Reading to Be Better: Four Books for Justice
April 11, 2015
I've been sitting on this post idea for a couple of weeks, and now feels like the right time to share it.
If you're new around here, I care about things, and I want to read about the things I care about, no matter how difficult:
"I tend to gravitate toward heavy books—for example, nearly 30% of last year's reading dealt directly with tough topics: racism, sexism, abortion, FGM. To me, that percentage should be even higher. A large part of why I read is to learn more about the world around me, particularly the parts we'd rather minimize or ignore altogether. If there's nothing else I can do (and I certainly hope to do more, in my career and personal life), I at least want to bear witness." - shainareads.com, 01/07/2015
I care about a lot of different things, but right now I've got racism and police brutality on the brain. It's on my mind a lot, actually. As a multi-ethnic white woman, I'll never experience racism and more than likely never experience police brutality, but I refuse to close my eyes against it.
This list won't do anything to change the state of the world today—I'm not under any illusions—but these four books helped me to see just how much work is left to be done. Maybe they'll help someone else see that, too.
All images are clickable and lead to the title's Goodreads page (all images from GR). Check out my own review of Just Mercy here. If you're hungry for more books about hard topics, this is a pretty good list.
Do you guys have any other recommendations for books that deal with racism and/or policing?
14 comments
This is such a good (and important) list. Thanks for sharing these titles and all the associated links. I have The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks on my Nook waiting to be read. I'll need to try to get to it soon.
ReplyDeleteYou DO like the heavy books. You could always go the old classic route and read things like 1984, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451...they don't deal with policing so much as government control and totalitarianism, but they're good. As far as on the racism and race development pathway, a good fiction novel about earlier race dynamics is The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom.
ReplyDeleteOooh I love this. I haven't read any of these books! I need to get my act together. I'd suggest The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which I just recently finished. Or, if you want race/prejudice addressed in scifi short story form, check out Out of All Them Bright Stars by Nancy Kress. It is SO GOOD. And very short. Aliens!
ReplyDeleteThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is such a great book. I highly recommend it to whoever will listen. I am currently reading Ghettoside and that is also a great book. While it doesn't exactly fit into your list here, I still think you might like it.
ReplyDeleteI've had The New Jim Crow on my TBR for ages now, I need to read it.
ReplyDeleteYes! It's not a perfect book by any means, but it's really informative about how destructive the war on drugs is for POC.
ReplyDeleteI loooved Henrietta Lacks. I really should reread it sometime soon.
ReplyDeleteAnd ah, I've heard such good things about that one! I entered a GR giveaway for it, but no dice. I'll have to snoop around my library's catalog to see if they have it yet.
It's great! It really doesn't feel like a typical, science-y non-fiction book. Skloot does a really good job about making it clear that this is a story about real people, not just their cells.
ReplyDeleteOh do I love those classics. :) 1984 is one of my all-time favorites, right up there with Beloved. I think those might be cliché favorite books, but I don't even care.
ReplyDeleteOoh, I'll have to look into The Kitchen House! Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Noted on THiaLH! Definitely going on the list.
ReplyDeleteALSO! I just looked up the short story you referenced, and I got really excited because the PDF I found includes two stories. The second one is one I really love called "They're Made Out of Meat" by Terry Bison. Have you read it?! If not, definitely check it out: http://www.i.hosei.ac.jp/~michael/scifiX2.pdf
Great list. I'd add Chasing the Scream, which is a history of the war on drugs.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it came out in January and I really didn't see much of anything about it, but it's incredibly thorough and well-researched (if clear that the author has a very stated opinion on the success of the war on drugs), and though it's pretty brutal at times, I couldn't put it down. Learned a ton.
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely not against opinionated non-fiction, so long as the research is there to back it up. I just found out that my library has it in stock, so I'll be getting my hands on it soon! (Related: I am so incapable of prioritizing my TBR!)
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, me neither--and the author is pretty straightforward about how he got to his opinion, which I always appreciate. If you get to it, I'd love to know what you think! I don't think I know anyone else who's read it. And I COMPLETELY understand on the TBR prioritizing... I'm terrible at that. Constantly finishing things the day before book club/review deadlines because I get distracted by new shiny books! And library holds! And things I'd never heard of before! :-)
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