Two Books About Oppression, Feminism, and Social Justice
Despite my chosen title, these books aren’t solely about oppression. They are inspiring and educational, albeit heavy reads. Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 is history, biography, poetry, and introspection. Headscarves and Hymens:...Jarrett Adams — Redeeming Justice (Book Review)
Jarrett Adams tells his alternately inspiring and maddening story in Redeeming Justice: From Defendant to Defender, My Fight for Equity on Both Sides of a Broken System. At 17, he attended a college party with two of his buddies. Before the night was out, they had...Anne Fadiman — The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (Book Review)
Author Anne Fadiman combines multiple narratives in her fabulous ethnography The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. Most importantly, it’s both an immigration and a medical story of one Hmong...Tanya Talaga: Seven Fallen Feathers (Book Review)
Canadian journalist Tanya Talaga investigates a series of tragic deaths among First Nations youth in Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City. She walks a fine line between emotion and distance, based on her own connections as a member...Isabel Wilkerson: Caste (Book Review) — A Racial Justice Must Read
Isabel Wilkerson writes about devastating history in Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. It’s long, intense, and absolutely necessary to read. Thinking of the social and societal issues around race as based in a complicated caste system makes perfect sense. And...Charles Person — Buses Are a Comin’: Memoir of a Freedom Rider (Book Review)
Charles Person was the youngest person on the 1961 Freedom Ride. He was younger even than the legendary John Lewis, who went on to represent an Atlanta area district in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now, Person tells his story in Buses Are a Comin’: Memoir of a...Jacob Soboroff on Human Cruelty—Separated: Inside an American Tragedy (Book Review)
Despite finishing Separated by Jacob Soboroff over a week ago, reviewing it is a struggle for me. It’s a complex book, so I worry I won’t do it justice. At the same time, at the center of it is the human ability to be cruel. And in this case children, even babies,...Mona Hanna-Attisha Fights for the Children in What the Eyes Don’t See (Book Review)
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha wrote What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City to tell what happened in Flint, Michigan. But it’s not just her story. It’s the story of her clinic, her city, her state, and her country. And they are...Robin DiAngelo—White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism (Book Review)
As defined by Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility refers to both a book and a behavior. In her subtitle, “Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism,” we learn the simplest definition of the behavior. White people see race through a completely different lens,...Three Brief Audiobooks with #OwnVoices
In between longer reads, I often pick brief Audible Originals or other short audiobooks. This group of three #ownvoices reads are about women whose lives illustrate the realities of being black and brown in a difficult world. Proof of Love by Chisa Hutchinson...From Mikki Kendall—Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot (Book Review)
When Mikki Kendall published Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot in early 2020, the situation was dire. Today, not even six months later, it’s even worse. The shooting of Breonna Taylor by police in her own home is just one reason. Countless...Brittany K. Barnett: A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom (Book Review)
Brittany K. Barnett tells a series of moving and disturbing stories in her new memoir, A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom. If you read social justice books like The New Jim Crow or Locking Up Our Own, you must get your hands on a copy of this...Powerful Social Justice from James Forman: Locking Up Our Own (Book Review)
James Forman combines relevant experience and the ability to organize and present recent history. His 2017 book Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America is an exposition of origins and consequences of policing and legal decisions. In fact, he divides...The Beautiful Struggle, a Coming-of-Age Memoir from Ta-Nehisi Coates (Book Review)
With The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, I claim completion of the Ta-Nehisi Coates canon. (Not counting his work on Black Panther graphic novels.) Now I want to go back and re-read some of his later books with the perspective I...The Nickel Boys: Reality-based Historical Fiction in the Jim Crow South from Colson Whitehead (Book Review)
The Nickel Boys is the third Colson Whitehead book I’ve read. It’s a joy to watch his skill as a writer improve each time. Of course, two of the three won Pulitzer Prizes, so I’m not the only one noticing. And this book evoked a range of emotions from cheers to jeers...Bookshop.Org Affiliate
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