How does fear – deep, ongoing, systemic fear – impact on Black lives?

Through reflections on her own life, anthropologist Dr Linda Jean Hall PhD draws on traditions of African storytelling to explore the question of how systemic fear affects the twentieth- and twenty-first-century Afro American experience. By using the framing of pandemic waves – a concept all too familiar in the wake of COVID-19 – Hall employs a personal lens to parse out the implications of different “waves of fear" through impactful stages of her life, allowing readers to examine the shifting relationships that define Blackness and survival.

Gifting resilience: A pandemic study of Black female resistance is ideal reading for students of Black studies, African American studies, and related courses, as well as for students of feminist and womanist studies, gender studies, cultural studies, history, sociology and anthropology. Unflinchingly honest, this book gives a human face to viewpoints and ideas that originate deep within the complex and diverse African Diasporic lived experience.

0: Introduction
Part I: The germinal moment—speaking from uncertainty
Chapter 1 Writing incentives and logic
Chapter 2: A marriage and escape
Chapter 3: Walking in the shadows
Part II: Knoxville’s HBCU
Chapter 4: An unwelcoming precursor
Chapter 5: Afro American?
Chapter 6: White supremacy and Black power
Chapter 7: American dreams and nightmares
Chapter 8: Familial ties and male companions
Chapter 9: Social climbing to the bottom
Chapter 10: Marginalization in Knoxville
Chapter 11: Employment success and love’s reality
Chapter 12: The secrets of Vietnam
Part III: Low man on the totem pole
Chapter 13: 1970s underemployment opportunities
Chapter 14: Marijuana and the social welfare system
Chapter 15: Speaking truth to power
Part IV: Alone
Chapter 16: A hollow marriage
Chapter 17: Tennis and the Jehovah’s Witnesses
Part V: The Big Blue nightmare
Chapter 18: Precariousness and professional dreams
Part VI: Failure and being “the best”
Chapter 19: Gender, race, and bullying
Chapter 20: Dismissal and retribution
Chapter 21: Parental demands and divorced Black womanhood
Chapter 22: Guilt, marriage, and success
Chapter 23: Avoiding hate while failing miserably
Part VII: California here I come
Chapter 24: Golden State ambitions and insecurities
Chapter 25: Compassion and friendship networks
Chapter 26: Opportunities requiring closure
Part VIII: Death and degrees
Chapter 27: Inevitable mortality and project completion
Part IX: Master’s nightmares and doctoral dreams
Chapter 28: Academic achievement from a historically marginalized perspective
Chapter 29: Parental heartache overshadows success
Chapter 30: Conclusion

Linda Jean Hall PhD is an author, anthropologist, and teacher. She lectures at the University of California, Riverside, in the Department of Global Studies & Ethnic Studies.

Linda Jean Hall: Gifting Resilience: A Pandemic Study of Black Female Resistance
Reviewed by Ashley-Devon Williamston

"Academics and everyday people alike have long discussed Black Americans’ resilience in the face of oppression and hatred. However, what is rarely discussed is the cost of Black excellence and what happens behind the scenes in the lives of Black individuals who manage to achieve the modern American ideal of success. Linda Jean Hall’s autoethnographic memoir, Gifting Resilience: A Pandemic Study of Black Female Resistance, offers valuable insights on this matter."

"Gifting Resilience demonstrates the value of autoethnography for both social scientists and ordinary readers from marginalized backgrounds."

"Through her work, Linda Jean Hall adds positivity to the narrative of Black resilience by assuring that it is normal to be rocked by the rough waves of life. Finally, this book reveals the peace of mind that comes from knowing that genuine compassion and community support are often the rewards of vulnerability."

Complete review can be found here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/730085