Anyway, work had
Imbram X Kendi give a virtual talk for our Diversity & Inclusion series (which as an aside is pretty freaking cool) and I realized that despite hearing and reading so much from him I still hadn't read his book. So starting
How To Be an Antiracist.
I thought this book was a mess and am really disappointed. Weird anecdotes interjected into things, odd thematic and retrospective analysis choices, the final shoehorned chapters that seemed to be "oh uh women and queer people fall under this too I guess". And I absolutely lost my mind at the start of every chapter as they all begin with a definition of "antiracist-X" and the definition is just "doing X while being antiracist". You can't define a word using the same word! Over and over again! Especially if introducing and defining that concept is the entire purpose of your book!
But since so many people have responded well to it I must be missing something. Anyway, here are a few books that I
think are addressing this concept in a much more eloquent and cohesive way although to be fair I still don't feel like I understand what he means by antiracism. These are just the ones I thought of quickly, I'm sure I'm omitting something I'll think of later.
Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates
I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
And for a discussion of how race is portrayed in media here are two I really enjoyed:
The Dark Fantastic by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas (I really, really, recommend this for anyone who is a fan of science/fiction fantasy)
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison (Also read anything by Toni Morrison if you haven't by now)
Also the
TT March book club book
The Other Madisons is more focused on history but gives a lot of thought to how people react and conceptualize race.
Just wanted to throw out a big thank you for bringing this to my attention. Absolutely delightful from cover to cover. I've been on something of a streak of excellent books on writing and this one was still a standout.
I just got this from the library! I read the introduction and was about to read the first chapter when I realized I only had 10 more minutes or so to read. Definitely seems like a book I need to sit down and read in a longer session after he discussed needing to go back and forth between the story and analysis but excited to get back to it.
Anyway, I'm starting on
House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday for my Classics book club.