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The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto – An HBO Documentary Road Map to Dismantle Systemic Racism and Achieve Equality in the South
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A New York Times Editor’s Choice | A Kirkus Best Nonfiction Book of the Year From journalist and New York Times bestselling author Charles Blow comes a powerful manifesto and call to action, "a must-read in the effort to dismantle deep-seated poisons of systemic racism and white supremacy" ( San Francisco Chronicle ). Race, as we have come to understand it, is a fiction; but, racism, as we have come to live it, is a fact. The point here is not to impose a new racial hierarchy, but to remove an existing one. After centuries of waiting for white majorities to overturn white supremacy, it seems to me that it has fallen to Black people to do it themselves. Acclaimed columnist and author Charles Blow never wanted to write a “race book.” But as violence against Black people—both physical and psychological—seemed only to increase in recent years, culminating in the historic pandemic and protests of the summer of 2020, he felt compelled to write a new story for Black Americans. He envisioned a succinct, counterintuitive, and impassioned corrective to the myths that have for too long governed our thinking about race and geography in America. Drawing on both political observations and personal experience as a Black son of the South, Charles set out to offer a call to action by which Black people can finally achieve equality, on their own terms. So what will it take to make lasting change when small steps have so frequently failed? It’s going to take an unprecedented shift in power. The Devil You Know is a groundbreaking manifesto, proposing nothing short of the most audacious power play by Black people in the history of this country. This book is a grand exhortation to generations of a people, offering a road map to true and lasting freedom.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 26, 2021
454 people are currently reading
7045 people want to read
About the author
Charles M. Blow
2 books417 followersNew York Times columnist and television commentator. Former graphics director of the Times and art director of National Geographic magazine. Graduate of Grambling State University. Father of three amazing children. Resident of Brooklyn.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 256 reviews
January 30, 2021
Moving!
I am so touched by this book. I thought he was calling for millenials - what he’s saying is if where you are doesn’t feel like home, leave. He’s right. The whole world seems hostile to me, and I heard things about the south that I found to be scary. My grandparents on both sides ran in the 30’s. So much loss....this books sings a different song and it cuts true inside because I know for some reason as much as I love NY I am not, nor have I ever been happy here. Shame to live and die not knowing what it’s like to have a community that is at least sane much less nurturing. I’m considering it.....the migration.
I am so touched by this book. I thought he was calling for millenials - what he’s saying is if where you are doesn’t feel like home, leave. He’s right. The whole world seems hostile to me, and I heard things about the south that I found to be scary. My grandparents on both sides ran in the 30’s. So much loss....this books sings a different song and it cuts true inside because I know for some reason as much as I love NY I am not, nor have I ever been happy here. Shame to live and die not knowing what it’s like to have a community that is at least sane much less nurturing. I’m considering it.....the migration.
March 13, 2021
Interesting proposal. Thoughts coming. And thoughts have arrived 3.13.21. “Black people in America should reverse the Great Migration, and return to the states where they had been at or near the majority after the Civil War, and to the states where they currently constitute large percentages of the population. In effect, Black people could colonize and control the states they would have controlled if they had not fled them. I realize that I am proposing nothing short of the most audacious power play by Black America in the history of the country.”
Very interesting premise and highly plausible, but the challenge is in the execution. I get that a move to the South could/would be beneficial to Black folk collectively, especially in the political arena. On a personal note, I moved South to Houston, Texas from the cozy cultural confines of central NJ, forty minutes from the greatest city in the world. So I indeed embrace the idea of such a move and salute Mr. Charles Blow in his effort to spark a reverse migration movement and his fervent interest in being a leading catalyst of said movement. Mr. Blow offers a bevy of data here and numbers to counter the narrative of how racism is a permanent and prominent and exclusive feature to the southern states of America. As Malcolm X once declared, “stop talking about the South, as long as you are South of the Canadian border you’re South.” Clearly his intent was to clarify that racism wasn’t a southern feature, but an American pastime.
“The conclusion I have come to is simply this: racism behaves the way racism behaves. Racism wasn’t and isn’t geography dependent, but proximity-and-scale dependent. Black people fled the horrors of the racist South for so-called liberal cities of the North and West, trading the devil they knew for the devil they didn’t, only to come to the painful realization that the devil is the devil.” There is no doubt that people will move South for the weather, property affordability, business opportunities or any other myriad reasons, the question is can we organize those personal decisions into a collective cohesive back to South movement?
Blow anticipates some of the questions and addresses them forthrightly. Like, one that I’m sure conservative leaning folks will no doubt hammer him on, “Isn’t the proposal racist on its face?” His answer in the book can be summed up, “Race, as we have come to understand it, is a fiction; but, racism, as we have come to live it, is a fact. The point here is not to impose a new racial hierarchy, but to remove an existing one. After centuries of waiting for white majorities to overturn white supremacy, it seems to me that it has fallen to Black people to do it themselves.” Of course to get the full impact of the answer you will have to read the book. It is a thoughtful and challenging piece of work with novel like prose which aids in the page turning.
His arguments presented here for Black folk needing space and feeling of community and comfort are quite persuasive. “We need space to reverse the absorption of white anxiety into our flesh—their fear of us, contempt for us, disdain of us. Black people in America have suffered so much oppression and deprivation that people—including many Black people—have falsely come to regard the resulting ill effect as a product of culture rather than an infliction on culture.” I recommend this book, despite the details of execution being somewhat sparse, the idea and seed is now in the soil and let’s see how it grows.
“The only thing Black people have to do is come home. The South now beckons as the North once did. The promise of real power is made manifest. Seize it. Migrate. Move.” Charles Blow makes it sound so simple.
Very interesting premise and highly plausible, but the challenge is in the execution. I get that a move to the South could/would be beneficial to Black folk collectively, especially in the political arena. On a personal note, I moved South to Houston, Texas from the cozy cultural confines of central NJ, forty minutes from the greatest city in the world. So I indeed embrace the idea of such a move and salute Mr. Charles Blow in his effort to spark a reverse migration movement and his fervent interest in being a leading catalyst of said movement. Mr. Blow offers a bevy of data here and numbers to counter the narrative of how racism is a permanent and prominent and exclusive feature to the southern states of America. As Malcolm X once declared, “stop talking about the South, as long as you are South of the Canadian border you’re South.” Clearly his intent was to clarify that racism wasn’t a southern feature, but an American pastime.
“The conclusion I have come to is simply this: racism behaves the way racism behaves. Racism wasn’t and isn’t geography dependent, but proximity-and-scale dependent. Black people fled the horrors of the racist South for so-called liberal cities of the North and West, trading the devil they knew for the devil they didn’t, only to come to the painful realization that the devil is the devil.” There is no doubt that people will move South for the weather, property affordability, business opportunities or any other myriad reasons, the question is can we organize those personal decisions into a collective cohesive back to South movement?
Blow anticipates some of the questions and addresses them forthrightly. Like, one that I’m sure conservative leaning folks will no doubt hammer him on, “Isn’t the proposal racist on its face?” His answer in the book can be summed up, “Race, as we have come to understand it, is a fiction; but, racism, as we have come to live it, is a fact. The point here is not to impose a new racial hierarchy, but to remove an existing one. After centuries of waiting for white majorities to overturn white supremacy, it seems to me that it has fallen to Black people to do it themselves.” Of course to get the full impact of the answer you will have to read the book. It is a thoughtful and challenging piece of work with novel like prose which aids in the page turning.
His arguments presented here for Black folk needing space and feeling of community and comfort are quite persuasive. “We need space to reverse the absorption of white anxiety into our flesh—their fear of us, contempt for us, disdain of us. Black people in America have suffered so much oppression and deprivation that people—including many Black people—have falsely come to regard the resulting ill effect as a product of culture rather than an infliction on culture.” I recommend this book, despite the details of execution being somewhat sparse, the idea and seed is now in the soil and let’s see how it grows.
“The only thing Black people have to do is come home. The South now beckons as the North once did. The promise of real power is made manifest. Seize it. Migrate. Move.” Charles Blow makes it sound so simple.
January 29, 2021
The title alone piqued my interest. Simply stated, Mr. Blow does not disappoint.
This is an incredible depiction of the “power struggle” in America (past and present) and exactly what it looks like from our perspective. But most importantly, it offers a solution while debunking a number of myths that have played a role in the perpetual oppression of African Americans. Prescriptively, the author provides a blueprint for yet another power shift...The “re-migration” of African Americans to the South. Based on the arithmetic alone, it simply makes sense.
To be clear, prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, political power was dependent on the institution of slavery even though we couldn’t vote and in spite of the fact that we were only partially human. The framers of the Constitution sanctioned this method of the distribution of political power, which was rooted in greed, through the Electoral College and the 3/5th Compromise. The southern states were the initial beneficiaries and a civil war would prove to be the only remedy. However, the freeing of the enslaved was not an act of altruism...
Even Lincoln, the “Great Emancipator,” was driven by the quest for power,
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races...that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” Abraham Lincoln September 18, 1858
Again, the institution of slavery was the impetus to the war, but political power was the primary objective. If we’ve learned anything since Emancipation, we know that the North is no better than the South when it comes to racism. I call it the “same whore in a different dress” or “The Devil You Know”.
Dr. A.L. Smith
Grambling State University c/o ‘96
This is an incredible depiction of the “power struggle” in America (past and present) and exactly what it looks like from our perspective. But most importantly, it offers a solution while debunking a number of myths that have played a role in the perpetual oppression of African Americans. Prescriptively, the author provides a blueprint for yet another power shift...The “re-migration” of African Americans to the South. Based on the arithmetic alone, it simply makes sense.
To be clear, prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, political power was dependent on the institution of slavery even though we couldn’t vote and in spite of the fact that we were only partially human. The framers of the Constitution sanctioned this method of the distribution of political power, which was rooted in greed, through the Electoral College and the 3/5th Compromise. The southern states were the initial beneficiaries and a civil war would prove to be the only remedy. However, the freeing of the enslaved was not an act of altruism...
Even Lincoln, the “Great Emancipator,” was driven by the quest for power,
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races...that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” Abraham Lincoln September 18, 1858
Again, the institution of slavery was the impetus to the war, but political power was the primary objective. If we’ve learned anything since Emancipation, we know that the North is no better than the South when it comes to racism. I call it the “same whore in a different dress” or “The Devil You Know”.
Dr. A.L. Smith
Grambling State University c/o ‘96
March 29, 2021
Here’s my quick initial review: I 100 percent agree with Charles Blow’s premise that there’s little, if nothing, left in Great Migration destination cities for Black folks. I also, agree with most of the rationale behind the reverse migration back to the south - cultural, economic, educational, etc. - but Blow gives way too much emphasis and credibility to political power building. Black folks cannot achieve the “Liberty” that Blow speaks about through the electoral process. We’ve watched this play out time and time again. Every time Black folks are self-determined and create economic freedom for themselves and engage in the racist electoral process in America, white supremacist will literally burn, kill and steal to ensure we are kept down. I’m baffled that Blow still sees the electoral process in America as viable. Take the most recent voter suppression bills in GA as an example, every time Black folks get close to liberation in this country, white supremacist move the goal posts.
More thoughts to come...
More thoughts to come...
March 5, 2021
I accidentally and coincidentally binged this, which ended up being shorter than I thought it would be, on the last day of Black History Month, which seems fitting. In a succinct volume, Charles Blow summarizes the push and pull forces leading to the Great Migration, and he makes a persuasive case for a reverse migration of Black folx to the South as a the way to achieve substantive, enduring racial equity. When considering the electoral college and the way in which Donald Trump was elected despite not winning the popular vote, it is easy to see that a Black migration to the South would yield more political power for Black voters and communities. One of the reasons that Blow's proposed solution/amelioration plan of Black reverse migration is appealing is because it would utilize existing political frameworks and very likely produce in-our-lifetime results with hopefully minimal violence and chaos versus a burn-it-all-down approach. (On the other hand, I very much sympathize with those who believe that the US system has a rotten foundation and that building something completely different from scratch may be necessary. On good days, though, I do hope that we can do as Michelle Obama writes in her memoir (paraphrased), to keep our eyes toward the sky but our feet firmly planted forward to progress.)
Several people (many?) who read this book may experience discomfort or a knee-jerk reaction at the thought of encouraging majority Black communities, especially if they are white/non-Black and have been thoroughly fed ideas of integration and post-racial society without ever thinking deeply about the way in which indoctrination with false historical narratives that erase Black history merely camouflages colorblind racism and legitimizes/legalizes white supremacy in a more palatable (to white people) guise. Charles Blow provides numerous examples of this in the Northern and Western United States, the very places to which Blacks flocked during the Great Migration with hopes of equity and work, only to be discriminated against and policed through legal means (redlining, workplace discrimination, policing, etc). Importantly, Charles Blow dispels the myth that the North is "better" for Black folx; his cited sources show that it is, in many ways, more hostile to Black lives and Black thriving than the South.
It may also be a hard pill to swallow Blow's criticism of hope rhetoric, especially from the beloved Barack Obama and giants such as WEB DuBois and Booker T. Washington. However, Blow's points are salient ones. As a survival mechanism, the Black community as a whole has survived at least in part due to hope (secular or religious), and while hope is necessary to sustain, it should not be used as a balm to delay substantive action, as it has been in the past several hundred years.
Charles Blow recounts several personal anecdotes to illustrate his points, which serve to make readers feel a connection with him. It is an effective way in which to communicate his messages, by opening hearts to open minds.
Several people (many?) who read this book may experience discomfort or a knee-jerk reaction at the thought of encouraging majority Black communities, especially if they are white/non-Black and have been thoroughly fed ideas of integration and post-racial society without ever thinking deeply about the way in which indoctrination with false historical narratives that erase Black history merely camouflages colorblind racism and legitimizes/legalizes white supremacy in a more palatable (to white people) guise. Charles Blow provides numerous examples of this in the Northern and Western United States, the very places to which Blacks flocked during the Great Migration with hopes of equity and work, only to be discriminated against and policed through legal means (redlining, workplace discrimination, policing, etc). Importantly, Charles Blow dispels the myth that the North is "better" for Black folx; his cited sources show that it is, in many ways, more hostile to Black lives and Black thriving than the South.
It may also be a hard pill to swallow Blow's criticism of hope rhetoric, especially from the beloved Barack Obama and giants such as WEB DuBois and Booker T. Washington. However, Blow's points are salient ones. As a survival mechanism, the Black community as a whole has survived at least in part due to hope (secular or religious), and while hope is necessary to sustain, it should not be used as a balm to delay substantive action, as it has been in the past several hundred years.
Charles Blow recounts several personal anecdotes to illustrate his points, which serve to make readers feel a connection with him. It is an effective way in which to communicate his messages, by opening hearts to open minds.
March 15, 2021
It’s been a little while since I finished this book and I’ve sat with it’s contents for a while. Though I know it was an attempt at knocking one out the park in terms of the ever present “what black folk need to do” paradigm, it fell short for me in some areas.
In theory, a reverse migration in an effort to grab political power from the white folks down south seems like a practical strategy (*over my dead body N....* echoes in the vastness that is white supremacy.). It’s the assumptions that this theory makes about the response white folk will have and the assumptions about the response black folk will have as well. Will we love one another enough to all vote accordingly? Will we love each other enough to coexist peacefully?
Unfortunately I think we know these answers. I also think knowing them shouldn’t stop us though.
No movement has been completely accepted, supported, and filled by all the people. If a movement had to wait on everyone, then it would never move. Having my perspective widened and perhaps maybe having it narrowed too, I wonder if a book can be a good book if you don’t totally agree with it? I feel like this book begs that question of a black southerner. As a black southerner I do think we’ve created a space down here where white folk have definitely gotten extremely comfortable with us not being able to sway things politically and I wonder if the problems not with our numbers, but with our messaging? Our organizing? I mean we’ve done it before... Abrams just did it recently in Georgia—why not Mississippi?
I definitely still think this is a good book. It will challenge your thinking, illuminate the great migration and other historical eras, and get you to thinking of ways you can shake sh** up. Get into it.
In theory, a reverse migration in an effort to grab political power from the white folks down south seems like a practical strategy (*over my dead body N....* echoes in the vastness that is white supremacy.). It’s the assumptions that this theory makes about the response white folk will have and the assumptions about the response black folk will have as well. Will we love one another enough to all vote accordingly? Will we love each other enough to coexist peacefully?
Unfortunately I think we know these answers. I also think knowing them shouldn’t stop us though.
No movement has been completely accepted, supported, and filled by all the people. If a movement had to wait on everyone, then it would never move. Having my perspective widened and perhaps maybe having it narrowed too, I wonder if a book can be a good book if you don’t totally agree with it? I feel like this book begs that question of a black southerner. As a black southerner I do think we’ve created a space down here where white folk have definitely gotten extremely comfortable with us not being able to sway things politically and I wonder if the problems not with our numbers, but with our messaging? Our organizing? I mean we’ve done it before... Abrams just did it recently in Georgia—why not Mississippi?
I definitely still think this is a good book. It will challenge your thinking, illuminate the great migration and other historical eras, and get you to thinking of ways you can shake sh** up. Get into it.
July 5, 2021
This is one of the best books I've read in a while. I was extremely skeptical of his proposition that the great migration had failed and Blacks should reverse it but as you follow the data you can't help but come to the same conclusion. The areas where the most racial trauma and most clear racial disparities happen aren't in the south but the north, it is much like Baldwin said about migrating Blacks who didn't come into Michigan, New York, and so on they were forced into Detroit, Harlem and so on. We faced the same troubles, if not worse in the north, while also giving up the ability to shape or manifest our destiny through voting, the return to the south could easily build back Black political, social, and economic power in a way that gives back to pride, and self-determination to a community that needs it. I'm not sure I would make the trip but his book makes it appealing, it’s also sad to hear how so much of the racial segregation was carried out, and how much of our history we don’t know. I would suggest this to anyone interested in history, along with politics, but also to anyone Black.
July 28, 2021
Blow is very clear that he doesn’t care what White people think about his thesis, which is that young Black people should move from Great Migration destination cities back to the South in order to have numerical majorities to win back Senate seats and gain political power. OK, fine. But Mr. Blow, your book is available in stores and libraries, which means that it’s actually out in the world for anyone to read and remark on, so while you certain don’t need to care what I think, I do get to share my opinion.
I have no idea whether the core of Blow’s idea is a good one or not (i.e. whether it is the moral obligation of young Black people to move back to the states their families historically come from in order to create political power for the Black community), but I do think that he misses SO many relevant parts of the argument/discussion that it’s impossible to look at his question.
First, Blow bases his political argument solely on the Senate and completely ignores the House. While obviously it takes both chambers to pass legislation, this myopic view of the Legislative branch that ignores the effects of gerrymandering and disenfranchisement leaves me stunned. Second, he mentions late in the book that 6 million Black people live in majority Black communities… and then does not discuss anything about what those communities have achieved politically. If he is going to argue that some huge portion of the US population should move to achieve political goals, I believe he should tell us what achievements people in similar (even if smaller) communities have already achieved. If he can’t do that… if those communities aren’t achieving the kind of goals he is arguing for… then the answer is voter enfranchisement, greater civic engagement, and community organizing on local scales. Basically, show us proof of concept in places where these communities already exist, or use resources in different ways.
Blow spends a good portion of the book arguing for the Black connection to the South, and laying out the case that there is more racism in the North than people think there is. He says that he will never excuse the South, but ‘essentially) ‘really, have you seen how bad the North is’ (there’s a set of this around page 60)? And yet for all his examples of Black people being targeted (individually or by policy) in the North, he conveniently never names Ahmaud Arbery’s shooting in Georgia (but we get an interview with Tamir Rice’s mother (Cleveland) and hear about Eric Garner (NYC), George Floyd (MN), and many more who are all conveniently not in the South). He said at one point that during the Great Migration, Black people moved North because the South had individual racism, but not embedded systems like the North now does, pointing out police violence. Police violence is real, critical, and must be stopped, but what does he think literacy tests and poll taxes were? What were the police but system-endorsed violence? What were lynchings? Bull Connor and the Klan weren’t individuals; they were the system run amok.
Blow ignores that the US will soon be a majority minority country (particularly in younger age brackets). He ignores the changes in voting trends in the last two elections in ages and race and how that is already changing the country (look at Democratic Party representation). He ignores the devastating role that the Republican Party is having on voting rights at Federal, state, and local levels, and that gerrymandering has had for decades. Instead he wants to uproot people who have homes, leave behind the old and young (a complaint he had about the Great Migration), and bring them South where there are not currently jobs for as many as he would encourage. He disparages hope, ignoring the fact that hope is what galvanized the Modern Civil Rights Movement and kept (and keeps!) activists getting up each morning. Hope isn’t blind faith in an unseen future. Hope is the belief that if we do the work, we’ll build it together. I cannot imagine how he misses that. The Living Legacy Project has Civil Rights leaders (former and current) who Blow needs to talk to.
Charles Blow doesn’t care what I think. He’s crystal clear about that. That’s fine. But I hope somebody is asking him some hard questions about his idea, because this book feels like a think-piece column gone wrong.
I have no idea whether the core of Blow’s idea is a good one or not (i.e. whether it is the moral obligation of young Black people to move back to the states their families historically come from in order to create political power for the Black community), but I do think that he misses SO many relevant parts of the argument/discussion that it’s impossible to look at his question.
First, Blow bases his political argument solely on the Senate and completely ignores the House. While obviously it takes both chambers to pass legislation, this myopic view of the Legislative branch that ignores the effects of gerrymandering and disenfranchisement leaves me stunned. Second, he mentions late in the book that 6 million Black people live in majority Black communities… and then does not discuss anything about what those communities have achieved politically. If he is going to argue that some huge portion of the US population should move to achieve political goals, I believe he should tell us what achievements people in similar (even if smaller) communities have already achieved. If he can’t do that… if those communities aren’t achieving the kind of goals he is arguing for… then the answer is voter enfranchisement, greater civic engagement, and community organizing on local scales. Basically, show us proof of concept in places where these communities already exist, or use resources in different ways.
Blow spends a good portion of the book arguing for the Black connection to the South, and laying out the case that there is more racism in the North than people think there is. He says that he will never excuse the South, but ‘essentially) ‘really, have you seen how bad the North is’ (there’s a set of this around page 60)? And yet for all his examples of Black people being targeted (individually or by policy) in the North, he conveniently never names Ahmaud Arbery’s shooting in Georgia (but we get an interview with Tamir Rice’s mother (Cleveland) and hear about Eric Garner (NYC), George Floyd (MN), and many more who are all conveniently not in the South). He said at one point that during the Great Migration, Black people moved North because the South had individual racism, but not embedded systems like the North now does, pointing out police violence. Police violence is real, critical, and must be stopped, but what does he think literacy tests and poll taxes were? What were the police but system-endorsed violence? What were lynchings? Bull Connor and the Klan weren’t individuals; they were the system run amok.
Blow ignores that the US will soon be a majority minority country (particularly in younger age brackets). He ignores the changes in voting trends in the last two elections in ages and race and how that is already changing the country (look at Democratic Party representation). He ignores the devastating role that the Republican Party is having on voting rights at Federal, state, and local levels, and that gerrymandering has had for decades. Instead he wants to uproot people who have homes, leave behind the old and young (a complaint he had about the Great Migration), and bring them South where there are not currently jobs for as many as he would encourage. He disparages hope, ignoring the fact that hope is what galvanized the Modern Civil Rights Movement and kept (and keeps!) activists getting up each morning. Hope isn’t blind faith in an unseen future. Hope is the belief that if we do the work, we’ll build it together. I cannot imagine how he misses that. The Living Legacy Project has Civil Rights leaders (former and current) who Blow needs to talk to.
Charles Blow doesn’t care what I think. He’s crystal clear about that. That’s fine. But I hope somebody is asking him some hard questions about his idea, because this book feels like a think-piece column gone wrong.
May 31, 2021
Charles Blow, who’d written the New York Times best-selling memoir, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, and is also an op-ed columnist for the Times, has written an introspective entreatment that explores what is now, an age-old question: Should Black Northerners move back to the South?
“For a Negro, there’s no difference between the North and South. There’s just a difference in the way they castrate you. But the fact of the castration is the American fact.” – James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.
Before I read this slim manifesto (240 pages, 30 of which are copious notes), I wanted to read what The New York Times had to say.
Tanisha Ford, a professor of history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, doesn’t necessarily rail against the book; however, she does pit her own proclivities against its framework: “As a historian, I wish he had spent more time exploring the nuances of the Black migration framework the book hinges upon.”
Ford further opines, “The weakness in Blow’s plan is that it requires faith in a political system that has consistently failed Black Americans at nearly every turn.”
In addition, she cites an episode involving Blow’s son who, at the time (2015), was a student at Yale, who had been stopped at gunpoint by a university police officer. “This is where Blow is at his best.”
Finally, Ford considers a strength: “… its affirmation of Black Americans as a formidable political bloc with whom the nation must reckon.”
The Devil You Know is “a helpful introduction for those seeking to make sense of fractious political debates about race and voting rights in the South, and the broken promises of American democracy.”
I found this tug-of-war almost as intriguing as the book.
Divided into six chapters, Blow lays out an effort to reverse the great migration. “In effect Black people could colonize and control the states they would have controlled if they had not fled them.”
What I found interesting as well was another exploration of the entanglement between W.E.B Dubois and Booker T. Washington; where mistakes were made on both sides, but the argument never gets old.
Also, in that Blow includes himself as part of the problem; one he’s taken great pains to erase: “How could a Black man, having risen to the height of New York cultural inclusion, spurn it?
Easily, Blow asserts. “That inclusion offered only personal comforts not community recovery.”
“Black healing and rebuilding will come from the bottom up, not the top down.”
“For a Negro, there’s no difference between the North and South. There’s just a difference in the way they castrate you. But the fact of the castration is the American fact.” – James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.
Before I read this slim manifesto (240 pages, 30 of which are copious notes), I wanted to read what The New York Times had to say.
Tanisha Ford, a professor of history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, doesn’t necessarily rail against the book; however, she does pit her own proclivities against its framework: “As a historian, I wish he had spent more time exploring the nuances of the Black migration framework the book hinges upon.”
Ford further opines, “The weakness in Blow’s plan is that it requires faith in a political system that has consistently failed Black Americans at nearly every turn.”
In addition, she cites an episode involving Blow’s son who, at the time (2015), was a student at Yale, who had been stopped at gunpoint by a university police officer. “This is where Blow is at his best.”
Finally, Ford considers a strength: “… its affirmation of Black Americans as a formidable political bloc with whom the nation must reckon.”
The Devil You Know is “a helpful introduction for those seeking to make sense of fractious political debates about race and voting rights in the South, and the broken promises of American democracy.”
I found this tug-of-war almost as intriguing as the book.
Divided into six chapters, Blow lays out an effort to reverse the great migration. “In effect Black people could colonize and control the states they would have controlled if they had not fled them.”
What I found interesting as well was another exploration of the entanglement between W.E.B Dubois and Booker T. Washington; where mistakes were made on both sides, but the argument never gets old.
Also, in that Blow includes himself as part of the problem; one he’s taken great pains to erase: “How could a Black man, having risen to the height of New York cultural inclusion, spurn it?
Easily, Blow asserts. “That inclusion offered only personal comforts not community recovery.”
“Black healing and rebuilding will come from the bottom up, not the top down.”
August 27, 2021
As a non Black American I'm not gonna offer a deep review of this book as my opinion on these matters is really of no value I'll just praise this book for three things.
1. Correctly noting that the protests after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 quickly escalated from being about Black Lives to being about white spectacle. Blow mentions Portland and that is certainly one example. The more comical examples are mobs of whites parading through neighborhoods they've gentrified in New York and DC and tearing things up supposedly in the name of Black Lives. This is the Black Lives Matter Signs Matter movement because these "allies" have ran off all the previous Black residents. When I saw rallies of basically all white people clowning and acting a fool in St. Louis and bullying white diners in DC I knew that whatever this was about it definitely wasn't helping Black people.
2. The more power white progressives have in a city the more likely the city is to be losing Black residents. San Francisco, Oakland, New York, Chicago, DC, and St. Louis just to name a few. As statistically higher income whites move in they enact progressive legislation, but there are fewer Black residents around to benefit. The areas of Black population growth in most metropolitan areas are in the suburbs. The largest magnets for Black population are the Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Charlotte metros... all in the South.
3. When Mike Brown was killed leaving Ferguson Market in 2014 two other young St. Louis Black men were killed within weeks leaving Palestinian-owned stores. The reaction from heavily-funded progressive organizations moving in and trying to control the narrative and purchase the service of activists? Ferguson to Palestine our struggle is the same. No attempt to address the rampant anti-Blackness in the Arab community and the problematic relationship many of these stores have in the community. Same can be said with large segments of the Latino and Asian communities in that they're steeped in anti-Blackness. Blow correctly tackles some of the core flaws of intersectionality in this book.
1. Correctly noting that the protests after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 quickly escalated from being about Black Lives to being about white spectacle. Blow mentions Portland and that is certainly one example. The more comical examples are mobs of whites parading through neighborhoods they've gentrified in New York and DC and tearing things up supposedly in the name of Black Lives. This is the Black Lives Matter Signs Matter movement because these "allies" have ran off all the previous Black residents. When I saw rallies of basically all white people clowning and acting a fool in St. Louis and bullying white diners in DC I knew that whatever this was about it definitely wasn't helping Black people.
2. The more power white progressives have in a city the more likely the city is to be losing Black residents. San Francisco, Oakland, New York, Chicago, DC, and St. Louis just to name a few. As statistically higher income whites move in they enact progressive legislation, but there are fewer Black residents around to benefit. The areas of Black population growth in most metropolitan areas are in the suburbs. The largest magnets for Black population are the Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Charlotte metros... all in the South.
3. When Mike Brown was killed leaving Ferguson Market in 2014 two other young St. Louis Black men were killed within weeks leaving Palestinian-owned stores. The reaction from heavily-funded progressive organizations moving in and trying to control the narrative and purchase the service of activists? Ferguson to Palestine our struggle is the same. No attempt to address the rampant anti-Blackness in the Arab community and the problematic relationship many of these stores have in the community. Same can be said with large segments of the Latino and Asian communities in that they're steeped in anti-Blackness. Blow correctly tackles some of the core flaws of intersectionality in this book.
February 10, 2021
This is a very interesting book. Mr. Blow suggests that black people should return to the South, where they once were and could again become the majority, and in that way seize the real political power that has too long been denied them. I found this an interesting and novel idea and considering the role of African Americans in winning the nomination and election for President Biden, something which may have some success. I hope I live long enough to see this happen.
February 3, 2021
I agree with the main thesis of this book. The first half is great. But as Blow continued on I found myself disagreeing with some of the minor points he throws in. I didn’t appreciate his diatribe against religion. He blames faith in afterlife justice as a reason for why Black Americans don’t fight harder for justice here in this life. I thought this argument had been put to rest long ago. But I guess Blow had to make his case for atheism. That’s tiring to me.
Also it occurred to me while reading that no one would actually move to the South in large numbers for social justice alone. It had to be for economic reasons. And those do exist and I think that is what is making the New South is economic opportunities. There are new jobs here and lower cost of living. But who we see coming here are Millennials, who are demographically more diverse. Blow’s book is interesting but he doesn’t really spend a lot of time on statistics or economic truths - analyzing what is currently happening already. So the second half of his book fell a bit short. Why postulate when we have the data?
Anyway, everyone move South y’all.
Also it occurred to me while reading that no one would actually move to the South in large numbers for social justice alone. It had to be for economic reasons. And those do exist and I think that is what is making the New South is economic opportunities. There are new jobs here and lower cost of living. But who we see coming here are Millennials, who are demographically more diverse. Blow’s book is interesting but he doesn’t really spend a lot of time on statistics or economic truths - analyzing what is currently happening already. So the second half of his book fell a bit short. Why postulate when we have the data?
Anyway, everyone move South y’all.
January 5, 2022
This is the most compelling and logical argument I’ve ever read on any subject ever! Charles Blow’s proposition is simple: “black people in America should reverse the Great Migration and return to the states where they have been at or near the majority after the Civil War, and to the states where they currently constitute large percentages of the population.” Specifically he suggests migrating to the following nine states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. Why? To claim state power, elect senators and representatives who embody our values and ideals (essentially create a voting block), and to overturn white supremacy once and for all (debate-able).
With that overarching idea in mind, the author lays down fact after fact as to why his proposition should be taken seriously and I was absolutely blown away. I’m also 100% convinced that what he proposes can work.
I recommend this book to be read by all black people! This one is solely for us!
With that overarching idea in mind, the author lays down fact after fact as to why his proposition should be taken seriously and I was absolutely blown away. I’m also 100% convinced that what he proposes can work.
I recommend this book to be read by all black people! This one is solely for us!
February 22, 2021
At first glance, Charles M. Blow’s proposition that African Americans move from the destination cities of the North and the West to the South in an apparent reversal of the Great Migration seems startling. But he presents his case so cogently and persuasively that it is hard not to be swayed by his arguments.
In order to consolidate Black political and economic power capable of truly transforming Black lives for the better, Blow asserts that African Americans need to develop significant population bases and the South is the region best-suited for this. He has put a great deal of thought into his thesis and the result makes for compelling reading.
The Devil You Know is also a celebration of Blackness. With real joy, Blow salutes the nurturing nature of all-Black and majority-Black communities, particularly in the South.
This is an important book, thought-provoking and shot through with Blow’s characteristic incisiveness.
In order to consolidate Black political and economic power capable of truly transforming Black lives for the better, Blow asserts that African Americans need to develop significant population bases and the South is the region best-suited for this. He has put a great deal of thought into his thesis and the result makes for compelling reading.
The Devil You Know is also a celebration of Blackness. With real joy, Blow salutes the nurturing nature of all-Black and majority-Black communities, particularly in the South.
This is an important book, thought-provoking and shot through with Blow’s characteristic incisiveness.
September 29, 2021
interesting and not unique ideas. frustrating in the lack of organizer sensibilities. his stance basically seems like: this is a good idea so people should just do it. imho, the world is much more complex than simply deciding to execute on good ideas. i appreciate the thinking here but this book seems to be much more of an ego-driven attempt to leave a mark on history than a well-rounded, grounded, strategic offering. plus it seems like, somehow, the audience for this book is white people. which is baffling.
May 16, 2021
A wordy tome that can be summarized as follows: Black people should move back down South to achieve majority political status in the various states where they once constituted a majority, before the Great Migration north. I agree with Blow. It was a decent book, but I didn't find that the book had much to say other than that.
July 5, 2021
As a white American, I am not the intended audience for this book, and feel that it would be disingenuous and out of place for me to write a review. I will say that I learned a great deal from this thought-provoking book, and hope that it finds its way into the hands of its intended audience.
March 20, 2021
“For 150 years, Black Americans have been hoping and waiting. We have marched and resisted. Many of our most prominent leaders have been appeased and kowtowed. We have seen our hard-earned gains eroded by an evolving, refining white supremacy, while at the same time we are told that true and full equality is in the offing. But, there is no more guarantee of that today than there was a century ago” (p. 158).
Now, as with any book of this type, I have to declare my Whitey McWhite-ness right off the bat because I know I have no real place in the conversation except to be a part of the “educated, suburban, ‘radical’ progressive Left” who seeks drastic, fundamental, and systemic changes in these United States of Hypocrisy. As Blow and others easily point out, we should be in a supportive role. This is not our “fight”, but we can bolster the cause through support. So many “enlightened Whites” are fair-weather and fickle supporters anyway, as the data show. As I’ve written many times before, protests don’t work to force systemic changes. That takes voting power to force legislative power to bend to our will.
I should also say that I know the entire idea of “race” is a construct of power dynamics forged from European colonialism inflicted upon the rest of the world. The fact that it is still widely accepted should showcase my rage at those who propagate it. This is the context in which we live, and so I use terms that reinforce the very idea I despise. Hypocrisy runs rampant. Still, I acknowledge ad nauseam that the entire system is historically racist (and historically classist). I was awakened watching Rodney King get beaten within an inch of his life some THIRTY YEARS AGO by racist, sociopathic cops who were exonerated, as I watched alongside my infantry platoon of black and brown and red and white bodies talking about their 18-to-21-year-old histories within the System. The riots that ensued were justified, but ultimately pointless.
About the book: Blow writes a compelling manifesto that I believe everyone should read, digest, and process. In its essence, challenging and transforming “the system” is a sheer numbers game. If Black Americans have a new “reverse migration” back into the South’s metropolitan cities, they can create a system that nurtures and empowers Black America far beyond anything done thus far at local, state, and federal levels. Blow takes from Dr. King and Malcolm X and Robert Sengstacke Abbott, as well as Reverend Jessie Jackson and Reverend William Barber. Blow acknowledges this idea isn’t a simple or easy request, and much more needs to be done to educate, empower, and unify Black American under basic tenets. “So much of the power in this country is assigned to and controlled by the states. Slavery was allowed and maintained on a state level. Jim Crow was established and maintained by the states. As the Tenth Amendment sets forth: ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’
Black America must ask itself: How is the lack of any state control tolerable? What could we accomplish with state control?” (p. 106).
He answers this question: “The possession of real statewide political power in the South could radically alter the architecture of oppression in this country” (p. 113).
I agree. To drown out the “redneck vote” (my obviously derogatory term that encompasses both undereducated Whites, blue-collar joes voting against their own interests, and country-club millionaires who support the GOP religiously for the tax breaks and weakening of federal agencies), the urban centers must vote en mass. Here in Nevada we have done just that (in fact we’re forcing corporate Dems to flee too: https://theintercept.com/2021/03/08/n...), but as Blow’s use of statistics highlight, suburban Whites, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asians aren’t ironclad issues-voters when it comes to Black America. Of course neither are Democrats in general. That fact almost half of voting America, including 32% of the Hispanic vote, went to a categorically sociopathic and historical racist toying with authoritarianism (never mind a delusional and pathological liar), is proof enough that more radical outside-the-box thinking needs to be undertaken, and Blow’s manifesto does just that. Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker, reinforces this idea in a way, highlighting the likely schism impacting the GOP and illustrating the ephemeral nature of political parties overall (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...). The GOP is doubling down on a minority of white nationalists and the idiocy of “Caucasian nativism” to pander to a bovine cult of personality (and I suspect more crucially the storm of anonymous death-threats from their ignorant, brainwashed, and armed base), while the Democrats may face an internecine struggle with the growing rage of progressivism, which I happily support. As Body Count aptly nailed in reality, No Lives Matter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlk7o...).
What Stacey Abrams did in Georgia with her New Georgia Project is a paragon example of what needs to happen everywhere; however, it’s abundantly apparent how hard the GOP will fight by whatever means necessary to keep certain demographics from voting, such as Georgia’s SB241 bill. They’re truly frightened at the loss of power, and we know it. This is the devil we all know.
”White supremacy cannot be appeased. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be convinced. White supremacy is ravenous and vicious. It is America’s embryonic fluid. American was born in it and genetically coded by it. No amount of hoping or waiting, coalition-building or Kumbaya can redress that reality.
Racism is a flaw in the oppressor, not the oppressed” (p. 136).
This country has, as Blow wrote, a poisoned embryonic fluid that must be transfused. Hope and patience must be replaced by action and solidarity. In my thinking, we need proactive holistic healthcare for all; we need teachers and police officers to be the best-trained, best-vetted, and best-paid public service employees; we should have the best education system on Earth, free for all; we should be investing in infrastructure and jobs-creation with the unpaid taxes of the filthy rich and their corporations; we should be uplifting and empowering the impoverished, the disenfranchised, and the marginalized to be powerful contributors to society; and of course the policing, legal, and judicial systems need fundamental overhauls from the ground up. These issues are not specifically Black-centric, because they do impact people of all hues. Blow writes this book for Black America though: “Beyond the push of state terror and oppressive, even lethal, neglect, and the pull of political power, purchasing power, and overall economic opportunity and possibility, there is, I believe, a spiritual, restorative need for the collective Black family to reunite” (p. 167).
The rest of us can still support them. #blacklivesmatter
Now, as with any book of this type, I have to declare my Whitey McWhite-ness right off the bat because I know I have no real place in the conversation except to be a part of the “educated, suburban, ‘radical’ progressive Left” who seeks drastic, fundamental, and systemic changes in these United States of Hypocrisy. As Blow and others easily point out, we should be in a supportive role. This is not our “fight”, but we can bolster the cause through support. So many “enlightened Whites” are fair-weather and fickle supporters anyway, as the data show. As I’ve written many times before, protests don’t work to force systemic changes. That takes voting power to force legislative power to bend to our will.
I should also say that I know the entire idea of “race” is a construct of power dynamics forged from European colonialism inflicted upon the rest of the world. The fact that it is still widely accepted should showcase my rage at those who propagate it. This is the context in which we live, and so I use terms that reinforce the very idea I despise. Hypocrisy runs rampant. Still, I acknowledge ad nauseam that the entire system is historically racist (and historically classist). I was awakened watching Rodney King get beaten within an inch of his life some THIRTY YEARS AGO by racist, sociopathic cops who were exonerated, as I watched alongside my infantry platoon of black and brown and red and white bodies talking about their 18-to-21-year-old histories within the System. The riots that ensued were justified, but ultimately pointless.
About the book: Blow writes a compelling manifesto that I believe everyone should read, digest, and process. In its essence, challenging and transforming “the system” is a sheer numbers game. If Black Americans have a new “reverse migration” back into the South’s metropolitan cities, they can create a system that nurtures and empowers Black America far beyond anything done thus far at local, state, and federal levels. Blow takes from Dr. King and Malcolm X and Robert Sengstacke Abbott, as well as Reverend Jessie Jackson and Reverend William Barber. Blow acknowledges this idea isn’t a simple or easy request, and much more needs to be done to educate, empower, and unify Black American under basic tenets. “So much of the power in this country is assigned to and controlled by the states. Slavery was allowed and maintained on a state level. Jim Crow was established and maintained by the states. As the Tenth Amendment sets forth: ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’
Black America must ask itself: How is the lack of any state control tolerable? What could we accomplish with state control?” (p. 106).
He answers this question: “The possession of real statewide political power in the South could radically alter the architecture of oppression in this country” (p. 113).
I agree. To drown out the “redneck vote” (my obviously derogatory term that encompasses both undereducated Whites, blue-collar joes voting against their own interests, and country-club millionaires who support the GOP religiously for the tax breaks and weakening of federal agencies), the urban centers must vote en mass. Here in Nevada we have done just that (in fact we’re forcing corporate Dems to flee too: https://theintercept.com/2021/03/08/n...), but as Blow’s use of statistics highlight, suburban Whites, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asians aren’t ironclad issues-voters when it comes to Black America. Of course neither are Democrats in general. That fact almost half of voting America, including 32% of the Hispanic vote, went to a categorically sociopathic and historical racist toying with authoritarianism (never mind a delusional and pathological liar), is proof enough that more radical outside-the-box thinking needs to be undertaken, and Blow’s manifesto does just that. Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker, reinforces this idea in a way, highlighting the likely schism impacting the GOP and illustrating the ephemeral nature of political parties overall (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...). The GOP is doubling down on a minority of white nationalists and the idiocy of “Caucasian nativism” to pander to a bovine cult of personality (and I suspect more crucially the storm of anonymous death-threats from their ignorant, brainwashed, and armed base), while the Democrats may face an internecine struggle with the growing rage of progressivism, which I happily support. As Body Count aptly nailed in reality, No Lives Matter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlk7o...).
What Stacey Abrams did in Georgia with her New Georgia Project is a paragon example of what needs to happen everywhere; however, it’s abundantly apparent how hard the GOP will fight by whatever means necessary to keep certain demographics from voting, such as Georgia’s SB241 bill. They’re truly frightened at the loss of power, and we know it. This is the devil we all know.
”White supremacy cannot be appeased. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be convinced. White supremacy is ravenous and vicious. It is America’s embryonic fluid. American was born in it and genetically coded by it. No amount of hoping or waiting, coalition-building or Kumbaya can redress that reality.
Racism is a flaw in the oppressor, not the oppressed” (p. 136).
This country has, as Blow wrote, a poisoned embryonic fluid that must be transfused. Hope and patience must be replaced by action and solidarity. In my thinking, we need proactive holistic healthcare for all; we need teachers and police officers to be the best-trained, best-vetted, and best-paid public service employees; we should have the best education system on Earth, free for all; we should be investing in infrastructure and jobs-creation with the unpaid taxes of the filthy rich and their corporations; we should be uplifting and empowering the impoverished, the disenfranchised, and the marginalized to be powerful contributors to society; and of course the policing, legal, and judicial systems need fundamental overhauls from the ground up. These issues are not specifically Black-centric, because they do impact people of all hues. Blow writes this book for Black America though: “Beyond the push of state terror and oppressive, even lethal, neglect, and the pull of political power, purchasing power, and overall economic opportunity and possibility, there is, I believe, a spiritual, restorative need for the collective Black family to reunite” (p. 167).
The rest of us can still support them. #blacklivesmatter
January 30, 2021
This book poses a strong argument for a return to the South for Blacks who are disenfranchised with the North. Blow's ideas are cogent and his wordplay and turns of phrase are as deft as a novelist's. I hope when you read these reviews for this book that you consider the source of each rater. Audience matters. I think a reordering of the parts would be more persuasive in this sequence: Part 1, 2, 5, 3, 4, 6. As a child of the North raised in the South, I've never felt a beckoning to return. I consider myself lucky to live in a city (Tampa, FL) which has burgeoning pockets of Black growth and business support. To echo the end of the book, come on down--the water's fine.
January 25, 2022
Completely unrealistic. His ideas will never happen. He sees black voters as a monolith which they are not.
He mentions Mt Vernon NY as an example of an all black governed city with a majority black citizenship. It would be enlightening to see Mr Blow write a book on Mt Vernon - not sure it would bolster his arguments. I’d like to know why Mt Vernon is a highly dysfunctional city government and a poorly performing school district under all black leadership for decades.
He mentions Mt Vernon NY as an example of an all black governed city with a majority black citizenship. It would be enlightening to see Mr Blow write a book on Mt Vernon - not sure it would bolster his arguments. I’d like to know why Mt Vernon is a highly dysfunctional city government and a poorly performing school district under all black leadership for decades.
July 9, 2024
A book that has been on my Want To Read for more than three years, I found this to be a manifesto with an intriguing premise and an exclusionary execution. When the author Blow isn't bordering on calling white activists racist and self-centered for protesting police brutality, or arguing that the "browning of America" via Latino and Asian immigration may simply reinvent whiteness, it manages to bring a rare criticism to Northern racism in the United States and to intellectually analyze the history of race in this country. Blow is intelligent and a good writer, but I couldn't get past how simplistic the ideas explained in the book are and how rarely they are backed by real data.
There is something that feels wrong with this book when we consider that a mainstream journalist writes, "I am not a strict segregationist, nor am I a strict integrationist." Shaming Black people who integrated into white communities, this book makes the argument that segregation historically consolidated Black power and is the basis of the voluntary segregationist thesis of the book. In this sense and throughout the book, Blow reduces the interests of Black Americans exclusively to those issues linked to race. He opposes gentrification as splitting up and raising prices in Black communities, even though it is effectively the reverse of white flight, which he also opposes.
When Blow compares his to states like Vermont and their highly homogenous population of white voters, he completely tramples over the fact that this was not purely an attempt at racial centralization of power and segregation, which is what his book proposes. And although I appreciate the author's opposition to Black supremacy and rebuttals to arguments against him, including by indicating that he supports governance alongside other racial groups in these speculative Black-majority areas, I still don't know if his call for "race-conscious accountability" would work.
Relatively short and actually highly readable, this is an inflammatory text that came out at exactly the right moment for strong sales. However, I don't think it will age as anything truly memorable for the cause of American racial politics, given that it is too much for the Democratic status quo to be radical, and too radical to be accessible to the average voter. Even so, Blow attempts to change the popular dialogue in a risk-taking manner, and I have to respect the book for that.
There is something that feels wrong with this book when we consider that a mainstream journalist writes, "I am not a strict segregationist, nor am I a strict integrationist." Shaming Black people who integrated into white communities, this book makes the argument that segregation historically consolidated Black power and is the basis of the voluntary segregationist thesis of the book. In this sense and throughout the book, Blow reduces the interests of Black Americans exclusively to those issues linked to race. He opposes gentrification as splitting up and raising prices in Black communities, even though it is effectively the reverse of white flight, which he also opposes.
When Blow compares his to states like Vermont and their highly homogenous population of white voters, he completely tramples over the fact that this was not purely an attempt at racial centralization of power and segregation, which is what his book proposes. And although I appreciate the author's opposition to Black supremacy and rebuttals to arguments against him, including by indicating that he supports governance alongside other racial groups in these speculative Black-majority areas, I still don't know if his call for "race-conscious accountability" would work.
Relatively short and actually highly readable, this is an inflammatory text that came out at exactly the right moment for strong sales. However, I don't think it will age as anything truly memorable for the cause of American racial politics, given that it is too much for the Democratic status quo to be radical, and too radical to be accessible to the average voter. Even so, Blow attempts to change the popular dialogue in a risk-taking manner, and I have to respect the book for that.
January 19, 2022
I'm White so... who cares what I think. XD But I did want to record some thoughts I had for myself.
I really appreciated the emphasis on an action plan. It's a radical (right word?) plan, but it would have results. His thoughts about how the South is a different place than it used to be, or that the North and South are bad for Black people in different ways, were really thought provoking. And that there are now areas in the South that are flourishing under Black leadership. I love that he talked about how important state/local power is for substantive change.
Some of this book doesn't appeal to me - the memoir-ish parts (I'm a hard sell on memoirs, not my usual read). Those cropped up every now and then. There are also chunks of it that are repetitive *if* you have already done some reading on race in America. Blow doesn't know what I've read or not, so I don't fault him for including it.
One potential snag in the book is that while he addresses intersectionality in terms of its problems (racism between minorities), he doesn't really include much about Black women, Black people who identify as LGBT+, or Black folks with disabilities - it's very focused on Black men or a general Black perspective that might be missing some of the picture.
Favorite quotes:
"And although rage has often been an effective tool to focus attention and shift narratives, it rarely produces policy gains or positively shifts societal perspective."
"Activism becomes an exercise in credentialing, a way of positioning in pursuit of power. These missives often represent as desperate longings by the authors to be anointed by white liberals and the white academy, collectives that address Blackness from a clinical distance, turning Black struggle into anthropology and Black pain into pedagogy."
"The severing point is often whether you believe, as King did, that America is in need of redemption and capable of it—if you believe that America is just sick, and needs to be healed—or if you believe that what ails America on the racial question is terminal and hopeless."
I really appreciated the emphasis on an action plan. It's a radical (right word?) plan, but it would have results. His thoughts about how the South is a different place than it used to be, or that the North and South are bad for Black people in different ways, were really thought provoking. And that there are now areas in the South that are flourishing under Black leadership. I love that he talked about how important state/local power is for substantive change.
Some of this book doesn't appeal to me - the memoir-ish parts (I'm a hard sell on memoirs, not my usual read). Those cropped up every now and then. There are also chunks of it that are repetitive *if* you have already done some reading on race in America. Blow doesn't know what I've read or not, so I don't fault him for including it.
One potential snag in the book is that while he addresses intersectionality in terms of its problems (racism between minorities), he doesn't really include much about Black women, Black people who identify as LGBT+, or Black folks with disabilities - it's very focused on Black men or a general Black perspective that might be missing some of the picture.
Favorite quotes:
"And although rage has often been an effective tool to focus attention and shift narratives, it rarely produces policy gains or positively shifts societal perspective."
"Activism becomes an exercise in credentialing, a way of positioning in pursuit of power. These missives often represent as desperate longings by the authors to be anointed by white liberals and the white academy, collectives that address Blackness from a clinical distance, turning Black struggle into anthropology and Black pain into pedagogy."
"The severing point is often whether you believe, as King did, that America is in need of redemption and capable of it—if you believe that America is just sick, and needs to be healed—or if you believe that what ails America on the racial question is terminal and hopeless."
May 20, 2021
4.5 stars
Kirkus starts its review like this : The devil that Black Americans know all too well is racism, and, as Blow notes from the outset, it is not confined to the South: “Black people fled the horrors of the racist South for so-called liberal cities of the North and West, trading the devil they knew for the devil they didn’t, only to come to the painful realization that the devil is the devil.”
And Charles Blow's book posits that a reverse migration of Black voters to the American South could help create a more just government, undoing white supremacy through political and geographical power taking.
The idea is a fascinating one, but for me, part of the power of this small book was in the context the author provides for WHY he believes this is the right course of action to create traction for what has been an intractable issue.
The Washington Post had a fairly critical review, unlike my feelings about the book, but this line stuck with me, "As intriguing as the proposal itself is why Blow feels compelled to make it. He describes some of the recent protests surrounding racial justice as mere “cabin fever racial consciousness” flowing from exhaustion with the pandemic, a performative activism that will not yield lasting changes."
This book is definitely one of my favorites so far this year.
Kirkus starts its review like this : The devil that Black Americans know all too well is racism, and, as Blow notes from the outset, it is not confined to the South: “Black people fled the horrors of the racist South for so-called liberal cities of the North and West, trading the devil they knew for the devil they didn’t, only to come to the painful realization that the devil is the devil.”
And Charles Blow's book posits that a reverse migration of Black voters to the American South could help create a more just government, undoing white supremacy through political and geographical power taking.
The idea is a fascinating one, but for me, part of the power of this small book was in the context the author provides for WHY he believes this is the right course of action to create traction for what has been an intractable issue.
The Washington Post had a fairly critical review, unlike my feelings about the book, but this line stuck with me, "As intriguing as the proposal itself is why Blow feels compelled to make it. He describes some of the recent protests surrounding racial justice as mere “cabin fever racial consciousness” flowing from exhaustion with the pandemic, a performative activism that will not yield lasting changes."
This book is definitely one of my favorites so far this year.
January 18, 2025
Throughly intriguing book focused on creating Black Power in America. Charles M. Blow proposes the idea to reverse the Great Migration of black people in America to gain a majority in the south, in turn most likely resulting in black conscious political power.
Blow does an amazing job at giving the reader quantifiable and personal metrics of why this is necessary. From crime and economic numbers in North/West destination cities to personal stories of being born in the south, moving to New York, to moving back to the south. He logically poses a quantifiable way for black people to gain Black Power in America. Black Power really just meaning black equality, which consciously and subconsciously has been at the heart of policies and political action (or non action) to deny. This book is an easy eye opener for anybody willing to read.
I would challenge anyone reading this book or this review, especially if you’re white, to question the system and your beliefs. Even if you consider yourself a liberal, free thinker, or an advocate, a deep dive into your racial subconscious could reveal some unnerving truths.
Blow does an amazing job at giving the reader quantifiable and personal metrics of why this is necessary. From crime and economic numbers in North/West destination cities to personal stories of being born in the south, moving to New York, to moving back to the south. He logically poses a quantifiable way for black people to gain Black Power in America. Black Power really just meaning black equality, which consciously and subconsciously has been at the heart of policies and political action (or non action) to deny. This book is an easy eye opener for anybody willing to read.
I would challenge anyone reading this book or this review, especially if you’re white, to question the system and your beliefs. Even if you consider yourself a liberal, free thinker, or an advocate, a deep dive into your racial subconscious could reveal some unnerving truths.
September 5, 2022
Great read, though it is as much Racism Analysis as it is Manifesto. Not a criticism in the least.
What I took issue with was the manifest part. I agree that if the acts laid out occurred, the result would be as fortuitous as Blow describes. I disagree that it is realistic to assume great masses of people would enact the anti-Great Migration and return south toward their ancestral homes.
Other than that, I was all aboard for most everything Blow wrote. One of the best things about this book is Blow's clarity of concepts, his logical reasoning, his apt comparisons, and transparent communication. I am in love with his writing style, and his skill turned what could have been a dry recitation of history, facts and theories into an almost always enrapturing narrative.
If I hadn't been so familiar with a lot of the history covered in The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto, I would have given the book a 5-STAR rating. It deserves it. However, because I am so familiar with the history covered, for me personally this comes in at 4-STARs.
Highly Recommended reading!
What I took issue with was the manifest part. I agree that if the acts laid out occurred, the result would be as fortuitous as Blow describes. I disagree that it is realistic to assume great masses of people would enact the anti-Great Migration and return south toward their ancestral homes.
Other than that, I was all aboard for most everything Blow wrote. One of the best things about this book is Blow's clarity of concepts, his logical reasoning, his apt comparisons, and transparent communication. I am in love with his writing style, and his skill turned what could have been a dry recitation of history, facts and theories into an almost always enrapturing narrative.
If I hadn't been so familiar with a lot of the history covered in The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto, I would have given the book a 5-STAR rating. It deserves it. However, because I am so familiar with the history covered, for me personally this comes in at 4-STARs.
Highly Recommended reading!
December 8, 2025
This is more of a 4.5 star for me for the reasons below but I rounded up.
This was a compelling, short, quick listening audiobook with a great reader (although I didn’t love his RFK voice). Blow’s message is fairly simple: he’s suggesting that Black people, particularly young ones, do a reverse Great Migration in order to concentrate their political power in 9 states in the South. He makes really compelling arguments for the necessity of this, but I am not the intended target of this message and I would never tell a Black person how they should feel about this idea or what they should do.
This book was published in January 2021, so it was written well before before the 2024 election. I would like to see a bit of intersectionality in the analysis, particularly with the gains the Republican Party made with young Black men. It would also be interesting to read an updated version of this book in light of the even more blatant white supremacist and segregationist policies of the second Trump administration. He also touched on gentrification displacing Black families from “destination” cities in the north and the west and he’s not wrong, but we also have to address NIMBYism in those areas. Also, one part that truly didn’t age well was a section in which he was talking about Black economic power and opportunity and in doing so, quoted Sean Combs at length. The points weren’t wrong, but I could see value in a revised version that quotes someone who hasn’t committed heinous sexual crimes (again, why an intersectional approach is needed).
But overall, it’s a really thought provoking book worth reading even if you don’t agree with his ultimate conclusion. It’s also got lots of information about the racism of the north and the west that those of us who are white and live here need to be honest about.
This was a compelling, short, quick listening audiobook with a great reader (although I didn’t love his RFK voice). Blow’s message is fairly simple: he’s suggesting that Black people, particularly young ones, do a reverse Great Migration in order to concentrate their political power in 9 states in the South. He makes really compelling arguments for the necessity of this, but I am not the intended target of this message and I would never tell a Black person how they should feel about this idea or what they should do.
This book was published in January 2021, so it was written well before before the 2024 election. I would like to see a bit of intersectionality in the analysis, particularly with the gains the Republican Party made with young Black men. It would also be interesting to read an updated version of this book in light of the even more blatant white supremacist and segregationist policies of the second Trump administration. He also touched on gentrification displacing Black families from “destination” cities in the north and the west and he’s not wrong, but we also have to address NIMBYism in those areas. Also, one part that truly didn’t age well was a section in which he was talking about Black economic power and opportunity and in doing so, quoted Sean Combs at length. The points weren’t wrong, but I could see value in a revised version that quotes someone who hasn’t committed heinous sexual crimes (again, why an intersectional approach is needed).
But overall, it’s a really thought provoking book worth reading even if you don’t agree with his ultimate conclusion. It’s also got lots of information about the racism of the north and the west that those of us who are white and live here need to be honest about.
April 28, 2021
A genuinely thrilling book to read... the idea that Blow proposes is relatively straightforward but its implications-- concrete, institutionalized political power for Black people-- are so huge that this book was really exciting. His theory is sometimes overwhelmingly based in anecdote and personal experience, but some of the statistics would surprise you. Would recommend to anyone who is desperately hungry for political change and racial justice but disillusioned with vague promises of "revolution"-- here is a very actionable plan. Would love to read further and hear more debate on this subject, including a feminist critique/response; Blow focused largely on Black men's experiences with police brutality and could have examined things like maternal mortality rates in the North vs. South, etc. Great book!! I wish more people were talking about it
May 30, 2021
A proposal for why American Black people should reverse the great migration by moving to southern cities and gain political power for themselves. Blow articulates his argument thoroughly with a lot of historical context to explain his line of thinking. Compelling and provocative. He makes a strong argument. Definitely an idea worth considering.
A few claims that really make me think:
1) The northern and western are not necessarily any less racist than the south.
2) Liberal progressives probably don't actually care about the well being of Black Americans in a meaningful way.
3) Black Americans should not look to white institutions (i.e. the Democratic Party) to end racism, but should gain power on their own.
4) Racist systems and attitudes will not just fix themselves on their own with time.
*N.B. I am an Asian American who grew up in white, suburban, Midwest America and am quite accustomed to moving through the American white world.
A few claims that really make me think:
1) The northern and western are not necessarily any less racist than the south.
2) Liberal progressives probably don't actually care about the well being of Black Americans in a meaningful way.
3) Black Americans should not look to white institutions (i.e. the Democratic Party) to end racism, but should gain power on their own.
4) Racist systems and attitudes will not just fix themselves on their own with time.
*N.B. I am an Asian American who grew up in white, suburban, Midwest America and am quite accustomed to moving through the American white world.
May 13, 2021
This is my first book that I have completed and I am really touched by the arguments Charles Blow makes. Overall his message was empowering blacks to return to the South, "American Africa". Blacks have made footprints in political offices, however until the Movement of Stacey Abrams in Atlanta, blacks hadn't made critical political affects (Presidential) in decades. He describes the black community oppression financially as the result of the government's lack to provide resources after emancipation. Decades of oppression and lack of social support still resides in the black community today. If your not happy affect change in your family, friends, and then your community.
May 11, 2022
A must read, not once but twice!
I didn’t know this book would be this good but wow! As a black southerner who moved to the north, this book spoke to me on every level. It was hard to find anything to disagree with because Blow provides data to back up his points. He expertly explains why Black people must return home to the south. The way he dispelled notions that the north is better in terms of racism must be applauded! This book must be studied, taught, passed along, and encouraged among our young and old. Thank you Charles Blow for an impeccable piece of work.
I didn’t know this book would be this good but wow! As a black southerner who moved to the north, this book spoke to me on every level. It was hard to find anything to disagree with because Blow provides data to back up his points. He expertly explains why Black people must return home to the south. The way he dispelled notions that the north is better in terms of racism must be applauded! This book must be studied, taught, passed along, and encouraged among our young and old. Thank you Charles Blow for an impeccable piece of work.
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