⇒ Download Bits Pieces of My Truth eBook Kaia Shivers

Bits Pieces of My Truth eBook Kaia Shivers

Download As PDF : Bits Pieces of My Truth eBook Kaia Shivers

“Every man wants to taste her, but is forbidden to spend the rest of their lives with her. She would just make Blacker babies that look like…ain’t that ya mama?” BITS & PIECES OF MY TRUTH chronicles a magnificent journey of poignant life stories interwoven between political critiques and cultural elements. Told in the form of poetry, contemporary urban folklore and essays, it is a masala of black city life and southern tradition boldly debunking myths, stereotypes and tired sentimentalities about black women who grew up in the second and third waves of hip hop. Shivers offers fascinating social analyses in poems like “Fat Black Ass”, which looks at colorism within the black community; “Track Star”, explores breaking the cycle of abandonment of black fathers; “Shaquesha’s Song” brings light to the uniquely creative naming of black people; “Orisas in the Ghetto” speaks to the continuum of African spirituality that is thriving in inner-cities across the Diaspora; and “The Sapphire Who Questioned the President” is an ode to Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, the first elected official to publicly call for an investigation of the US Administration after 9/11. The book also narrates the ugly truths of oppression and power struggle in short folklores, “Blood in My Eye”, which recants a true life story of a black woman dying in front of a Mississippi hospital after being refused healthcare; “Senses of Power”, tells a woman’s battle for social ascension in a socially stratified, newly black elite thriving in Los Angeles; “Estranged Roots” follows an African American and black Panamanian youth in a daring escape from the LA County foster care system; and “New Deep South” is a story predicting rapid gentrification plans by multinational corporations for the rebuilding of a racially and economically segregated Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Finally, Shivers’ essays are rich political commentaries uninhibitedly allowing the author to speak on subjects ranging from sisterhood struggles, the racial and class complications of feminism, the revolutionary legacy of Rosa Parks and the big business of aid-for-relief concerts to eradicate poverty in Africa .