What's on my Reading Stack?
Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times, Nick Montgomery and carla bergman
“Why do radical movements and spaces sometimes feel laden with fear, anxiety, suspicion, self-righteousness, and competition? Montgomery and bergman call this phenomenon rigid radicalism: congealed and toxic ways of relating that have seeped into social movements, posing as the "correct" way of being radical.”
“Why do radical movements and spaces sometimes feel laden with fear, anxiety, suspicion, self-righteousness, and competition? Montgomery and bergman call this phenomenon rigid radicalism: congealed and toxic ways of relating that have seeped into social movements, posing as the "correct" way of being radical.”
The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart, Alicia Garza
“She reflects instead on how making room amongst the woke for those who are still awakening can inspire and activate more people to fight for the world we all deserve.
This is the story of one woman's lessons through years of bringing people together to create change. Most of all, it is a new paradigm for change for a new generation of changemakers, from the mind and heart behind one of the most important movements of our time.”
“She reflects instead on how making room amongst the woke for those who are still awakening can inspire and activate more people to fight for the world we all deserve.
This is the story of one woman's lessons through years of bringing people together to create change. Most of all, it is a new paradigm for change for a new generation of changemakers, from the mind and heart behind one of the most important movements of our time.”
We will Not Cancel Us and other Dreams of Transformative Justice, adrienne maree brown
"Cancel" or "call-out" culture is a source of much tension and debate in American society. The infamous "Harper's Letter," signed by public intellectuals of both the left and right, sought to settle the matter and only caused greater division. Originating as a way for marginalized and disempowered people to address harm and take down powerful abusers, often with the help of social media, call outs are seen by some as having gone too far. But what is "too far" when you're talking about imbalances of power and patterns of harm? And what happens when people in social justice movements direct their righteous anger inward at one another? |
Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
“In these years, spanning from the publication of The Fire Next Time in 1963 to that of No Name in the Street in 1972, Baldwin transformed into a more overtly political writer, a change that came at great professional and personal cost. But from that journey, Baldwin emerged with a sense of renewed purpose about the necessity of pushing forward in the face of disillusionment and despair. In the story of Baldwin's crucible, Glaude suggests, we can find hope and guidance through our own after times…” |
Freedom Dreams, Robin D. G. Kelley “Kelley unearths freedom dreams in this exciting history of renegade intellectuals and artists of the African diaspora in the twentieth century. Focusing on the visions of activists from C. L. R. James to Aime Cesaire and Malcolm X, Kelley writes of the hope that Communism offered, the mindscapes of Surrealism, the transformative potential of radical feminism, and of the four-hundred-year-old dream of reparations for slavery and Jim Crow.” |
Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, Ijeoma Oluo
“What happens to a country that tells generation after generation of white men that they deserve power? What happens when success is defined by status over women and people of color, instead of by actual accomplishments? Through the last 150 years of American history -- from the post-reconstruction South and the mythic stories of cowboys in the West, to the present-day controversy over NFL protests and the backlash against the rise of women in politics -- Ijeoma Oluo exposes the devastating consequences of white male supremacy on women, people of color, and white men themselves.” |
Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics, and Literature Qwo-Li Driskill, Chris Finley, Brian Joseph Gilley, and Scott Lauria Morgensen
“Based on the reality, that queer indigencous people “experience multilayered oppression that profoundly impacts our safety, health, and survival,” this book is at once an imagining and an invitation to the reader to join the discussion of decolonizing queer Indigenous research and theory and, by doing so, to partake in collective resistance working toward positive change.” |
Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit, Mary-Frances Winters.
“Winters goes deeply into the root of Black fatigue, describing the enduring negative impact of systemic racism on health, economic, workplace, educational, and other social outcomes for Black people…discusses how non-Black people can begin to actively dismantle the racist systems that cause it.” |