Your Plantation Prom Is Not Okay

It's a good thing that I started reading Kelly McWilliams' Your Plantation Prom Is Not Okay when I'd turned in my last paper of the semester because McWilliams had me hooked from page one, unable to put the book down, propelled from chapter to chapter by insatiable desire to learn what happens next. Don't you love a book like that?
Harriet lives on what once was a working plantation. Now it's an enslaved peoples museum—the fulfillment of her late mother's dream of enlightening people through educating them. Each day tour leaders including Harriet show visitors how truly horrific slavery was.
And some become enlightened. But then there are others who exhibit extreme white fragility cover up with belligerence. They demand to speak to the manager. They claim that they are attacked. They ask dumb ass questions. As the story starts Harriet is being confronted by a vacation Karen.
Harriet's mother could have handled the woman. But she died of cancer and probable medical negligence. Seeing her go from vibrant, brilliant, loving mother and wife to a shadow of herself and then leave them devastated her family. While her father has become seriously depressed, Harriet has developed what she calls a rage monster. Shall we say the encounter does not go well?
But that's not Harriet's biggest problem. A soap opera actress with a social media influencer daughter has bought the plantation next door and is turning it into an ante vellum event venue. Think Gone With The Wind before the Union Army crashed the party. And of course all the servants will be black.
Two movie stars have signed up for the first plantation wedding.
"But blood was spilled across that endless green. Thousands of enslaved people suffered to build those white mansions, and before that, the land itself was brutally stolen from the Indigenous tribes by German farmers. The true history of a plantation is violence, pure and simple."
But even the prospect of this to-be-highly-publicized false narrative wedding is not Harriet's biggest problem.
Guess whose majority white school is planning on a plantation prom.
Harriet, of course, deeply feels the total wrongness of the situation. But what can she do? And who can she ask for help? Her dad is MIA. Her best friend is studying abroad in Italy. And since her mother's death she's ghosted her other friends.
Treat yourself to this highly relevant, deeply engaging narrative. If you're anything like me you'll be glad you did.
On a purrrsonal note, yesterday was a school spirit day. The Darlings ice cream truck was on campus raising money for the class of '26. I got me three ice creams! And people could hang out with Bananas the Bear (school mascot). If I didn't know better I'd think the bear was crushing on me because he always gets so excited when he sees me. Like at the drag show he high fived everyone else and hugged me. Then I told him at next year's drag show he'll be playing Olivia Newton John to my John Travolta in a medley from Grease. Bananas mimed delight. Today I told him not to ask anyone else to next year's prom because I've chosen him for my date. I promised him the most awesome proposal EVAH. He mimed delight. He blew me a kiss as I left. I know as a grad student I'm expected to attend the formal. But it sounds dreadfully dull.
A great big shout out to Bananas, best mascot EVAH!!!