Books You Should Read About Black Lives
- Something has to change in USA.
- Racism isn’t worse…it is just getting filmed!
- I can only start to understand what has to change
- …by reading.
- Never stop learning because life never stops teaching.
- Books about Black Lives.
- Here is the list
- ….if you are interested, good suggestions for a book club?
- If you’re reeling from the news and want to do something,
- deepening your understanding of racism and the black experience
- in America is one way to start.
- Check out the books below, which range from established classics
- to newer works and include memoirs, practical guides
- to talking about race, in-depth reporting on police brutality,
- and groundbreaking works of inter sectional feminist theor
- UPDATE: 11.06.2020. America is reading again…TOP 10 bestsellers
UPDATE: 05.06.2020 (Amazon links included by titles)
- Are Prisons Obsolete? – Angela Y. Davis
- The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison – R. Ellison
- The New Jim Crow – Michelle Alexander – Review
- (NAACP Image Awards (Outstanding Non-fiction, 2011)
- Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates – READING
- Citizen: An American Lyric – Claudia Rankine
- Black Feminist Thought – Patricia Hill Collins
- Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches – Audre Lorde
- Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism – Bell hooks
- We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood – Dani McClain
- They Can’t Kill Us All – Wesley Lowery
- So You Want to Talk About Race – Ijeoma Oluo
- Heavy – Kiese Laymon
- Their Eyes Are Watching – Zora N. Hurston
- Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race – Reni Eddo-Lodge
- White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism – Robin DiAngelo
- The Hate Race – Maxine Beneba Clark 5 star ***** read
- The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin 5 star ***** read
- Brit(ish) – Afua Hirsh – my review
- Tears We Cannot Stop – M. Dyson – my review
- Blood in the Water – Heather Thompson (Pulitzer Prize 2017) – my review
- Stamped From the Beginning – I.X. Kendi (National Book Award 2016) – my review
- Ghettoside – Jill Levoy – my review
- Just Mercy – Bryan Stevenson
- The New Testament – Jericho Brown (excellent poems!!) – my review
- Democracy In Black – E.S. Glaude jr. – my review
- Brown is The New White – Steve Phillips – my review
- My Vanishing Country – B. Sellers (2020) – my review
- How to Be an Anti-Racist – Ibram X. Kendi – my review
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This is an incredible list. Thank you for sharing.
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I would add:
Blood in The Water – Heather Thompson
Stamped From the Beginning – I.X. Kendi
Jill Leovy’s book “Ghettoside” is her penetrating look at the Los Angeles Police Department the title is taken from the nickname a Watts gang member gave to his neighborhood.
I am determined to learn more….to make sure I understand what is happening in USA now.
Thanks…..for you comment.
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Ghettoside was an incredible book. Heavy has been on my list for a long time and Blood in the Water too. I want to understand it better too to try and help instead of being another part of the problem here. Thanks again for sharing these!
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Blood in the Water…..was just incredible. Methodically researched and brilliantly written! 🙂
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The everyday trauma of black lives in the US is devastating and so deep.
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Thanks for your comment, Claire.
Yes…so deep and on Sunday program “Meet The Press” (US news show) the chairman of Trump’s National Security advisor (Robert O’Brien) had the nerve to say there was NO systemic racism in US. No wonder there are protests in front of The White House and Trump escapes to his bunker in the builiding! This is history in the making….I have to pinch myself to imagine that in November election…USA will finally be rid of Trump and his cohorts..and CHANGE will finally come! Thanks for the excellent review of “Aue” (New Zealand’s annual book prize). Glad you read it first before others in Australia, bravo! I will put the book on my TBR.
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So understand, the deep and systemic oppression of people of colour, the trauma that carries through the generations, the fear that can never be unshackled, even for those who attain the heights of education and financial success. Change must and will come, but this type of leadership fears that others might do/lead to them what they have done and that they can’t live with. Imagine. So they use uniformed violence.
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Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (these are the 2 books most requested at work this week plus James Baldwin).
The Australian perspective – The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clark, On Identity and Talking to My Country by Stan Grant
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Thanks so much for the feedback….please let me know other books that people are requesting about this subject I’ve read The Hate Race (very good)…I have Stan Grant’s book on my Kindle.
Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time is very short…but oh, so powerful. The other books I will investigate tomorrow on Amazon. I read Roxane Gay’s article “No One Is coming To Save Us (op-ed New York Times, see my twitter for the link) is SOOooo good. Don’t miss it! 🙂
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