Essential reading for our times, with the goal of true human equality.
“Not being racist is not enough.” The founder of @officialmillennialblack on Instagram delivers a simple guide for those “who wish to join the fight against racism.”
Early on, Williams, an experienced social justice activist, describes her process: “I began writing this book in the wake of the series of tragic murders that shocked the world in 2020 and galvanized many who had never considered their role in anti-racism to take action in their own lives.” In this “deliberately small book,” Williams aims to assist those who want to become more active by outlining how to be an effective anti-racist ally. The author lays out a series of focus areas for would-be allies, all of which are meant to “challenge the things we’ve been taught based on white supremacy, and to seek better and fairer ways moving forward.” Williams begins with definitions and first steps, including “Becoming an Anti-Racist Ally” or “What Does Racism Look Like Now?” She addresses common questions and concerns about terminology, misconceptions, and intersectionality. After the introductory concepts, the author moves on to proactive elements—e.g. how to be an ally in your social circle, workplace, and community. Throughout, she uses a conversational tone to explain the reasons behind each of her suggestions, such as examining the diversity of the communities you are a part of, and then suggests simple ways in which to talk with the leadership of those groups about the vitality of anti-racism. Williams is clear that the “allyship journey” is rarely easy or quick, which makes it that much more important to implement sturdy support structures, make space for messy feelings, and celebrate small victories. Williams also provides two helpful lists for further reading, one for adults (White Fragility, Between the World and Me, How To Be an Antiracist) and one for younger readers.
Essential reading for our times, with the goal of true human equality. (Includes Further Reading list and endnotes)Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-308135-2
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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