Sunday, June 30
“Say It Louder: Black Voters, White Narratives, And Saving Our Democracy”
A Book By Tiffany Cross
A Book Reviewd By Dr. Anthony Neal
This book review is about the other Tiffany. This is the one making a major splash in Black journalism just like the other Tiffany is making a major splash in entertainment and comedy. I first came across Tiffany Cross on Joy Reid’s “Morning Joy” which aired on Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 12 noon on MSNBC. Although I watched and continue to watch the show religiously, Ms. Cross’s participation as one of the guest panelists on the show, was like that proverbial fresh air. Her ideas were poignant and bold. Her delivery was crisp and quick. I do not mean this as an insult, but she was extremely articulate. I immediately googled her to check out her background. I recall reading that she was hosting some news gig out of Washington, D.C. I mentioned this antidote in order to say that her book is an excellent read and captures her on air delivery in print.
As time passed, I noticed that Ms. Cross had become a regular on Joy Reid’s show. I would even say that she had become one of the show’s favorites. Many of us know that Joy Reid was promoted to primetime replacing Chris Matthew’s Hardball with The Reidout in the 7:00 p.m. time slot. Matthews had made an abrupt on-air departure as a type of protest over his being forced out due to harassment allegations as well as inappropriate comments. As Joy Reid was transitioning from Saturday and Sunday to nightly, Tiffany Cross was picked to host Morning Joy one weekend. All her guests bestowed glowing praise on her and wished her well as a host. Joy Reid had been given the same treatment when she first hosted a night after Matthews departure. Her one night eventually became a new show. As of this writing, Tiffany Cross is sharing Morning Joy hosting duties with Jonathan Capehart. It was quite interesting reading Ms. Cross’s book to find out that when I first saw her on Morning Joy, I was witnessing the rise of a new journalism star that had been in the making for quite some time. She had made appearances on CNN also. I had not seen her on CNN because recently I have been glued to MSNBC for political reporting.
Section One of Tiffany’s book, “How I Got Here,” affords us an autobiographical perspective on Ms. Cross’s life. She’s from Atlanta, Georgia. She attended Clark-Atlanta University. Ironically, the writer of this review is originally from Atlanta, Georgia and earned a Ph.D. from Atlanta University the year before Clark and Atlanta University merged. In writing this review, I am reminded how often during the celebration of Congressman John Lewis’s life that I have heard how perseverance was a major attribute of Lewis’s character. Given Ms. Cross’s story, I would say that perseverance is a major aspect of her character as well. In her early days of aspiring to become a journalist, she was short on money but had a wealth of talent. Her vision would not allow her to perish. Today the viewing public and reading public are both blessed due to her perseverance. Tiffany’s is a very important voice in extolling the lives of Black people in America. As a matter of fact, presenting the Black narrative is a major thesis of her book and cause of her career. Hence, Say It Louder, is a must read for every young aspiring journalist in general and every young aspiring Black journalist in particular. In her field, she noticed things that never were and asked “Why not?”
Aside from indicting American media as being an unwitting co-conspirator in Russia’s 2016 engineering of Trump’s presidential victory, the strength of Tiffany Cross’s book rest in her insistence on owning the Black narrative. As a consequence, she calls for all Black journalists to make sure that they tell the Black story which is quintessentially an American story. Cross insists that the Black community be known as it is and not as it is perceived to be through the prism of White media narratives. If one wishes to accompany Tiffany in this journey, Say It Louder is an excellent place to begin.
Anthony Neal earned his Ph.D. in political science at Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University). Dr. Neal is an associate professor at State University College, Buffalo. The author of numerous book reviews and journal articles, he has had his work published in the Western Journal of Black Studies, the Journal of Black Studies, and Black Issues in Higher Education. In 2014 Dr. Neal received the university’s Faculty Appreciation Award, was named Instructor of the Year by the university’s United Student Government, and Professor of the Year by the Student Political Society in the Department of Political Science. In 2015, he published The American Political Narrative which is a succinct yet poignant narrative about the development of the American political system and what is needed to maintain it. In 2016, he published a book of poetry entitled “Love Agnostic | from 9/11 to Charleston”
Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City by Wes Moore w/ Erica L. Green
“An illuminating portrait of Baltimore in the aftermath of the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray . . . Readers will be enthralled by this propulsive account.”—Publishers Weekly
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Other Wes Moore, a kaleidoscopic account of five days in the life of a city on the edge, told through eight characters on the front lines of the uprising that overtook Baltimore and riveted the world
When Freddie Gray was arrested for possessing an “illegal knife” in April 2015, he was, by eyewitness accounts that video evidence later confirmed, treated “roughly” as police loaded him into a vehicle. By the end of his trip in the police van, Gray was in a coma from which he would never recover.
In the wake of a long history of police abuse in Baltimore, this killing felt like the final straw—it led to a week of protests, then five days described alternately as a riot or an uprising that set the entire city on edge and caught the nation's attention.
Wes Moore is a Rhodes Scholar, bestselling author, decorated combat veteran, former White House fellow, and CEO of Robin Hood, one of the largest anti-poverty nonprofits in the nation. While attending Gray’s funeral, he saw every stratum of the city come together: grieving mothers, members of the city’s wealthy elite, activists, and the long-suffering citizens of Baltimore—all looking to comfort one another, but also looking for answers. He knew that when they left the church, these factions would spread out to their own corners, but that the answers they were all looking for could be found only in the city as a whole.
Moore—along with journalist Erica Green—tells the story of the Baltimore uprising both through his own observations and through the eyes of other Baltimoreans: Partee, a conflicted black captain of the Baltimore Police Department; Jenny, a young white public defender who’s drawn into the violent center of the uprising herself; Tawanda, a young black woman who’d spent a lonely year protesting the killing of her own brother by police; and John Angelos, scion of the city’s most powerful family and executive vice president of the Baltimore Orioles, who had to make choices of conscience he’d never before confronted.
Each shifting point of view contributes to an engrossing, cacophonous account of one of the most consequential moments in our recent history, which is also an essential cri de coeur about the deeper causes of the violence and the small seeds of hope planted in its aftermath.