reading lately: black in America

Based on political circumstances and also really excellent initiatives I've been following, like the Diverse Books Club, I've been prompted to expand my reading horizons a bit, beyond my sometimes tendency toward purely escapist reading... In her review of Jodi Picoult's Small Great Things, my mom wrote, "Although I see some of the advantages I have, I have progress to make in ferreting out where White privilege is unseen in my life" - and that is where I am coming from in reading all of the following books. They all give insight into being black in America, a diversity of insight in better understanding others' lives and my own that I am very happy to have in my life after having read them (and I got to escape into some excellent fiction at the same time).

Dreamland Burning
Seventeen-year-old Rowan Chase is home one day when yard workers come across hundred-year-old bones buried behind the house. She gets drawn into the mystery of whose body it is and how it ended up there, while readers get drawn into 1920s Tulsa in alternating chapters, seeing the circumstances that led up to some terrible race riots through the eyes of 17-year-old Will, who comes to see the injustice in the division of Jim Crow and works to do what's right on the night that Tulsa burns. I really appreciated how well this book wove together the two worlds, getting readers inside some current race issues in our society with Rowan (who has one black parent), but then also revealing a historical event that I knew nothing about but is very important. Plus, all the while, it was a pretty darn enjoyable YA read - it becomes a real page-turner in the end, so it will appeal to fans of YA, mystery, and historical fiction alike. I quibbled with a few plot points, like the idea of an investigator letting teenagers be part of figuring out a crime, but hey, it's fiction, and it worked to tell the story/explore the themes. 3.5/5 stars


The Hate U Give
Another YA exploration of the themes of racial inequality and injustice, here focusing on police violence against young black men. It's sort of a ripped from the headlines type scenario: high schooler Starr Carter is riding in a car with a childhood friend when they are pulled over by a white police officer, who ends up shooting and killing the unarmed Khalil. Starr's world is shattered - she has to deal with the trauma of witnessing the death of her friend, and at the same time decide whether and how to make the true story known (since the police officer is not charged with the death), in the midst of riots and grand juries, and even danger to her own life, after Khalil's story has become a national headline. I think this book really gets you into the mind of teenagers who have to live with this fear of police brutality, even explicitly bringing up cases like Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice as the characters work through how to live and act in the face of this violence and injustice. I was also really interested in the "code switching" aspect of this story, with Starr living in predominantly black neighborhoods, somewhat ruled by gangs, while attending a private school with a lot of wealthy students, where she is one of only a couple of black students. All of this opened my eyes to an entirely different experience than my own of living in this country. It's a riveting story, very topical, and heart-wrenching - well worth a read. 4/5 stars


Small Great Things
I'm usually not much of a Jodi Picoult reader, but this one was recommended to me, so I picked it up - and am glad I did. Again, a very topical read in terms of racism in our current society, this time dealing with racial injustice in the workplace and court system, and also the too-real culture of white supremacists (sometimes society is good at pretending that things like this are in the past, like before Civil Rights and stuff, but they are reality, as we see in this story). Ruth Jefferson is an experienced and skilled labor & delivery nurse who has a baby die while in her care - but this happens after the child's parents, who are white supremacists, have explicitly said that Ruth, as an African American, is forbidden to touch their child. Ruth's hesitation in starting CPR leads to a charge of murder, and the story alternates between the perspective of Ruth, of her public defender, and that of the child's father, as it progresses through Ruth's arrest and trial. Reading a story line from the point of view of a white supremacist is supremely disturbing, especially in light of the recent events of Charlottesville (and how our president responded), but I really appreciated the author's note at the end about the story came about, in which she says: "Most of us think the word racism is synonymous with the word prejudice. But racism is more than just discrimination based on skin color. It's also about who has institutional power. Just as racism creates disadvantages for people of color that make success harder to achieve, it also gives advantages to white people that make success easier to achieve. It's hard to see those advantages, much less own up to them. And that, I realized, was why I had to write this book. When it comes to social justice, the role of the white ally is not to be a savior or a fixer. Instead, the role of the ally is to find other white people and talk to make them see that many of the benefits they've enjoyed in life are direct results of the fact that someone else did not have the same benefits." This fictional representation is a great way to get at this kind of understanding. (And along these story lines, I recommend you take a listen to this StoryCorps firsthand account from a former Neo-Nazi of changed hearts/minds -  it's really moving.) 3.5/5 stars


Brown Girl Dreaming
In this memoir written in narrative verse, Jacqueline Woodson writes of growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, and what it was like to be raised partly in the south, partly in Brooklyn, as an African American child seeing the Civil Rights movement unfold both at home and in the nation - but also what it was like to find her voice as an individual and storyteller from a young age. The book is technically made up of many poems, but it's also geared toward late elementary/middle school readers, so the result is really accessible poetry that tells a somewhat linear story, and also that communicates so vividly the perspective and feelings of a child, rather than an adult thinking back on her life. It's really really well done. I do think I'll have to come back to this book as the Kindle version probably did it no service with wonky formatting - I imagine it's best as an audio book, so you can really appreciate the lyricism and rhythm. 4/5 stars


Between the World and Me
Written in the form of a letter to his son after the tragic examples of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, this book is Ta-Nehisi Coates' framework for understanding race in America - both in a broad sense (how the country was built on this idea of "race," a false concept that has led to so much damage/violence and still does) and in a very personal sense (how then, are he - and his son - to live here and find a way to live within their black body in terms of personal safety and also trying to be free from the burden of history?). I'm not usually one to move away from my preferred category of novels (somehow especially when the "important" label gets attached to a book) but I'm here to say this is a must-read. The personal approach is very moving; the writing is so excellent, almost poetic; and I think Ta-Nehisi Coates is such an important and smart voice on this topic. I was so struck by his firsthand account of how no matter how much education or wealth or social status a black man might have, he is still first "black" - and in our system, that seems to give police the right to harm his body, and this is because our entire country was set up on this premise of him being "less than," with the nation being built on the subjugation of black people. His discussion of visiting Paris for the first time and not feeling that institutional history was so eye-opening to me. I think this is such an important book to read for the uncomfortable feelings it gave me in seeing how the institutions of our country are fundamentally set up for white privilege - and as with the quote from Jodi Picoult above, Coates made me sit with that truth that in reading this book, the point is not to get answers on how I, as one who comes out on top in all the categories of privilege in our system (except that female part) can "fix" it. The point is that I understand how the system has set up my life so differently and acknowledge the privilege in it. 5/5 stars


So many important books here - I highly recommend all of them for the subject matter, but also for how well written they are. And for just plain engaging and enjoyable reading, really.