3.5/5 finished copy gifted by the publisher

I really appreciate reading about Black history about the three different countries the author lived in (Japan, Australia, Germany). It’s well researched and provides insight into different country’s and culture’s colonial pasts and anti-blackness.

The “memoir” is the weakest part of the book and I wish the author would’ve just focused on writing about it the history, mostly because key events seemed glossed over and I get the sense that the author maybe isn’t fully ready to discuss them?

I also wish these things are addressed in the book;
1. To be able to up and leave the US is a huge privilege. Especially in part 1 when the author went to Japan to teach English without knowing any single Japanese word. I wanted to see more self reflection of how this immense privilege might affect her experience

2. The writing is very American centric. There are times when I feel the author is comparing a country to the US (one example I can think of now is her mentioning there’s no they/them pronouns and certain words in Germany). Especially for someone who “escaped” the US then to hold every against America is odd. No?