“While it doesn't delve too deeply into any particular moment in time it answers the question of how America got to where we are now with such clarity and precision.”. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, by Jeff Hobbs. Do Not Sell My Personal Information. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! It’s no wonder that the prescient work has become the bible for the Black Lives Matter movement. Reviews. “It is written in a very academic manner, but [Bonilla-Silva’s] central framework of the four narratives of color-blind racism is powerful.”, Buy it: $44, bookshop.org (Semicolon Bookstore & Gallery), This book sparks meaningful and timely discussion around policing, by revealing its brutal origins as a system of societal control. For more great reads for kids and teens, check out our Civil Rights Books and Coretta Scott King Book Award Winners . That feeling is the basis for this New York Times best seller by anti-racism educator Robin DiAngelo, who explores “the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality,” according to the book’s description. To help educate about racism, here are seven groundbreaking books — all of which are part of the Brooklyn Public Library’s Black Lives Matter reading list for adults — that illuminate the struggles faced by people of color today. Her first book for adults , Red at the Bone, was published in 2019. "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin and "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander. SELF does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This books is a record of Hooks’s desires and visions to make classrooms grounds where freedom can be learned. The straightforward and actionable guide we need, this book addresses everything from the N-word and privilege to police brutality in America, in a way that seeks to unite often disparate racial groups. Within the book Lorde explores her own intellectual development and emerging self—in regard to race, class, gender, and sexual orientation—highlighting the ways in which systems of oppression are intertwined. Gyasi’s novel follows both sisters and their parallel lives, generation after generation, showing a family shaped by two sides of history. 53,928, This story has been shared 39,107 times. All rights reserved. “White Fragility” does a magnificent job explaining how the condition afflicts even “non-racists” and what we can do to overcome this systemic butterfly effect. Many black women writers like Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou have given us unforgettable books about racism. “And Baldwin's book should be read with The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, an anthology edited by Jesmyn Ward.”, In his memoir, Laymon uses the personal to draw attention to a great American paradox: a nation obsessed with opportunity and progress, yet skilled in the avoidance of who that advancement is for. Terms of Use Mike Pence fights back tears, thanks Trump in farewell speech, Joe Biden's daughter Ashley turns heads in tuxedo on inauguration night, Twitter sued for allegedly refusing to remove child porn, 'Gimme a break, man! Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor . ... which is an indicator of the best examples of literature we know. Ever wonder why kids of the same ethnicity still seem to self-segregate? “Plus, challenging whiteness challenges white readers, and the absolute least we can do is to be challenged.”, Buy it: $15, bookshop.org (Turning Page Bookshop), This collection of essays, written between 1976 and 1984, is “for anyone who is at a loss for words or is afraid of their own voice and of speaking up…about anything,” says Bassist. “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? These books provide insight into the problems that plague people and the planet, while also offering solutions for a more just future. Sitemap The provocative piece still resonates almost 60 years later, even providing the basis for Coates’ landmark best seller “Between the World and Me” from 2015. This book illuminates the racist politics at play that were responsible for a wave of school closures in 2013—leaving 12,000 children, 88% of them Black, without a pivotal neighborhood touchstone. In her groundbreaking 2010 book, Alexander illuminates the striking parallels between the racist Jim Crow legislation of post-Reconstruction America and the oppressive criminal justice system of today. Feel a sudden rush of indignation upon reading the phrase “white fragility”? Reading Black voices isn’t in itself allyship or antiracism, but it’s an important part. Fleming’s takeaway: Our racial politics are sorta-kinda-actually garbage, and many Americans are only just waking up to centuries of white supremacy and injustice. © 2021 Condé Nast. Here are some basic tenets.). Buy it: $27, bookshop.org (Semicolon Bookstore & Gallery). #1 White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism Robin DiAngelo 4.5 out of … Hooks highlights radical but straightforward considerations of the way interconnectedness manifests in both our intimate and public lives: What it means to give and receive love, rethinking the kind of self-love that will bring more compassion into our relationships, and the power of love to end communal and societal struggle. Bonilla-Silva confronts the idea that “color-blind” … “The New Jim Crow” can be summed up in Alexander’s earth-shattering line: “We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”. These essays offer a series of compassionate, honest, and absorbing lessons from one of our best-loved writers. We've received your submission. In the fall of 1998, I published the novel, If You Come Softly , a retelling of Romeo and Juliet centered around the interracial relationship between 15-year-olds Jeremiah and Ellie. Buy it: $16, bookshop.org (Semicolon Bookstore & Gallery), This book chronicles the life of a mixed-race family with two daughters: Birdie (who appears white) and Cole (who’s dark enough to fit in with the other kids at their Afrocentric school). The best books on Racism recommended by Kurt Barling. In her 1997 opus, racial psychology expert Beverly Daniel Tatum addresses this phenomenon and other cultural elephants in the room that people avoid discussing. Published in France in 1955, this classic essay influenced a generation of scholars and activists fighting for liberation in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean—and 20 years later the civil rights movement in America. 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