White Lies, Black Blood: An Epic Tale of Love and Race

Trevor Ennis
Outskirts Press (2011)
ISBN 9781432770181
Read by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (2/12)

Article first published as Book Review: White Lies, Black Blood: An Epic Tale of Love and Race by Trevor Ennis on Blogcritics.

The story begins in a scene with white men, who on the surface appear to be fine, upstanding, church going members of their community in Kentucky. Their surface appearance is betrayed by the fact that they are heinously attacking a young man simply because he is black. The attack is brutal and meant to end his life. These men consider themselves to be on the hunt to rid their society of the African Americans who reside in it because they deem them to be less than human. It is obvious that they are the ones lacking humanity.

One of these men is the father of an eighteen-year-old, young lady named Angelica. Raised with her father’s racist beliefs, she caters to them, but is unaware of how depraved his actions are. Dating a rich white male named Judas, while attending an all white college, her life seems set for her. In spite of this, she has a yearning in her heart which she is having difficulty with identifying exactly what it means.

When two black students from Jamaica arrive at her college, both Angelica and the community are outraged. She is one of the most outspoken of all of them. However, when the female is brutally attacked, her feelings start to change. She didn’t think things would go that far, she just wanted to make sure that they knew their place and stayed in it.

A chance meeting at an airport connects Angelica with a very handsome black athlete, named Kazeem ‘Kaz’ Asano from Jamaica. In spite of her beliefs, Angelica finds herself attracted to him. She is also embarrassed by her group’s behavior in their attempts to demean and embarrass him. Her belief system slowly starts to change.

When her family decides to take a vacation, Jessica convinces them to go to Jamaica for a month. Without telling them, she hopes to seek out Kaz. When she finally does find him, she sees that he is also attracted to her. They begin a relationship in which she finds herself falling in love. He treats her with a great deal of respect, and she also has a chance to see that the people of his race are not as she assumed they would be. She must keep her relationship a secret from her father.

Angelica’s dilemma revolves around following her heart to what could be true happiness or keeping her family happy and returning with them to continue her relationship with Judas. She is very open with Kaz about her turmoil. He finds her reticence to be with him devastating. Neither has a clue how much her choice to be with him can put his life in danger because of her father. Time will tell what is in store for them.

I found “White Lies, Black Blood,” to be a very compelling, thought-provoking novel. Having the story start with a young man being brutalized simply because of his color was very unsettling and gut-wrenching to read, but the author definitely got his point across. Expecting this story to be set at least fifty years ago, I was surprised that it was not; it was happening during recent times. Because I live in an area where as a Caucasian, I am a minority I see differences among the Mexican, white and black races, but not hatred to this degree. Thank God this is the case. I have always felt that racism and prejudice are based upon hatred and ignorance and this book further strengthened my belief. I highly recommend “White Lies, Black Blood” for both the thought-provoking aspects that it contains and also for the beautiful romance in which a woman is truly treated with a great deal of respect. The respect part was very refreshing, even if I didn’t think that she always earned it.

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