
c.2017, St. Martin’s Press
$24.99 / $32.50 Canada
257 pages
By Terri Schichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
You can’t look any longer.
Whatever it is, it’s just too painful, too scary, so you
hide your eyes and pretend that nothing’s happening. You
can’t look any longer, so you don’t… but after awhile, you
notice it again. That’s when you realize that you saw all
along. That’s when, as in the new book When They Call
You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors & asha bandele,
you realize that you never really could look away. |
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Growing up as the third child in a family of four, Patrisse
Khan-Cullors lived with her mother and siblings in a
“multiracial” neighborhood near Sherman Oaks, California.
The two places – her neighborhood and Sherman Oaks – were
“less than a mile” apart but, due to social, financial, and
racial divides, they were separated by oceans, in Khan-Cullors’
mind.
Despite that her mother worked all day and into the night,
Khan-Cullors was reared in a loving atmosphere. The man who
raised her wasn’t always around, but she adored him; after
she learned, at age 12, that he wasn’t her biological
father, her birth-father and his family became present on a
regular basis. Absent an adult, Khan-Cullors’ eldest brother
acted as “man” of the house. This all complicated her young
life, but she enjoyed this expanded, supportive family.
Khan-Cullors says that she was 12 years old, the first time
she was arrested. By then, she’d witnessed her brothers
being questioned by police for just hanging out with
friends. She started truly noticing her surroundings.
Not long afterward, her father was imprisoned on drug
charges, and she lost touch with much of his family. Then
her older brother was imprisoned for attempted burglary and
was diagnosed with a mental health disorder, and Khan-Cullors
came to understand that she was Queer. She began to
earnestly question things in her life.
At 16, she became an “organizer’ and an activist. She
doubled down on it after her brother was arrested and called
a “terrorist” for yelling at a woman. She was driven to act
when, following the death of Trayvon Martin and the
acquittal of George Zimmerman, she sent out a message to her
friends.
#BlackLivesMatter.
“I write,” she says, “I hope it impacts more than we can
ever imagine.”
And, of course, it did, and it will. Once you’re finished
with When They Call You a Terrorist, you’ll want to
stand up, too.
You’ll want to stand, even though author Patrisse Khan-Cullors
(with asha bandele) doesn’t tell stories here that haven’t
already been told before. Indeed, many authors have shared
similar tales of poverty, affluent white friends, outrage,
prison, and sadness. The shelves are full of such books –
but this one is different because Khan-Cullors gives her
story an urgent hear-me-now outrage. That “done playing”
feeling is what readers may come away with – a feeling that
underscores Khan-Cullors’ activism.
And that’s what this book is about: it’s a rallying cry
wrapped in a memoir tied in a call to legal action of
whatever sort. And so, if you’re ready, When They Call
You a Terrorist is worth a longer look.
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