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Rating: 
Summary: Great Idea, but confusing execution
Review: I finished reading this last night. Perhaps I should read it more than once to "get it." The premise of Blacks uniting to solve the current problems of massive imprisonment and fratracide among the youth is a sound one that needs much attention. However, this is dealt with in a series of meandering and confusing essays that just don't seem to hang together and lessen the effectiveness of its message.For example, one essay deals with the spectualtion of what life would be like in the Black America of 2076 with Robinson's great-granddaughter and the problems she faces. Obviously written before 9-11, this minimizes the effectiveness on today's readers as the fictional descendant reads newspaper clippings from 2000 and 2001 to where America went wrong. This kind of fictional specualtion is more Derrrick Bell's forte than Robisnon's. The essays with the hip-hopper "New Child" and Robinson's 50 -year old "homeboy" from Richmond Va, whose life of crime Robinson tries desperately to understand contains too much stream of -consciousness type dialougue and obscure symbolism to have much of an effect on the reader. A more straightforward rendering, as James Baldwin did with similar material in "Nobody Knows My Name" and "The Fire Next Time." would have certainly helped in getting his point across. Robinson's points about the unwillingless and inability of so called Black "leaders" of today to solve the true (as opposed to symbolic) problems of African-Americans are sound and he is to be commended for bringing up the issue of our supposed leaders "selling out" to the political parties. Unfortunately, the job could have been done better by dealing with these issues in a straightforward fashion without the confusing stories, such as Earl Ofari Hutchinson's "Disappearance of Black Leadership."
Rating:
Summary: Great Idea, but confusing execution
Review: I finished reading this last night. Perhaps I should read it more than once to "get it." The premise of Blacks uniting to solve the current problems of massive imprisonment and fratracide among the youth is a sound one that needs much attention. However, this is dealt with in a series of meandering and confusing essays that just don't seem to hang together and lessen the effectiveness of its message. For example, one essay deals with the spectualtion of what life would be like in the Black America of 2076 with Robinson's great-granddaughter and the problems she faces. Obviously written before 9-11, this minimizes the effectiveness on today's readers as the fictional descendant reads newspaper clippings from 2000 and 2001 to where America went wrong. This kind of fictional specualtion is more Derrrick Bell's forte than Robisnon's. The essays with the hip-hopper "New Child" and Robinson's 50 -year old "homeboy" from Richmond Va, whose life of crime Robinson tries desperately to understand contains too much stream of -consciousness type dialougue and obscure symbolism to have much of an effect on the reader. A more straightforward rendering, as James Baldwin did with similar material in "Nobody Knows My Name" and "The Fire Next Time." would have certainly helped in getting his point across. Robinson's points about the unwillingless and inability of so called Black "leaders" of today to solve the true (as opposed to symbolic) problems of African-Americans are sound and he is to be commended for bringing up the issue of our supposed leaders "selling out" to the political parties. Unfortunately, the job could have been done better by dealing with these issues in a straightforward fashion without the confusing stories, such as Earl Ofari Hutchinson's "Disappearance of Black Leadership."
Rating: 
Summary: Try Again Mr. Robinson
Review: I was not impressed by Mr. Robinson's analysis. His shock at the level of criminality that exists in any community is shocking to me. Is he pretending to be naive, or, is he truly naive? Why does he pretend NOT to know what was happening in his community. I don't care if he was raised in Richmond or any other small town. I think that he pretends to be naive when he really isn't. I don't like that level of pretentiousness. He also did not do his homework. Kittrell College, where Peewee went to school is not in Henderson but in Kittrell, NC which is very close to Henderson. I also did not like his rambling on about his kids going to a school in the future. Finally, I was very impressed at The Debt, at least he kept to the point of the book. I thought that I would read more of his books because of his very fine articulation of what he sees as the problem and why African American should get reparations, but this book was not very good at all. Try again--Randall.
Rating:
Summary: Try Again Mr. Robinson
Review: I was not impressed by Mr. Robinson's analysis. His shock at the level of criminality that exists in any community is shocking to me. Is he pretending to be naive, or, is he truly naive? Why does he pretend NOT to know what was happening in his community. I don't care if he was raised in Richmond or any other small town. I think that he pretends to be naive when he really isn't. I don't like that level of pretentiousness. He also did not do his homework. Kittrell College, where Peewee went to school is not in Henderson but in Kittrell, NC which is very close to Henderson. I also did not like his rambling on about his kids going to a school in the future. Finally, I was very impressed at The Debt, at least he kept to the point of the book. I thought that I would read more of his books because of his very fine articulation of what he sees as the problem and why African American should get reparations, but this book was not very good at all. Try again--Randall.
Rating: 
Summary: a continuation of the debt
Review: In "The Reckoning", Robinson goes about analyzing exactly what went wrong with the African American race. Yet once again, the blame inevitably falls on "whitey". Most of the book is a regurgitation of its predecessor, claiming that the government should pay reparations to the blacks in the US. Almost no attention is paid tho the faults of the blacks(for example their tendancy to blow money on fancy cars, jewelry, clothing, etc., instead of giving money back to the community).
Rating:
Summary: a continuation of the debt
Review: In "The Reckoning", Robinson goes about analyzing exactly what went wrong with the African American race. Yet once again, the blame inevitably falls on "whitey". Most of the book is a regurgitation of its predecessor, claiming that the government should pay reparations to the blacks in the US. Almost no attention is paid tho the faults of the blacks(for example their tendancy to blow money on fancy cars, jewelry, clothing, etc., instead of giving money back to the community).
Rating:
Summary: It's about time
Review: Now this is the book I was hoping Randall Robinson would write. The topic of what blacks owe each other has been discussed in other books but Robinson's work is bound to have a wider audience. It didn't seem as passionate as THE DEBT and it doesn't go far enough but this book will get you thinking about how black people treat and see each other. Kimberley Lindsay Wilson, author of Work It! The Black Woman's Guide to Success at Work.
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