I finished reading Undrowned and it was phenomenal.
Undrowned is a Black feminist perspective on what marine mammals have taught
the author.
Throughout the book connections are made to the atrocity of enslavement via
the space of the Middle Passage (Atlantic Ocean) and the normalized logic of
colonialist and supremacist ideologies...
The author focuses much on how non-human mammals such as otters, whales,
dolphins, seals, and sea lions have been affected by ecocidal ideologies
that are rooted in colonialism, white supremacy, and capitalism. But, the
book is not depressing or hopeless...
Instead, the book is focused on how these marine are our "brethren"; that
they teach us better ways to fight, resist, be incognito at times, and
struggle for the right to exist and to "breath"--- against supremacy,
domination, capitalism, and exploitation... And throughout the book, it's
implied again and again---> What can us [Black folk and others so deeply
impacted by colonialism and enslavement or genocide] learn from these marine
mammals so we can heal, be resilient, adapt, resist and eventually be whole
again for our healthy futures?<---(not her quote but this is my own
reflect). So, this is what I personally got out of her text: That there is
hope and deep lessons to be learned from these mammals to teach us to
continue to fight to be authentically ourselves, to breath, and do it
unapologetically....
This book was absolutely brilliant, meditative, and deep. As a matter of
fact, it is the first fusion of black feminism and marine
conservation/liberation literature I have ever read that makes the
connections to animal liberation for marine mammals AND racial
justice/liberation for Black folk throughout the globe who have been
affected by white supremacist-capitalist-colonialist "order of things" over
the last 500 years; that it's all part of the same toxic system the is
destroying the right to fully thrive for all beings.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a poet, independent scholar, and activist. She is author of Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity and coeditor of Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines and the Founder and Director of Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind, an educational program based in Durham, North Carolina.
Return to Book Reviews