Last Standing Woman, Winona La Duke

“Wazhaskoons eyes still looked past the priest; it was disrespectful to look directly at an individual.
The priest froze. Why would Wazhaskoons not look at him; was he being contentious or rebellious?”
Last Standing Woman, Winona LaDuke, p. 52

Last Standing Woman, by Winona LaDuke, spans seven generations of the Anishinaabeg - from 1862 to 2018. It spans generations of Anishinaabeg trying to live their lives, and white people getting in their way. From treaties, to conflicts with settlers and raiding parties, missionaries and boarding schools, to loan sharks who steal land, and finally the generation who works for justice, to take back their traditional lands, homes, and the artifacts and ancestors that were taken to museums.  It is one thing to read in history books about the effect of colonization on Native Americans, and it is quite another to watch in unfurl before your eyes, and to watch the effect colonization has on families and communities. To watch, for example, two young girls in a sanitarium, the older sister falling asleep and waking up to find her younger sister has died in her arms overnight. It is much easier to read in history books.

The book started out a little slow for me. The names were long, and the shifts between characters, as well as the steady march of time, made it hard for me to connect to the story at first. However, the last half of the book took on a more traditional Western narrative structure, following the occupation of White Earth reservation, and sticking to a few main characters that you got to know for more than a few pages at a time. But this is when the beginning of the book also pays off - because you know so much of their history, you understand the characters’ motivations more deeply.

While reading Last Standing Woman, I was also reading White Fragility, and the parallels between what Robin DiAngelo explains and the actions the white characters were taking in Last Standing Woman were both depressing and fascinating.

“There is a peculiar kind of hatred in the northwoods, a hatred born of living with with three generations of complicity in the theft of lives and land. What is worse is that each day, those who hold this position of privilege must come face to face with those whom they have dispossessed. To others who rightfully should share in the complicity and the guilt, Indians are far away and long ago. But in reservation border towns, Indians are ever-present.”
Last Standing Woman, Winona LaDuke. p 125

Honestly, it made me feel like a bit of an idiot that a book written in 1997 could clearly show the racism that a book published in 2018 has to lay out for us self-proclaimed well-meaning whites. It reinforced that so much of the “study” of racism is just white people opening our eyes to the oppression people of color have felt for generations. You don’t need to explain the nuances of racism to everyone. (Just white people.)

“The idea of racial inferiority was created to justify unequal treatment; belief in racial inferiority is not what triggered unequal treatment. Nor was fear of difference. As Ta-Nehisi Coates states*, “But race is the child of racism, not the father.” He means that first we exploited people for their resources, not according to how they looked. Exploitation came first, and then the ideology of unequal races to justify this exploitation followed.”
White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo. 
*The Case for Reparations, Ta Nehisi-Coates.

All this rambling is not to say that reading Last Standing Woman was the hard work of allyship or activism in some way. I genuinely enjoyed the experience, and will hold Winona LaDuke’s characters in my heart for a long time.

You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone

Ok I've only just started this book, but I want you to read it with me. It came out January 2nd, and I got to go to the book release party on Saturday and I already know I'm going to want to talk about it, so read it so I can talk to you. Here is a list of why you should read this book, mostly because of the smart things that Rachel said at her book release.

• Jewish characters written by a Jewish author - we all know diversity is important, when was the last time you read a book with a main character who was Jewish? Ok, but was it written about the Holocaust? 
• I went to elementary school with Rachel and she was my little buddy at reading time one year and I like to say that she taught me how to read. It is not technically true even a little bit, but I think it's funny.
• Both main characters are smart, driven high school girls. Rachel talked at the book release about how in high school, at least in her cohort, the smart girls didn't wear makeup - it didn't make sense for girls to be both "girly" and smart. Rachel now loves bright makeup, and wants to write books that undoes some of the false stereotypes from books she read growing up. 

Let me know in the comments/facebook when you start it so we can chat <3

The Beginning: Listening

The post is the second in a series of reading Black authors last year, to read the first post, go here.

I don’t know if I ended 2016 thinking of reading more Black authors, or if I read books by Black authors and the impact of those books made me want to read more Black Authors. When I started this blog, I named it “Books I Devour, Books I Savor” because I either read a book in 3-7 days and devour it, or it takes me four months or more to read it. There is no in between. Less than a week, or over four months. That doesn't mean that I like one more than the other, I devour books that are fun and exciting and I savor books that are more complicated, that make me do some work.

The Books That Launched The Journey

I started listening to Americanah as an audiobook, and it took me months to finish. Americanah is a book about people's lives, and I had been devouring YA Dystopian fiction for so long that my brain had to work to keep track of a story that didn't follow The Hunger Games plot structure. There was no Games to set up, prepare for, and fight your way out of. Instead, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes about Ifemelu, a Nigerian-born woman who immigrates to the United States for university. It is a love story, it is a story about race, and it's a story about identity. I loved the love story, as I love all love stories, and devoured the end of the book. The middle, when Ifemelu has immigrated to America and her narration turns to her surprise at how she is perceived by others because of the color of her skin, took me longer to read. I had to chew over some of the concepts brought up, and wonder how I treated my classmates of color, and how I treat my coworkers and friends of color. I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves contemporary fiction.

The next book of the year was The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead. I bought it because it had won the National Book Award for Fiction and it was on the list for 2017 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, which it later won. Because I follow things like that. I didn't really want to read it, because my initial reaction was, "ugh, I know about the underground railroad. I went to school." But then I thought, "well, yes, but I also read books about people falling in love and I've also done that. How many books have I read about the underground railroad?" Touche, self. I devoured this book more quickly because it was winter break, and I had the time. Also, because it was a little closer to following The Hunger Games plot line. First, Cora is a slave on a plantation. Then, she find out about the Underground Railroad. Soon, she embarks on the underground railroad, which Whitehead actually imagines as having tunnels with railroad tracks and being literally an underground railroad with stops along the way. On the way North, a lot of crazy stuff goes down. It is such an incredible book, and you should read it.

Then, I decided to give myself a semi-break and read a Jodi Picoult book called Small Great Things. I was skeptical, because Picoult is a white lady and the book was about racism. But I was intrigued because the audiobook was narrated by Audra McDonald, and I figure if it got Audra's stamp of approval, who am I to say it is not good? (Audra McDonald has won like 7 Tony Awards for her acting, and is black. You may remember her from the live Sound of Music, where she played Mother Superior.) And I would say that it is not....bad. It is an interesting and entertaining book. It is a really important read if you think that you can be "colorblind" or if you are curious why people get mad at people who say "All Lives Matter." If you read that sentence and think to yourself, "I am not racist, I don't even see color," definitely read this book. Let's chat. If you are the kind of person who gets mad at people who say "All Lives Matter," you do not need to read this book. This is a book that starts out being about a black lady and ends up being about a white lady who learns about racism. Which is a journey all of us white ladies should go on. But since I'd already embarked on that journey, I got very upset that Picoult ditched her main character when the white lawyer showed up, and you might get mad about that too.

The Plan

So after reading Small Great Things, I was determined. Not determined enough to actually proofread the blog post I posted about Small Great Things, but personally determined. And also, I think, more concerned with my own introspection than sharing that introspection with the world. (Probably because I didn’t get enough attention about my SGT post, and I literally live for attention. Yikes.)

I also had a lot of anxiety. I work with really smart, passionate, and well informed people and I thought, “if I write about this journey, they are going to read this and then they are going to realize that I am a complete idiot.” And I am friends with a lot of really smart, passionate, and well informed people. And honestly, I thought you all had better books and resources than I did and I didn’t need to tell you about my little challenge to myself to read more-but-not-only Black authors. And I was exhausted and by the end of my commute home I didn’t have it in me to read books that challenged me and then write about them in a coherent way. I shared some articles on facebook, and I read, and read, and read.

I also argued on the internet. A lot. Because while I assumed you, my facebook friend reading my book blog, was more intelligent and informed than I was, I did feel the need to step in when I saw posts that I perceived as ignorant. Because I knew that my mind was changing because of what I was consuming, I thought that if I just shared the gospel of Anti-Racism, I could convert those ignorant but well-intentioned souls to the path of Equality. Really, I just got depressed getting into arguments with friends or strangers that got deep enough to show real, underlying, deeply held Racist and/or Sexist beliefs. BUT, I did end up reading a lot, because I refused to share an article without reading the whole thing. And I refused to share articles that I didn’t believe had real merit. So, while I may not have converted anyone, I did grow stronger in my own understanding of what the hell was going on. And had been going on.

So, I read. And I chewed on the ideas in my mind that were developing. I felt helpless, and powerless, and overwhelmed. And I felt completely undeserving of those emotions because I was sitting here, a white lady, on my couch, with my wine, feeling bad about things that I had the privilege to learn about. None of this was happening to me personally. It was affecting a lot of people around me, and I had no idea how to stop it. I have no idea how to make real, dramatic change in this world.

"Before we can challenge racism, before we can dismantle racism, we have to learn to recognize it. We have to develop an understanding of not just the bold acts of racial aggression like we saw this weekend in Charlottesville, but of the daily microaggressions that eventually add up to torch-bearing marchers shouting racists slurs through the streets of America's cities." -  Sadie Trombetta, "17 Books on Race Every White Person Needs to Read" 

What will you read next? 

Currently Reading

Book lists
46 Books By Women of Color to Read in 2018
The Michael Bennett Reading List
17 Books on Race Every White Person Needs to Read

Black Girl Magic: 33 Books Featuring Black Female Protagonists
34 Books by Women of Color to Read This Year (2017)

Articles
The First White President, Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Elephant in the Classroom: Segregation in Seattle Public Schools
To many Americans, being patriotic means being white

Videos
Let Her Learn
The Danger of a Single Story


Do you have a question or clarification you would like to send me privately, or even anonymously? Would you like to help answer questions I get about your community? Let me know! (Link goes to a google form.)

Happy Reading