A Review of The Book 'Homegoing' by Yaa Gyasi

Imagine being stripped away from home, forced to do something you didn’t want to do, not being able to carve your own path in life. This was the case for Esi and Effia two half-sisters both from Ghana but have never met. One captured into slavery meanwhile the other married of to an English man. Within the book Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi it displays plenty of examples of racism, slavery and systematic oppression. A book like this will give you a world wind of emotions due to the events that take place anger, fear, sadness.

In one of the events that had occurred, Esi had gotten sexually assaulted. “When he had finished, he looked horrified, disgusted with her. As though he were the one who had something taken from him.” Фn act of injustice that was shown was when Esi had gotten raped by a soldier at a women prison, the systematic oppression that they had to face goes to show how the solider didn’t look at Esi or the other women in the women prison as human and rather treated them like animals. She was objectified but still had to remain strong, “Weakness is treating someone as though they belong to you. Strength is knowing that everyone belongs to themselves,” she is touching on slavery and how white people saw African Americans as if they less than, and non-worthy of respect. They would use this as an excuse to keep dehumanizing African Americans this just goes to show how racism was used to justify brutal acts of violence.

In addition, slavery and race played a huge role in this book. “If nobody tell you, I’ma tell you. War may be over but it ain’t ended”. Even after the war of slavery ended, racism is an ongoing war that that African Americans had to deal with every day. “The convicts working the mines were almost all like him. Black, once slave, once free, now slave again.” Hу had to work in a coal mine where him and other African Americans would always have to worry about death or brutal beatings. It also shows how corrupt how imprisonment was. the people H worked with were former slaves it shows how racially based this system was, after all most of time it was black men that were sold into it.

Due to systematic oppression even after being free many still lived in fear. “Free man. Half the ex-slaves in Baltimore had the name. Tell a lie long enough and it will turn to truth.” (Gyasi 112), many such as Kojo moved up north after escaping and were now “free slaves” and many put their last names as freeman, but if they’re living a life in fear, do they feel free? Scared to be re enslaved or their children getting captured people would try to migrate as north as they can. Acts of racism and segregation were clear, “He got called 'boy' by every other snot-nosed white kid in sight.” (Gyasi 244) in certain cases and lack of opportunity and education caused people like Sonny’s father (Willie) to believe they couldn’t do more for themselves, and for Willie lead to a life of addiction.

In conclusion, you can see the many effects of racism, slavery and systematic oppression. I think the effects of this theme were very clear throughout the whole book, going generation to generation. It showed a broken system that wasn’t made for African Americans since the beginning. and the challenges African Americans had to go through, in this book specifically Effia and Esi’s family.