40 Books You Need to Read To Fully Understand Racism
Ask any Black person what racism feels like and we’ll be able to recount, in perfect detail, any number of times we’ve been made to feel powerless by a white person. It’s a foot on your back or a knee upon your neck. It is cruel, it is unrelenting, and it is almost never caught on tape. And for most of us, it’s rarely the overt racism white people recognize. Gone (mostly) is de jure racism, leaving in its place de facto racism, which, many would argue doesn’t truly exist.
Microaggressions are even harder to prove.
Micro-aggressions are defined as “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial, gender, sexual orientation, and religious slights and insults to the target person or group.”
They are the ways in which people make it clear you are an outsider. A few years back I was taking pictures in East Milton Square, Massachusetts. While crossing the street we were approached by a cop who said he was notified that I was in the area taking pics and asked us to stop. He even asked for my photographer’s card and demanded to know what we were doing there. East Milton, Massachusetts is the predominately white side of town. I knew immediately that this cop was sent to send the message that I was not welcome. Of course, he didn’t say that. He didn’t scream racial epithets in my face. But the message was received.
Still, no matter how many ways we explain how it feels, it’s hard to get to the bottom of racism without getting to the bottom of racism. Reading about the history of racism, and the ways in which polices rooted in racism continue today is truly the only way we can begin to see ourselves out of the mess we are in today. I have challenged myself to read at least two of these books every month for the foreseeable future, and I encourage you to do the same. Knowledge is indeed power.
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum
Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do by Jennifer L. Eberhardt PhD
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad
When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America
How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: Problems in Race, Political Economy, and Society by Manning Marable
The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation by Daina Ramey Berry
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir
The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley by Malcolm X, Alex Haley, and Attallah Shabazz
If you like this post check my post of 100 books written by Black women HERE, If there are any additional books you’d like to add to this list please comment below!
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