What’s on Your Bookshelf?
A mix of current reads & favorites from my bookshelf
The work of anti-racism starts with the self and examining your own privilege as well as your role in within racism itself. It starts with what we ingest, what texts and idea we engage with and whose voices we are listening to.
As a cis white woman, I have a lot of work to do. And part (not all) of this work can be done through books.
Unlearning and listening to Black voices is part of the fight, but it can’t ever be all of it. Action, amplification of Black voices, providing resources (time, money, support) to Black communities, organizations and other support systems is vital for us to grow as allies. Reading a stack of books and forming a book club won’t accomplish this on its own.
That said, books are where we can take the time to re-examine our lives, histories, stories and ideas. Books allow us to challenge our perceptions and belief systems. Returning to literature, for me, as always been akin to returning to the role of the humble student.
When I crack open a book, I am there to learn. And that willingness to learn, to be open, is vital when reading Black voices. Because their survival is at stake. Black lives matter. Black voices matter. Black futures matter.
Bias informs so many of our actions, and this is extended to book buying, the novels we check out from the library, the books we are assigned to at school, the books we buy the children in our life and the books we give as gifts during the holidays. I hear the defense a lot: I don’t think about color when choosing a book; I simply choose a book based on its premise. It’s not my fault that Black writers aren’t writing about what I am interested in!
Except, it is our fault. So much about the publishing industry and resources for Black writers is bogged down by racism; so much of who we are as white consumers is entrenched in deep bias. Our tastes are influenced by racism. Our preferences. We flinch away from what we find unlike us, what makes us uncomfortable, as if, by being reminded of Blackness, we are being reminded of our role in implicit racism in this country. There is no escape from this. We are in this system, and it’s our job to challenge it.
It’s not as simple as buying a single non-fiction book on anti-racism. Across all genres, we need to challenge our reading habits because the publishing industry isn’t going to be marketing those books. We need to find them, buy them and demand more.
So, right now, I am engaging in some simple ways I can start to change the habits of my book buying, library requesting and reading habits:
· Take a hard look at your current bookshelf and TBR pile. How many books by Black authors do you own? How many more books by white authors do you own? How about Indigenous voices, queer voices, trans voices? Asian or Latinx? Make piles. See the evidence. Then, commit to making a change. If you have kids or are close to child, what are they reading? What are their relatives buying them? What’s being assigned at school? What are you recommending they read?
· Participate in the Read Harder challenge or make your own based on you particular gaps. Book Riot’s reader harder challenge is a yearly list of categories of books (think literary Bingo) to challenge cis white male reading habits. I am participating this year, and I love how specific the categories are. There are also curated lists for each category making your shopping and library requests easier.
· Check out lists of Black authors in genres that you typically like to read. Question why you haven’t read a lot of these books. Look into books by Black authors that aren’t non-fiction books or memoirs concerning racism. What about romance books? Young adult? Humor?
· Buy books by Black authors in all genres! If you have the money, this is great place to put it. I recently bought: The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett, Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory and Pride by Ibi Zoboi. As white readers, it’s vital we support all facets of Black writing from heavy non-fiction to light romances. For more on this topic, read this great article by NYT Bestselling author Jasmine Guillory in Time Magazine.
And once you have your books ordered and your library holds submitted, start your daily actions and giving back to the community … this isn’t just about reading a book or two. This is about altering how we take up space in the world.
Resources & Actions to Dig into Right Now:
· Breonna Taylor’s killers still haven’t been arrested. Read the demands here.
· Justice in June is a starter document compiled by Autumn Gupta and Bryanna Wallace I have been working through (I know, I know, it’s July now! I promise that all the content is still relevant). It’s a mix of readings, media and actions broken down into doable, daily actions.
· Dive into this article in Washington Post by Tre Johnson: When black people are in pain, white people just join book clubs.
That’s it for today. Every morning I remind myself: this isn’t the work itself, but the scaffolding for the work. Dig in. Take action. Support the people you are learning from and commit to becoming anti-racist.
This work never ends.