CASA of Lexington Reading List
CASA of Lexington volunteers may read any of the books on this list to help fulfill their annual continuing education hours. Log your CEU hours using Optima, which is available on the Volunteer Dashboard. Reading books can count for a maximum of four hours toward your 12 annual continuing education credits.
An African American and Latinx History of the United States, Paul Ortiz
Spanning more than two hundred years, “An African American and Latinx History of the United States” is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history, arguing that the “Global South” was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Scholar and activist Paul Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress as exalted by widely taught formulations like “manifest destiny” and “Jacksonian democracy,” and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms U.S. history into one of the working class organizing against imperialism. Incisive and timely, this bottom-up history, told from the interconnected vantage points of Latinx and African Americans, reveals the radically different ways that people of the diaspora have addressed issues still plaguing the United States today, and it offers a way forward in the continued struggle for universal civil rights.
The Tradition, Jericho Brown
Beauty abounds in Jericho Brown’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry collection, despite and inside of the evil that pollutes the everyday. A National Book Award finalist, The Tradition questions why and how we’ve become accustomed to terror.
June 28, 2019 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which is considered the most significant event in the gay liberation movement, and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. Drawing from the New York Public Library’s archives, The Stonewall Reader is a collection of first accounts, diaries, periodic literature, and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the riots.
Understanding the Latinx Experience, Vasti Torres, Ebelia Hernández and Sylvia Martinez
The Latinx presence continues to grow in traditional population enclaves and has tripled in areas that are not traditionally associated with this pan-ethnic group. The dramatic growth of this population in the U.S. requires a considerably deeper understanding of individuals that share this multifaceted identity. This timely book synthesizes new research and its implications for practice that is critical for professionals working with Latinx’s in educational and counseling contexts. The authors provide insight into identity development, environmental influences, and how these factors influence persistence in higher education. By using a synthesis approach to organize multiple studies around how being Latinx influences the experiences of students in college and beyond, the authors offer a holistic view of the Latinx population.
How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir, Saeed Jones
In powerful poetry and prose, Saeed Jones recounts his experiences growing up as a young, black, gay man in rural Texas. Tags: Poetry, Race, LGBTQ+
Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother’s Will to Survive, Stephanie Land
In her unstinting memoir — a portrait of working-class poverty in America — Land scrapes by on $9 an hour cleaning houses to support herself and her young daughter. Tags: Poverty
No Visible Bruises, Rachel Snyder
Snyder highlights an epidemic of unacknowledged violence. Fifty women a month are shot and killed by their partners, and she explores the problem from multiple perspectives: the victims, the aggressors and a society that turns a blind eye. Tags: Abuse
Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us, Kate Bornstein
“I know I’m not a man . . . and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m probably not a woman, either. . . . . The trouble is, we’re living in a world that insists we be one or the other.” With these words, Kate Bornstein ushers readers on a funny, fearless, and wonderfully scenic journey across the terrains of gender and identity. On one level, Gender Outlaw details Bornstein’s transformation from heterosexual male to lesbian woman, from a one-time IBM salesperson to a playwright and performance artist. But this particular coming-of-age story is also a provocative investigation into our notions of male and female.
In The Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado
This memoir, which tells the story of Machado’s abusive relationship with another woman, is an act of personal and formal bravery. Tags: Abuse
Dumpster Doll: The Early Years, Michelle Mays and Michelle Moon
Michelle Mays was born into an abusive family in the Midwest. As she and her siblings cling to survival, the balance of family ties is weighed against alcoholism, drug abuse, abandonment, and despair. Hope dawns in the form of foster care, only to be deferred by multiple placements and a system not equipped to support the children it's meant to protect. Through powerful vignettes of a life disjointed, Mays's story is a journey of hope that is echoed in the experiences of thousands of children in the court and foster care systems today. Dumpster Doll is brave not because it is unique, but because it unflinchingly shines a light on family turmoil, flaws in judicial systems, and ultimately, the grit and tenacity that thousands of children exhibit each day just to make it through. Tags: Abuse, Foster Care, Judicial System
Lost Children Archive, Valeria Luiselli
There is an impressive and moving body of storytelling that has accumulated in the wake of the crisis of migrant children — lost, separated, incarcerated — at the U.S.-Mexico border. But if you’re interested in the role that fiction can play, you must read Valeria Luiselli’s marvelous book Lost Children Archive. It’s structured as a road trip novel. Tags: Immigration, Fiction
Pathways to Positive Parenting: Helping Parents Nurture Healthy Development in the Earliest Months, Jolene Pearson
Jolene Pearson, BES, MS, PhD, IMH-E® (IV) An essential resource for all professionals who work with families of infants, this valuable handbook serves as a parent educator’s guide to coaching and supporting new parents. The curriculum provides professionals with innovative teaching techniques, and practical and effective strategies that are field-tested, science-based and can be applied immediately in work supporting the development of positive parenting skills. The book also includes information on important topics such as postpartum depression, tummy time, breastfeeding, Safe to Sleep, and coping with crying. Tags: Childhood Development, Parenting
Does Time Heal All? Exploring Mental Health in the First 3 Years, Miri Keren, MD; Doreet Hopp, PhD; Sam Tyano, MD
In this book, the authors (Miri Keren, MD; Doreet Hopp, PhD; Sam Tyano, MD) seek to debunk the idea that all troubling behaviors arising in early childhood will simply “pass with time,” asserting instead that every effort should be made to attempt diagnosis and treatment of truly abnormal issues early in life, while the baby’s brain is still flexible and malleable. Not a guide, nor an ordinary textbook, Does Time Heal All? Weaves together complex case and treatment descriptions that focus specifically on the interplay between genetic, biological, psychological, and cultural variables present both in the child and his or her environment. The resulting insights will fascinate and enrich all who seek to trace the thin line between normative behavior, even if extreme at times, and abnormal behavior caused by a psychological disorder requiring therapeutic intervention. Tags: Childhood Development, Trauma
The Orchid and the Dandelion: Why Some Children Struggle and How All Can Thrive, Dr. Thomas Boyce
This books looks at the resiliency of children and how to adapt our strategies so that all types of children can be successful. Dr. Boyce, a professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco has studied how stress effects children for nearly forty years and over time has developed his classifications of Orchids and Dandelion children. Dandelions are kids who are adaptable, resilient and largely unphased by changes in their circumstances. Orchids, on the other hands, are more sensitive and react to change in biologically different ways. This book will teach us how children deal with stress and how to tailor our approaches so that we can support a full spectrum of children. Tags: Childhood Development, Trauma, Resiliency
How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, Paul Tough
Why do some children succeed while others fail? The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But inHow Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter more have to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, optimism, and self-control.How Children Succeed introduces us to a new generation of researchers and educators, who, for the first time, are using the tools of science to peel back the mysteries of character. Through their stories—and the stories of the children they are trying to help—Tough reveals how this new knowledge can transform young people’s lives. He uncovers the surprising ways in which parents do—and do not—prepare their children for adulthood. And he provides us with new insights into how to improve the lives of children growing up in poverty. This provocative and profoundly hopeful book will not only inspire and engage readers, it will also change our understanding of childhood itself. Tags: Childhood Development, Parenting, Teaching
The Deepest Well, Nadine Burke Harris MD
Through vivid storytelling that combines both scientific insight with deeply moving stories about her patients and their families, Burke Harris illuminates her journey of discovery from the academy to her own pediatric practice in San Francisco's poverty-ridden Bayview Hunters Point. She reroots the story of childhood trauma and its aftermath in science to help listeners see themselves and others more clearly.For anyone who has faced a difficult childhood or who cares about the millions of children who do, the innovative and acclaimed health interventions outlined in The Deepest Well represents vitally important hope for change. Tags: Childhood Development, Trauma
Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Americans have built an entire society on the idea of “race,” a false construct whose ramifications damage us, but fall most heavily on the bodies of black women and men— bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion to their number in the population. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta- Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions, in the form of a letter to his adolescent son. Tags: Race, Equality
The Body Keeps the Score, Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk
This book uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Tags: Trauma
Helping Foster Children In School: A Guide for Foster Parents, Social Workers and Teachers, John DeGarmo
This book explores the challenges that foster children face in schools and offers positive and practical guidance tailored to help the parents, teachers and social workers supporting them. Tags: Foster Care, Parenting, Teaching
Foster Girl, A Memoir, Georgette Todd
Foster Girl reveals what it feels like to grow up in foster care. Readers will come away from this book with a better understanding of how the foster care system works and what we can all do to make a difference. Tags: Foster Care
Another Place at the Table, Kathy Harrison
Another Place at the Table is the story of life at our social services' front lines, centered on three children who, when they come together in Harrison's home, nearly destroy it. It is the frank first-person story of a woman whose compassionate best intentions for a child are sometimes all that stand between violence and redemption. Tags: Foster Care
The Bluest Eyes, Toni Morrison
Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison’s virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterized her writing. Tags: Race, Poverty, Gender
Educated, Tara Westover
Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father’s junkyard. Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when Tara’s older brother became violent. Then, lacking a formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home. Tags: Education, Abuse
The Fire This Time, Jesmyn Ward
In this bestselling, widely lauded collection, Jesmyn Ward gathers our most original thinkers and writers to speak on contemporary racism and race, including Carol Anderson, Jericho Brown, Edwidge Danticat, Kevin Young, Claudia Rankine, and Honoree Jeffers. “An absolutely indispensable anthology” (Booklist, starred review), The Fire This Time shines a light on the darkest corners of our history, wrestles with our current predicament, and imagines a better future. Envisioned as a response to The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin’s groundbreaking 1963 essay collection, these contemporary writers reflect on the past, present, and future of race in America. Tags: Race
Home, Toni Morrison
When Frank Money joined the army to escape his too-small world, he left behind his cherished and fragile little sister, Cee. After the war, his shattered life has no purpose until he hears that Cee is in danger. Frank is a modern Odysseus returning to a 1950s America mined with lethal pitfalls for an unwary black man. As he journeys to his native Georgia in search of Cee, it becomes clear that their troubles began well before their wartime separation. Together, they return to their rural hometown of Lotus, where buried secrets are unearthed and where Frank learns at last what it means to be a man, what it takes to heal, and—above all—what it means to come home. Tags: Race
How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi
Ibram X. Kendi's concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America--but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. Instead of working with the policies and system we have in place, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it. Tags: Race
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters. Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Tags: Race
Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to defending the poor, the incarcerated, and the wrongly condemned. Just Mercy tells the story of EJI, from the early days with a small staff facing the nation’s highest death sentencing and execution rates, through a successful campaign to challenge the cruel practice of sentencing children to die in prison, to revolutionary projects designed to confront Americans with our history of racial injustice. Tags: Race. Criminal Justice
The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander
The New Jim Crow is a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status—denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement. Since its publication in 2010, the book has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a year; been dubbed the “secular bible of a new social movement” by numerous commentators, including Cornel West; and has led to consciousness-raising efforts in universities, churches, community centers, re-entry centers, and prisons nationwide. The New Jim Crow tells a truth our nation has been reluctant to face. Tags: Race, Criminal Justice
Beautiful Boy, David Sheff
A teenager's addiction from the parent's point of view - a real-time chronicle of the shocking descent into substance abuse and the gradual emergence into hope. Tags: Addiction
Dope Sick, Beth Macy
Dope Sick Chronicles America's more than twenty-year struggle with opioid addiction, from the introduction of OxyContin in 1996, through the spread of addiction in distressed communities in Central Appalachia, to the current national crisis. Tags: Addiction
Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal, Donna Jackson Nakazawa
Your biography becomes your biology. The emotional trauma we suffer as children not only shapes our emotional lives as adults, but it also affects our physical health, longevity, and overall wellbeing. Scientists now know on a bio-chemical level exactly how parents chronic fights, divorce, death in the family, being bullied or hazed, and growing up with a hypercritical, alcoholic, or mentally ill parent can leave permanent, physical fingerprints on our brains. When children encounter sudden or chronic adversity, stress hormones cause powerful changes in the body, altering the body s chemistry. The developing immune system and brain react to this chemical barrage by permanently resetting children's stress response to high, which in turn can have a devastating impact on their mental and physical health as they grow up. Donna Jackson Nakazawa shares stories from people who have recognized and overcome their adverse experiences, shows why some children are more immune to stress than others, and explains why women are at particular risk. Tags: Trauma, Health, Mental Health, Childhood Development
Damaged, Cathy Glass
A true story of an abused child written by Cathy Glass. Cathy was Jodie’s foster parent and writes about the time she spent with her child. Jodie is removed from her home when she is eight years old because of suspected child abuse by her parents. After being in five foster homes within four months, social services contacted Cathy to see if she would take Jodie and care for her. Cathy has been a foster parent for twenty years and has had success with all the children for whom she has cared. Tags: Abuse, Foster Care
The Other Wes Moore, Wes Moore
Two kids named Wes Moore were born blocks apart within a year of each other. Both grew up fatherless in similar Baltimore neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods; both hung out on street corners with their crews; both ran into trouble with the police. How, then, did one grow up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader, while the other ended up a convicted murderer serving a life sentence? Wes Moore, the author of this fascinating book, sets out to answer this profound question. In alternating narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world. Tags: Poverty, Education, Race
A Child’s Journey Through Placement, Dr. Vera Fahlberg
Although much is available in the child welfare literature about families and casework process and procedures, there is little literature available that has the child as its primary focus. This book focuses on a child's feelings, needs, and behaviors once the decision has been made to place the child in foster care. Tags: Foster Care, Childhood Development
So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo
In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to “model minorities” in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life. Tags: Race
Racism Without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the U.S., Eduardo Bonnill-Silva
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva's acclaimed Racism Without Racists documents how, beneath our contemporary conversation about race, there lies a full-blown arsenal of arguments, phrases, and stories that whites use to account for--and ultimately justify--racial inequalities. The fifth edition of this provocative book makes clear that color blind racism is as insidious now as ever. It features new material on our current racial climate, including the Black Lives Matter movement; a significantly revised chapter that examines the Obama presidency, the 2016 election, and Trump's presidency; and a new chapter addressing what readers can do to confront racism--both personally and on a larger structural level. Tags: Race, Politics, Discrimination
Mama’s Boy: Preacher’s Son, Kevin Jennings
Growing up poor in the South, Kevin Jennings learned a lot of things, especially about how to be a real man. When his father, a fundamentalist preacher, dropped dead at his son’s eighth birthday party, Kevin already knew he wasn’t supposed to cry. He also knew there was no salvation for homosexuals, who weren’t "real men"--Or Christians, for that matter. But Jennings found his salvation in school, inspired by his mother. Self-taught, from Appalachia, her formal education had ended in sixth grade, but she was determined that her son would be the first member of their extended family to go to college, even if it meant going North. Kevin, propelled by her dream, found a world beyond poverty. He earned a scholarship to Harvard and there learned not only about history and literature, but also that it was possible to live openly as a gay man. But when Jennings discovered his vocation as a teacher and returned to high school to teach, he was forced back into the closet. He saw countless teachers and students struggling with their sexual orientation and desperately trying to hide their identity. For Jennings, coming out the second time was more complicated and much more important than the first--because this time he was leading a movement for justice. Tags: Religion, LGBTQ+
Lizzy Lives in An Angry House, Karen Addison
This practical resource will help countless children, families and trusted adults make sense of an angry parent, show how to love them and still be able to stand up and speak up, and teach ways to keep themselves safe. Tags: Parenting, Anger Management, Abuse
What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays, Damon Young
For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as “How should I react here, as a professional black person?” and “Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?” are forever relevant. What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him. Tags: Race
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the cafeteria? Beverly Daniel Tatum
Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides. These topics have only become more urgent as the national conversation about race is increasingly acrimonious. This fully revised edition is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of race in America. Tags: Race
Sex Trafficking and Commericial Sexual Exploitation: Prevention, Advocacy, and Trauma Informed Practice, Lara B. Gerassi and Andrea j. Nichols
Analyzes the current research and best practices for working with children, adolescents, and adults involved in sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). With a unique, research-based focus on practice, the book synthesizes the key areas related to working with victims of sex trafficking / CSE, including prevention, identification, practice techniques, and program design. Tags: Sex Trafficking
Renting Lacy: A Story of America’s Prostituted Children, Linda Smith
To millions of Americans, the trafficking of children for commercial sexual purposes only happens somewhere else - in Southeast Asia or Central America - not on Main Street USA. Yet, it is abundantly clear that today at least 100,000 children are being used as commodities for sale or trade in cities across the nation. These kids are 21st Century slaves. They cannot walk away. Tags: Sex Trafficking, Abuse
The American Epidemic: Solutions for Over-Medicating Our Youth, Dr. Frank J. Granett
Dr. Granett provides new knowledge for parents, educators, all healthcare professionals, and public health policymakers to determine the cause of behavioral symptoms prior to psychoactive drug therapy in children. Tags: Mental Health, Childhood Development
I Never Told Anyone, Ellen Bass
Deeply moving testimonies by women survivors of child sexual abuse. Tags: Sexual Abuse
Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald
Blindspot Explores hidden biases that we all carry from a lifetime of experiences with social groups – age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, or nationality. The title’s “good people” are the many people – the authors included – who strive to align their behavior with their good intentions. The aim of Blindspot is to explain the science in plain enough language to allow well-intentioned people to better achieve that alignment. Tags: Race, Discrimination, Bias
Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland,
Jonathan M. Metzl
In the era of Donald Trump, many lower- and middle-class white Americans are drawn to politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as Dying of Whiteness shows, the policies that result actually place white Americans at ever-greater risk of sickness and death. Physician Jonathan M. Metzl’s quest to understand the health implications of “backlash governance” leads him across America’s heartland. Interviewing a range of everyday Americans, he examines how racial resentment has fueled progun laws in Missouri, resistance to the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and cuts to schools and social services in Kansas. And he shows these policies’ costs: increasing deaths by gun suicide, falling life expectancies, and rising dropout rates. White Americans, Metzl argues, must reject the racial hierarchies that promise to aid them but in fact lead our nation to demise. Tags: Race. Discrimination, Bias
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement,
Angela Y. Davis
Activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis has been a tireless fighter against oppression for decades. Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today’s struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine. Tags: Race, Discrimination, Bias
Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color, Andrea Ritchie
Invisible No More is a timely examination of how Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color experience racial profiling, police brutality, and immigration enforcement. By placing the individual stories of Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, Dajerria Becton, Monica Jones, and Mya Hall in the broader context of the twin epidemics of police violence and mass incarceration, Andrea Ritchie documents the evolution of movements centered around women’s experiences of policing. Tags: Race, Criminal Justice
Killing Rage: Ending Racism, bell hooks
One of our country's premier cultural and social critics, bell hooks has always maintained that eradicating racism and eradicating sexism must go hand in hand. But whereas many women have been recognized for their writing on gender politics, the female voice has been all but locked out of the public discourse on race. Killing Rage speaks to this imbalance. These twenty-three essays are written from a black and feminist perspective, and they tackle the bitter difficulties of racism by envisioning a world without it. Tags: Race, Gender
Me and White Supremacy, Layla Saad
Me and White Supremacy: A 28-Day Challenge to Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor leads readers through a journey of understanding their white privilege and participation in white supremacy, so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on black, indigenous and people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too. The book goes beyond the original workbook by adding more historical and cultural contexts, sharing moving stories and anecdotes, and includes expanded definitions, examples, and further resources. Tags: Race
Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond,
Marc Lamont Hill
Marc Lamont Hill carefully considers a string of high-profile deaths in America—Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, and others—and incidents of gross negligence by government, such as the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. He digs underneath these events to uncover patterns and policies of authority that allow some citizens to become disempowered, disenfranchised, poor, uneducated, exploited, vulnerable, and disposable. To help us understand the plight of vulnerable communities, he examines the effects of unfettered capitalism, mass incarceration, and political power while urging us to consider a new world in which everyone has a chance to become somebody. Tags: Race, Criminal Justice, Government
Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, Monique W. Morris
Monique W. Morris chronicles the experiences of Black girls across the country whose intricate lives are misunderstood, highly judged—by teachers, administrators, and the justice system—and degraded by the very institutions charged with helping them flourish. Called “compelling” and “thought-provoking” by Kirkus Reviews, Pushout exposes a world of confined potential and supports the rising movement to challenge the policies, practices, and cultural illiteracy that push countless students out of school and into unhealthy, unstable, and often unsafe futures. Tags: Race, Education
Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America, Jennifer Harvey
For white people who are committed to equity and justice, living in a nation that remains racially unjust and deeply segregated creates unique conundrums. These conundrums begin early in life and impact the racial development of white children in powerful ways. What can we do within our homes, communities and schools? Should we teach our children to be “colorblind”? Or, should we teach them to notice race? What roles do we want to equip them to play in addressing racism when they encounter it? Talking about race means naming the reality of white privilege and hierarchy. How do we talk about race honestly, then, without making our children feel bad about being white? Most importantly, how do we do any of this in age-appropriate ways? Tags: Race, Discrimination, Bias
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, Ibram X. Kendi
In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. Stamped from the Beginning uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and antiracists. From Puritan minister Cotton Mather to Thomas Jefferson, from fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to brilliant scholar W.E.B. Du Bois to legendary anti-prison activist Angela Davis, Kendi shows how and why some of our leading proslavery and pro-civil rights thinkers have challenged or helped cement racist ideas in America. Tags: Race, History
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Robin DiAngelo
White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. This book explicates the dynamics of White Fragility and how we might build our capacity in the on-going work towards racial justice. Find a short video summarizing the book here. Tags: Race