There Is No Excuse For This!

In a Northern Italian city back in the early 80s I met a young black woman with two young children.  Actually I was introduced to this young woman, by an Italian friend who thought I might like meeting another black female in Europe.

My Italian friend had very little previous exposure to black people except through American movies and television.  Little did this friend know that the two black women about to meet would have less in common than would an Italian and a French person.

The young woman from Uganda told her story of escaping the nefarious dictator, Idi Amin’s,

violently oppressive regime.  She said that she was part of a group of children on a class trip to Europe to visit art museums in Rome.  

They were then released into Italy to fend for themselves.  It was assumed that these youngsters would have a better chance of surviving on the streets of Europe than in their native African country.

She survived. She learned Italian. She is a mother of two healthy children.  She was at that time studying restoration in Italy.

Now, this brings me to the harrowing memoir, How to Die in Paris, by Naturi Thomas. Thomas is American.  A black, American female running from her demons, quickly finding herseldf homeless on the streets of Paris.

There was no Jim Crowe, American apartheid, KKK, or on the other hand any Idi Amins, Hitlers, Francos or Stalins.

Only her parents. 

All I can say about this book is that I am confounded to find that such a thing would happen to an educated, bilingual citizen of the wealthiest country in the world.

Perhaps, if Americans would read this memoir, there will no longer be resistance to Universal Health Care for it’s citizens.

By anyone.

Never!

I understand that the author of this memoir eventually made it home to America, but now lives in England.

Read this book.  Share it with everyone.  Talk about it in your book groups.  

Let’s do something!

author Naturi Thomas

For the children.