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Written by Reading Recluse on 2025-01-01 at 17:10

📗 "A Negro Explorer at the North Pole" by Matthew A. Henson

Starting the year off with a strange one. Sorry for the unfortunate title. I've been browsing public domain non-fiction in the Serial Reader app and this is the result.

This book is from 1912 and logs the expedition to the North Pole of the author and his captain. It starts with an introduction by a white person full of terribly awkward racist praise of newly freed African Americans. Then we continue with Henson's own tale and ehh, it doesn't get much better in that regard. Now we get a lot of racist remarks about the indigenous people of Greenland.

I think it's fascinating to see how people thought and acted in different times -especially if they're exploring and discovering places, back when people knew even less of the world than we know now. They were travelling through a cool and treacherous place. Looking at it that way, this text is interesting and has a humorous tone too sometimes.

However, it's hard to overlook the sinister side of it all. Inuit people are infantilized, exploited and compared to animals (and the animals aren't treated well either btw). It reads like an example of just because your people went through a horrific collective trauma, doesn't mean you'll never fall prey to perpetuating the same sorts of behavior. The author is one of the first generations to live after the abolition of slavery in the US. It's painful to hear him talk about things like his 'adoption' of a native kid, stripping him of his things and keeping him under his bed as if he's more of a pet than a son. He clearly likes the people he meets and has a soft spot for them, but also treats them as nothing more than convenient but child-like creatures, looking down on them and laughing at their beliefs and habits, yet making use of them when it suits him and the crew. Extremely uncomfortable (yes, even though "those were different times").

If you like niche, old diaries/memoirs and seeing what things were like in the past, this is probably compelling. But prepare to be offended too.

[#]NonFiction #AmReading #SerialReader #memoir

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Descendants

Written by Lkdc on 2025-01-01 at 19:04

@reading_recluse I no longer have the attention span to read books, but I want to be exposed to the ideas that books contain, so I really appreciate these book reviews that you post. Thank you for broadening my horizons.

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Written by Reading Recluse on 2025-01-01 at 19:11

@Lkdc Glad to be of service 😊

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Written by Taylor Drew on 2025-01-02 at 00:45

@reading_recluse Oh boy.

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Written by Reading Recluse on 2025-01-02 at 09:33

@mollymay5000 Indeed 😬

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