Another Case for Reparations: Team Seven by Marcus Burke | On the Page | Nick Taylor | Palo Alto Online |

Local Blogs

On the Page

By Nick Taylor

About this blog: This blog is a place for conversation about books. I post reviews of what I'm reading--lots of contemporary fiction, but also classics and the occasional work of narrative nonfiction. I am always looking for new books to read, so ...  (More)

View all posts from Nick Taylor

Another Case for Reparations: Team Seven by Marcus Burke

Uploaded: Jul 15, 2014
In May The Atlantic published a cover story by the African-American critic Ta-Nehisi Coates called "The Case for Reparations." One point in Coates' excellent, thought-provoking article struck me as more controversial than the idea of reparations itself: Coates's assertion that the "crisis of black fatherhood" is a myth. He doesn't dispute the demographic data (offered by the National Fatherhood Initiative and many other sources) that as many as 72% of black children in America live in single-parent households; instead he provides context that the statistics lack, namely that this country, through slavery, was "predicated on the torture of black fathers, on the rape of black mothers, on the sale of black children." The paradigm of an absent black father is not new, Coates argues; in fact, this is the way African-American families have always looked.


Team Seven by Marcus Burke (Doubleday). 256p.

I was thinking about Coates' article when I read Team Seven, the gripping debut novel by Marcus Burke. The novel follows protagonist Andre Battel from boyhood through adolescence. Andre is an African-American boy living in the suburbs of Boston in what we gauge from cultural references to be the late 1990s and early 2000s. His parents are West Indian immigrants who met and married in the US, where both Andre and his older sister, Nina, were born. The father, Eddy, is a drummer in a local reggae band and is unable to hold down a job due to his struggles with drugs and alcohol. This leaves his wife, a receptionist in a doctor's office, to support the entire family (including her elderly parents, Andre's grandparents, who live in the apartment upstairs).

Eddy comes and goes like a cat through much of the novel, leaving the family for months at a time without any explanation. We learn halfway through the book that Eddy has another family--a girlfriend and another son close to Andre's age--on the other side of Boston, but this explains only some of his peregrinations. On those occasions that Eddy does come home, he brings chaos and violence with him. The Battel house is less stable for his presence, not the other way around. He beats his wife, he beats his daughter, he belittles his son. It is telling, I think, that Eddy is finally arrested and jailed not while he is out tomcatting but on a rare afternoon spent with his children. Burke shows us that Eddy Battel is not an unfeeling monster, that he cares deeply for his children. The question is why he can't toe the line. Ta-Nehisi Coates would say it's because black men are down by law, or by tradition, that as far as the black family goes, America is "not its nurturer but its destroyer."

That may be true, but I would argue that Marcus Burke's explanation is more effective. Coates is an essayist; Burke is a fiction writer. The essay is a versatile rhetorical tool, allowing arguments to be laid out clearly and precisely, with supporting evidence in neat paragraphs. But when it comes to explaining human behavior, fiction has no rival. The Battel family comes alive in Burke's story, reaching off the page to show us how and why a black family in America is living hand-to-mouth 150 years after the end of slavery. Reparations, Coates suggests, should not be about cash handouts but about "a revolution of the American consciousness." If a national reckoning is our goal--and I think we can all agree it's a worthy one--then novels like Team Seven will undoubtedly help us get there. After reading Burke's smart and wise novel, I may not know how to fix families like the Battels, but I have taken the first step: I understand how they're living.
Local Journalism.
What is it worth to you?

Comments

Posted by Kary, a resident of Midtown,
on Jul 19, 2014 at 11:08 am

Nick,

45 years ago it was "Man-child in the promised Land", required reading for incoming white students in many American universities. I was sympathetic, at the time, but no longer. It is just an excuse. Growing up is painful, Nick, but you just got to get a grip, and understand that it is in front of you. Sigh....


Follow this blogger.
Sign up to be notified of new posts by this blogger.

Email:

SUBMIT

Post a comment

Sorry, but further commenting on this topic has been closed.

Stay informed.

Get the day's top headlines from Palo Alto Online sent to your inbox in the Express newsletter.

Analysis/paralysis: The infamous ‘Palo Alto Process’ must go
By Diana Diamond | 7 comments | 2,445 views

Common Ground
By Sherry Listgarten | 3 comments | 2,031 views

The Time and Cost Savings of Avoiding a Long Commute
By Steve Levy | 6 comments | 1,745 views

Planting a Fall Garden?
By Laura Stec | 5 comments | 1,210 views

 

Sign-up now for 5K Run/Walk, 10k Run, Half Marathon

The 39th annual Moonlight Run and Walk is Friday evening, September 29. Join us under the light of the full Harvest Moon on a 5K walk, 5K run, 10K run or half marathon. Complete your race in person or virtually. Proceeds from the race go to the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund, benefiting local nonprofits that serve families and children in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.

REGISTER