I do disagree, though, with the terms systemic racism being used here, because it was not systemic, it was pervasive, though, in her field. In this book, the racism seems constant and pervasive. However, there were times of respite from the anti-Semitism. My children and my husband experienced it as well. Could so many convoluted plans to attack an innocent employee actually have been carried out without interference and without discovery by someone decent who could have intervened to prevent it? As a Jew, I know what it is to be called names, to be preyed upon, and to be insulted and humiliated by the police and employers, and by ignorant, intolerant people who may have had sway over me, but I never experienced it as consistently as the character in the book nor only in my own life. At some points fury, at others times shock and perhaps suspicion, and still at other moments the reader will be incredulous. While reading the book, the reader will find that many emotions will be aroused. Surely, racism issues should have been swiftly addressed and rectified, at least during his time in office when the country hoped to go through a period of civil rights enlightenment. How they could these despicable actions not have been resolved immediately between the years of 20? It happened largely during the time of President Obama, our first black President.

So in order to tolerate reading about the injustices committed by obviously devious and malicious people, I chose to assume that in real life, these horrific incidents did occur, but to many people and perhaps over more than five years.

The stress of her life was pressing her down into a state of despair. I can only hope that all of this never actually happened to any one person, because I think it would be impossible to survive emotionally intact, if that was the case, and to prove that, the main character struggles mightily with her mental state. Although I assumed that the descriptions of the abuse were a compilation of many incidents, consolidated into the life of this one woman, which made it that much more malevolent, the abuse came on so fast and so furiously that I began to literally have stomach pains every time I picked up the book as I wondered what new vicious plan would be set into motion, as I wondered how could this be possible, especially in a place of higher learning? To my horror, it kept on coming and coming. It is fiction, after all, based on true events, but I had no idea about how the racism would be framed.

When I began the book, I was unsure of what to expect.

HUSH MONEY by Deborah Harris