As we head into February, Black History Month, remember that this month is short, intentional, and earned—created because Black contributions were systematically erased from American history. My that sort of sounds familiar. Like what’s happening now. Welp, for my part, I’m making a block list. That’s right for all asking performative questions, those too lazy to Google asking for labor or lists. So, if you show up confused, unprepared, or intentionally obtuse, don’t worry—you won’t be staying for long.
Blocking Season
As we enter Black History Month, I find myself both excited and annoyed.
I actually love this month. I hate that it’s only twenty-eight days—unless we luck into a leap year. February is the month my father was born, which establishes my own Black American cred: Caribbean immigrant roots on one side, and on the other, my mother’s people—Igbo transported, South Carolina born and bred. The family name Riley traces Irish roots, because everyone, at some point, was complicit in colonization and enslavement.
But I digress. That’s not the purpose of this essay.
Black History Month did not simply appear—it was fought for. In 1926, historian Carter G. Woodson established what was then called Negro History Week. His aim was simple and radical: to force a nation that had erased Black contributions from its textbooks and public memory to pause and acknowledge the truth. He deliberately chose February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and Frederick Douglass (February 14), dates many Black communities were already honoring.
It was radical to demand national attention on Black contributions. Woodson understood something America still resists: history does not correct itself, nor does it acknowledge wrongdoing, unless it is confronted.
Eventually, that week became a month. A complicated, necessary space to recognize Black history in America—and across the world.
I remember the irony well: focusing the shortest month of the year on Black history, while the other eleven months continue doing what they always do—centering dominant or majority cultures.
Still, I look forward to it. To revel in Blackness. To listen to our music. To laugh at our inside jokes. To not explain ourselves. To exist without translation.
It’s my history month. It’s actually everyone’s history—but truth deniers don’t have the bandwidth for that.
Which is why I am not doing this thing we do every year.
If you have never thought about reading anything by a Black author before, do not log onto social media and ask those performative, empty questions. I saw one just yesterday: “I want to read about Black people, but I don’t want to read about slavery.”
Here’s the thing: Black authors write about everything—just like everybody else. Romance. Science fiction. High-tech thrillers. Family sagas. Hollywood celebrity culture. I guarantee someone is writing about the Epstein saga as we speak.
What we are not going to do is pretend Google or ChatGPT doesn’t exist.
What we are not going to do is pretend libraries are inaccessible or that librarians are scary.
What we are not going to do is ask for free labor from people you have spent your entire big age ignoring.
If you have gotten this far in life without caring to learn about anyone who doesn’t look like you, stay in your lane. You simply don’t need to know. You lack the empathy gene—and that is information we need to know. In pirate terms, you are the person we watch closely when swords are handed out, because history suggests you’ll stab someone in the back.
So go ahead. Self-identify.
Ignore the culture. Remain blissfully clueless. No cookout invitations were coming anyway. You’ve missed nothing.
But if you wander into my lane with lazy, antagonistic nonsense, I will block you. No explanation. No debate. You will simply find yourself gone.
Let me say this clearly: do not play the few Black people who tolerate you with your performative curiosity. Do not ask questions designed to provoke eye-rolling. Do not demand emotional labor disguised as “learning.”
Frankly, I assume half of these posts are bots engineered to raise my blood pressure. But just in case they aren’t—just in case a real person is typing these things—stay home. Stay in your zone. Keep your sheets on. Dust off the cone hats. We do not need you.
Now, for those of us who are actually curious about culture: we read widely. We write widely. Yes, enslavement is a pervasive story—because colonization is a pervasive story. Across history, there has always been a dominant culture with better weapons and a willingness to exploit others for economic gain.
Notice I did not say white people.
Enslavement is humanity’s recurring sin.
One of the most heartbreaking things I researched for Fire Sword and Sea was learning how French governors in the Caribbean actively stole poor French women from the streets of Paris—enslaving them and selling them as wives or brothel workers.
Is it the same as chattel slavery? No.
Could it be brutal? Absolutely.
Accounts describe women shackled, thrown into the holds of ships, and transported across the ocean. Terror looks the same no matter who you are when you are chained below deck in a dark frigate.
The Mughal Muslim empire enslaved infidels. Spanish, French, British, and Dutch colonizers enslaved Indigenous populations throughout Mexico, South America, and every island in the Caribbean. And in that same era, transatlantic slave trafficking—the most horrific form of generational enslavement—expanded and calcified. Power does what power does.
Which is why books like Fire Sword and Sea matter. Not because they lecture, but because they show the choices, the complicity, the sisterhoods, the brutality, and the strange exhilaration of chaotic worlds that formed the foundations of the one we inhabit now. History is not clean. It is not simple. It exists to teach us how not to repeat our worst selves.
But I cannot make you curious about a world you have decided you don’t want to understand.
That choice is yours.
So once again, as February arrives, do not make it your mission to post inflammatory nonsense. It’s Black History Month. Spare us. Spare me.
Or meet the blocking season.
This week’s booklist are books that center different facets of Black History:
A Christmas to Remember— Beverly Jenkins
A tender, contemporary based on a historic Black settled town of Henry Adams.
The Personal Librarian — Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray
The hidden true story of Belle da Costa Greene, a Black woman passing as white while shaping one of the most powerful libraries in the world.
Black AF History — Michael Harriot
A concise, accessible exploration of Black history that connects past struggles to present-day movements for justice.
The Trial of Mrs. Rhinelander— Denny S. Bryce
A riveting historical novel about a Black woman passing as white whose marriage sparks a sensational 1920s court case that exposes America’s obsessions with race, class, and identity.
People of Means — Nancy Johnson
A modern novel about class, ambition, and racial tension, following a Black woman navigating privilege, love, and betrayal in Chicago.
Fire Sword and Sea — Vanessa Riley
A sweeping historical novel that exposes pirates, sisterhood, and survival in the chaotic 17th-century (1600s) Caribbean.
This week I’m highlighting The Book Cellar.
Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from The Book Cellar or from one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are hanging with me.
Come on, my readers, my beautiful listeners. Let’s keep everyone excited about Fire Sword and Sea.
You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.
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Thank you for listening. I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.
Upcoming Events:
Coming to a library near you, Feb. 5th at 7:00 P.M. EST
Join us for an unforgettable experience as we chat with Vanessa Riley about her newest book, Fire Sword and Sea, based on the folk story of the female pirate Jacquotte Delahaye. Jacquotte dreams of joining the seafarers and smugglers whose tall-masted ships cluster in the turquoise waters around Tortuga. For twenty years, Jacquotte raids the Caribbean as Jacques, hiding her gender. When her fellow pirates decide to increase their profits by entering the slave trade, Jacquotte must make a change. Thursday, February 5th at 7 PM ET via digital live-stream in partnership with Dougherty County Public Library.
Register: https://bit.ly/RileyShare
Author Talks presents Vanessa Riley, Fire Sword and Sea: One of the best happening Lit/Bookish Scenes in Atlanta is Author Talks – Music, Crafted Cocktails, Tapas, and Great Conversation about Pirates and Resistance! Don’t miss it.
Friday, Feb 20 from 7 pm to 9 pm EST
Register:
44th & 3rd BooksellerAtlanta, GA
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