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

Small Great Things (4)

Small Great Things, by Jodi Picoult

It seems more than perfect that I am writing this on the day after the historic Womxn's March. A march that fundamentally asked the nation to listen to those less privileged.

"In the spirit of democracy and honoring the champions of human rights, dignity, and justice who have come before us, we join in diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore. The Women’s March on Washington will send a bold message to our new government on their first day in office, and to the world that women's rights are human rights. We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us." - Women's March

In Small Great Things, we are introduced to Ruth Jefferson, the only person of color in the labor and delivery ward of her hospital. Ruth doesn't like to think about how the color of her skin affects how others treat her, at least not the way that her sister Adisa, shouts about it all the time. But one day, Ruth starts her shift by caring for a newborn and his mother, Brittany When Ruth begins to help Brittany nurse baby Davis, his father asks to speak to her supervisor. The family are white supremacists, and they do not want a person of color caring for any of them. But when Ruth is left alone with the baby, she has to face some quick decisions. Decisions that ultimately lead to a

And so begins what is being considered a "remarkable achievement, tackling race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn't offer easy answers." (Goodreads). 

 I decided to listen to this book solely because Audra McDonald was listed as the narrator and I love her.

Audra McDonald, winner of six Tony's and one of the most interesting people to follow on twitter

In the "pro" column:
- I finished this 16 hour audiobook in about 3 days. I NEEDED to know what was going to happen. 
-It is a good primer on current race relations - think Racism 101: What is privilege?

In the afterward, Picoult talks about her personal journey to write this book, and her purpose for writing this book. She says that she wanted to write a book about race for awhile, and felt uncomfortable as a white lady discussing racism. She decided, finally, to write a book for her fans - white ladies - about racism. She definitely did her research and confronted her biases and privilege. I hope her readers will do the same. I hope that people who read this book don't just applaud Kennedy for confronting her own brand of "colorblind" racism without reconsidering a bit of what they think. 

Around midnight I was listening to the story and wrote myself the note, "if you think this is going to to be a book about a woman of color, you'd be right. Until her white defense attorney is introduced and then it becomes a story of the white girl confronting her racism and really the woman of color saved HER!" And I think that's the only way I can sum up my thoughts on this book. Like, yes, I needed to know how it ended. But this story is only groundbreaking if you like to write #AllLivesMatter. We all have more work to do.