Yo Mama!: New Raps, Toasts, Dozens, Jokes, and Children's Rhymes from Urban Black America Book

This is a very academic book so it can be rather dry and dense at times especially if you have to ask what is epistemology 20 times before looking it up in the dictionary. On the plus side it is packed with interesting information about African American Folk Healing past and present. There is extensive use of reference material such as the Works Progress Adminstration's Federal Writers' Project which gathered black oral history starting in 1936. The author also provided personal interviews she conducted with modern day black American healers. This is not a how to book nor a guide to any of the different healing methods. A lot of pages are spent in discussion of how black history has impacted black health and healing methods even today and reasons for distrust in the community of institutional medicine. There is no favoritism shown towards one religious group over the other and so the reader will learn about perspectives of black evangelical healers to hoodoo practioners. Personally I found the direct quotes from healers of the past and present gave life to this book. I could have lived without the heavy academic style but my interest lies more in knowing what the healing methods are and the focus of Stephanie Mitchem is to provide a black perspective in academia.