The FBI War on Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders contains a wealth of names, dates and events detailing the use of COINTELPRO style tactics by the FBI against a generation of leftist political leaders and leftist musicians. Based on 12 years of research and includes over 1,000 endnotes. Sources include over 100 interviews, FOIA-released CIA and FBI documents, court transcripts, and many mainstream media outlets. Book is 192 pages of main text, 100 pages of endnotes, 8 pages of photos (incl. government/court documents) and some more pages of preface, foreword, afterword, and bios.
content/trigger warnings; discussion/descriptions of racism, anti-blackness, n word, police brutality, physical violence, hate crimes, murder, sexual assault, rape, psychological abuse, gun violence, drugs, addiction, drug trafficking, surveillance, stalking, harassment, assassination, nazis, antisemitism, bombings, fire, prison, inmate abuse, ptsd, entrapment, false arrests, fbi/cop corruption, torture, drugging, poisoning,
(my only thing would be that i don’t particularly like the sort of messy way everything is put together. also, the author says bill cosby is one of several black entertainers women made “questionable sexual assault accusations against” and was “smeared” and fuck did that not age well.)
This book has quite a bit of information on issues that one would not be able to find in the mainstream media or in sources that are only on the surface of everyday life. John Potash definitely had to dig deeper than the common realms that most are used to in order to gather some of the great material that he uncovered. However, considering that there is so much information to go over when dealing with this type of substance, there seemed to be a few gaps and/or skipped-over pieces of data. Overall, the book is an excellent read and an eye-opening experience for anyone who likes to go beyond what they are shown in the world that we live in.
Eye opening and well sourced account of US intelligence against black activists and artists last century. If nothing else the sections on MLK and Malcolm Xs assassinations make this worth reading. Cuz the FBI definitely did that shit
Potash clearly spent a lot of time and dedication researching this, but not a lot writing, and it shows.
This book is overflowing with names, dates, and events, backed up with sources. This makes it a tough read; and it being a jumbled, half-structured mess doesn't help. I understand that the amount of information is hard to present succinctly, but when even the timeline is scrambled, it becomes hard to follow.
However, although some things aged like milk, and others feel a little far-fetched, this book is still an eye-opening, disgusting list of reasons to wonder how the fuck people can be so evil.
This was my first time reading a conspiracy type book, and it was so much information. While the author generally tried to draw things back to Tupac, I don’t feel like the book focuses on him as much as the title implies. Something simply like “The FBI War on Black Leaders” would have been just as appropriate. My biggest critique is that sometimes it felt like the author didn’t know how to address the vices or problematic ways (like misogyny) some of the men mentioned in the book exhibited, so he just brushes them off. Still, I appreciate the book for the information I gained from it on such a wide range of topics. It definitely gave me more things to think about and look further into.
Its kind of sicken to think that the government would be involved in situations like this, but that goes to show if you go against their power structure bad things will happen. They will kill, jail you, or give you diseases to shut your mouth up. I do not know why Black people trust the government like they do.
2.5 there's a lot of abuse/SA apologia for the likes of diddy and russell simmons who have both very cleared committed these acts. the author implies that suing your abuser in civil court is a "gold digging" motive. the book, overall, has a lot of good information as it relates to revolutionary orgs and tupac, but the author has some severe misogynistic tendencies.