Family

Although Owens devotes an entire chapter to family, family and ancestors remains a strong theme throughout her other chapters as well. Her understanding of family was handed down to her by her grandparents, an exemplar of a strong family unit. She notes in her first chapter that her grandfather made the decision to “prioritize his family above all else” (15). Owens uses the stability of her family as a contrast to the instability of Black families in America. By creating such a comparison, Owens highlights the importance of a solid familial upbringing and its benefits on the individual while simultaneously denouncing the destruction of the Black family unit. This is a serious problem for the Black community, and Owens links many of her arguments back to this theme. In her chapter on family, Owens highlights the high percentage of fatherless Black households and asserts that a lack of family...