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Beautiful Struggle: A Memoir
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Betty Before X
Betty Before X is a powerful middle-grade fictionalized account of the childhood activism of Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X's wife, written by their daughter Ilyasah Shabazz.
In Detroit, 1945, eleven-year-old Betty's house doesn't quite feel like home. She believes her mother loves her, but she can't shake the feeling that her mother doesn't want her. Church helps those worries fade, if only for a little while. The singing, the preaching, the speeches from guest activists like Paul Robeson and Thurgood Marshall stir African Americans in her community to stand up for their rights. Betty quickly finds confidence and purpose in volunteering for the Housewives League, an organization that supports black-owned businesses. Soon, the American civil rights icon we now know as Dr. Betty Shabazz is born.
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Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime
The #1 New York Times Bestseller!
The extraordinary true story and basis for the Academy Award winning film BlacKkKlansman, written and directed by Spike Lee, produced by Jordan Peele, and starring John David Washington and Adam Driver. When detective Ron Stallworth, the first black detective in the history of the Colorado Springs Police Department, comes across a classified ad in the local paper asking for all those interested in joining the Ku Klux Klan to contact a P.O. box, Detective Stallworth does his job and responds with interest, using his real name while posing as a white man. He figures he'll receive a few brochures in the mail, maybe even a magazine, and learn more about a growing terrorist threat in his community. A few weeks later the office phone rings, and the caller asks Ron a question he thought he'd never have to answer, "Would you like to join our cause?" This is 1978, and the KKK is on the rise in the United States. Its Grand Wizard, David Duke, has made a name for himself, appearing on talk shows, and major magazine interviews preaching a "kinder" Klan that wants nothing more than to preserve a heritage, and to restore a nation to its former glory. Ron answers the caller's question that night with a yes, launching what is surely one of the most audacious, and incredible undercover investigations in history. Ron recruits his partner Chuck to play the white Ron Stallworth, while Stallworth himself conducts all subsequent phone conversations. During the months-long investigation, Stallworth sabotages cross burnings, exposes white supremacists in the military, and even befriends David Duke himself. Black Klansman is an amazing true story that reads like a crime thriller, and a searing portrait of a divided America and the extraordinary heroes who dare to fight back.- Please log in to review this product
Black Stats: African Americans by the Numbers in the Twenty-First Century
Approximately half of the Black population in the United States lives in neighborhoods that have no White residents.
In the five years before the Great Recession, the number of Black-owned businesses in the United States increased by 61 percent.
A 2010 study found that 41 percent of Black youth feel that rap music videos should be more political.
There are no Black owners or presidents of an NFL franchise team.
78 percent of Black Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, compared with 56 percent of White Americans.
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Black Women, Black Love
According to the 2010 US census, more than seventy percent of Black women in America are unmarried. Black Women, Black Love reveals how four centuries of laws, policies, and customs have created that crisis.
Dianne Stewart begins in the colonial era, when slave owners denied Blacks the right to marry, divided families, and, in many cases, raped enslaved women and girls. Later, during Reconstruction and the ensuing decades, violence split up couples again as millions embarked on the Great Migration north, where the welfare system mandated that women remain single in order to receive government support. And no institution has forbidden Black love as effectively as the prison-industrial complex, which removes Black men en masse from the pool of marriageable partners.
Prodigiously researched and deeply felt, Black Women, Black Love reveals how white supremacy has systematically broken the heart of Black America, and it proposes strategies for dismantling the structural forces that have plagued Black love and marriage for centuries.
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Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
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Breathe
Explores the terror, grace, and beauty of coming of age as a Black person in contemporary America and what it means to parent our children in a persistently unjust world. Emotionally raw and deeply reflective, Imani Perry issues an unflinching challenge to society to see Black children as deserving of humanity. She admits fear and frustration for her African American sons in a society that is increasingly racist and at times seems irredeemable. However, as a mother, feminist, writer, and intellectual, Perry offers an unfettered expression of love--finding beauty and possibility in life--and she exhorts her children and their peers to find the courage to chart their own paths and find steady footing and inspiration in Black tradition. Perry draws upon the ideas of figures such as James Baldwin, W. E. B. DuBois, Emily Dickinson, Toni Morrison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Ida B. Wells. She shares vulnerabilities and insight from her own life and from encounters in places as varied as the West Side of Chicago; Birmingham, Alabama; and New England prep schools. With original art for the cover by Ekua Holmes, Breathe offers a broader meditation on race, gender, and the meaning of a life well lived and is also an unforgettable lesson in Black resistance and resilience.
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Combined Destinies: Whites Sharing Grief about Racism
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Dispatches from the Race War
Essays on racial flashpoints, white denial, violence, and the manipulation of fear in America today.
Drawing on events from the killing of Trayvon Martin to the Black Lives Matter protests last summer, Wise calls to account his fellow white citizens and exhorts them to combat racist power structures.--The New York Times
"What Tim Wise has brilliantly done is to challenge white folks' truth to see that they have a responsibility to do more than sit back and watch, but to recognize their own role in co-creating a fair, inclusive, truly democratic society."--Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
Tim Wise's new book gives us the tools we need to reach people whose understanding of our country is white instead of right. And without pissing them off!--James W. Loewen, author, Lies My Teacher Told Me
Tim Wise's latest is more urgent than ever. --Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy
A white social justice advocate clearly shows how racism is America's core crisis. A trenchant assessment of our nation's ills.--*Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
[Dispatches from the Race War] is a bracing call to action in a moment of social unrest.--Publishers Weekly
Dispatches from the Race War exhorts white Americans to join the struggle for a fairer society.--Chapter 16
In this collection of essays, renowned social-justice advocate Tim Wise confronts racism in contemporary America. Seen through the lens of major flashpoints during the Obama and Trump years, Dispatches from the Race War faces the consequences of white supremacy in all its forms. This includes a discussion of the bigoted undertones of the Tea Party's backlash, the killing of Trayvon Martin, current day anti-immigrant hysteria, the rise of openly avowed white nationalism, the violent policing of African Americans, and more.
Wise devotes a substantial portion of the book to explore the racial ramifications of COVID-19, and the widespread protests which followed the police murder of George Floyd.
Concise, accessible chapters, most written in first-person, offer an excellent source for those engaged in the anti-racism struggle. Tim Wise's proactive approach asks white allies to contend with--and take responsibility for--their own role in perpetuating racism against Blacks and people of color.
Dispatches from the Race War reminds us that the story of our country is the history of racial conflict, and that our future may depend on how--or if--we can resolve it. "To accept racism is quintessentially American," writes Wise, "to rebel against it is human. Be human."
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Down Along with That Devil's Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy
ESSENTIAL ANTIRACIST READING
"We can no longer see ourselves as minor spectators or weary watchers of history after finishing this astonishing work of nonfiction." --Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy In Down Along with That Devil's Bones, journalist Connor Towne O'Neill takes a deep dive into American history, exposing the still-raging battles over monuments dedicated to one of the most notorious Confederate generals, Nathan Bedford Forrest. Through the lens of these conflicts, O'Neill examines the legacy of white supremacy in America, in a sobering and fascinating work sure to resonate with readers of Tony Horwitz, Timothy B. Tyson, and Robin DiAngelo. When O'Neill first moved to Alabama, as a white Northerner, he felt somewhat removed from the racism Confederate monuments represented. Then one day in Selma, he stumbled across a group of citizens protecting a monument to Forrest, the officer who became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and whom William Tecumseh Sherman referred to as "that devil." O'Neill sets off to visit other disputed memorials to Forrest across the South, talking with men and women who believe they are protecting their heritage, and those who have a different view of the man's poisonous history. O'Neill's reporting and thoughtful, deeply personal analysis make it clear that white supremacy is not a regional affliction but is in fact coded into the DNA of the entire country. Down Along with That Devil's Bones presents an important and eye-opening account of how we got from Appomattox to Charlottesville, and where, if we can truly understand and transcend our past, we could be headed next.- Please log in to review this product
End of White Politics
--TIME
In the entire history of the United States of America, we've never elected a woman as our president. And we've only had one president who was not a white man.
After working on two presidential campaigns (for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton), MSNBC political analyst and SiriusXM host Zerlina Maxwell gained first-hand knowledge of everything liberals have been doing right over the past few elections-and everything they are still doing wrong. Ultimately, these errors worked in President Donald Trump's favor in 2016; he effectively ran a campaign on white identity politics, successfully tapping into white male angst and resistance. In 2020, after the Democratic Party's most historically diverse pool of presidential candidates finally dwindled down to Joe Biden, once again an older white man, Maxwell has posed the ultimate question: what now, liberals? Fueled by Maxwell's trademark wit and candor, The End of White Politics dismantles the past and present problems of the Left, challenging everyone from scrappy, young "Bernie Bros" to seasoned power players in the "Billionaire Boys' Club." No topic is taboo; whether tackling the white privilege that enabled Mayor Pete Buttigieg's presidential run, the controversial #HashtagActivism of the Millennial generation, the massive individual donations that sway politicians toward maintaining the status quo of income inequality, or the lingering racism that debilitated some Democratic presidential contenders and cut their promising campaigns short, Maxwell pulls no punches in her fierce critique. However, underlying all of these individual issues, Maxwell argues that it's the "liberal-minded" party's struggle to engage women and communities of color-and its preoccupation with catering to the white, male working class-that threatens to be its most lethal shortfall. The times-and the demographics-are changing, and in order for progressive politics to prevail, we must acknowledge our shortcomings, take ownership of our flaws, and do everything in our power to level the playing field for all Americans. The End of White Politics shows exactly how and why progressives can lean into identity politics, empowering marginalized groups, and uniting under a common vision that will benefit us all.
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Hair Love
- Jordan Peele, Actor & Filmmaker It's up to Daddy to give his daughter an extra-special hair style in this ode to self-confidence and the love between fathers and daughters, from Academy-Award winning director and former NFL wide receiver Matthew A. Cherry and New York Times bestselling illustrator Vashti Harrison. Zuri's hair has a mind of its own. It kinks, coils, and curls every which way. Zuri knows it's beautiful. When Daddy steps in to style it for an extra special occasion, he has a lot to learn. But he LOVES his Zuri, and he'll do anything to make her -- and her hair -- happy. Tender and empowering, Hair Love is an ode to loving your natural hair -- and a celebration of daddies and daughters everywhere. A perfect gift for special occasions including Father's Day, birthdays, baby showers, and more!
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How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
Winner of the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction
The Combahee River Collective, a path-breaking group of radical black feminists, was one of the most important organizations to develop out of the antiracist and women's liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s. In this collection of essays and interviews edited by activist-scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, founding members of the organization and contemporary activists reflect on the legacy of its contributions to Black feminism and its impact on today's struggles.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes on Black politics, social movements, and racial inequality in the United States. Her book From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation won the 2016 Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book. Her articles have been published in Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society, Jacobin, New Politics, The Guardian, In These Times, Black Agenda Report, Ms., International Socialist Review, and other publications. Taylor is Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University.
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I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street
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I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
"Austin Channing Brown introduces herself as a master memoirist. This book will break open hearts and minds."--Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed Austin Channing Brown's first encounter with a racialized America came at age seven, when she discovered her parents named her Austin to deceive future employers into thinking she was a white man. Growing up in majority-white schools and churches, Austin writes, "I had to learn what it means to love blackness," a journey that led to a lifetime spent navigating America's racial divide as a writer, speaker, and expert helping organizations practice genuine inclusion. In a time when nearly every institution (schools, churches, universities, businesses) claims to value diversity in its mission statement, Austin writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice. Her stories bear witness to the complexity of America's social fabric--from Black Cleveland neighborhoods to private schools in the middle-class suburbs, from prison walls to the boardrooms at majority-white organizations. For readers who have engaged with America's legacy on race through the writing of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michael Eric Dyson, I'm Still Here is an illuminating look at how white, middle-class, Evangelicalism has participated in an era of rising racial hostility, inviting the reader to confront apathy, recognize God's ongoing work in the world, and discover how blackness--if we let it--can save us all.
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March: Book One
#1 Washington Post Bestseller
A Coretta Scott King Honor Book
An ALA Notable Book
One of YALSA's Top 10 Great Graphic Novels for Teens
One of YALSA's Top 10 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults
One of YALSA's Outstanding Books for the College Bound
One of Reader's Digest's Graphic Novels Every Grown-Up Should Read
Endorsed by NYC Public Schools' "NYC Reads 365" program
Selected for first-year reading programs by Michigan State University, Marquette University, and Georgia State University
Nominated for three Will Eisner Awards
Nominated for the Glyph Award
Named one of the best books of 2013 by USA Today, The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, School Library Journal, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, The Horn Book, Paste, Slate, ComicsAlliance, Amazon, and Apple iBooks.
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March: Book Two
One of YALSA's Great Graphic Novels for Teens
2016 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work - Winner
2016 Harvey Award for Best Biographical, Historical, or Journalistic Presentation - Winner
2016 Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album Original - Winner
2016 Street Literature Book Award Medal for Best Graphic Novel - Winner
2016 Denver Independent Comic & Art Expo Award for Best Work - Mid/Large Press - Winner
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Meaning of Freedom
Want to Better Understand Socialism? New York Magazine recommends The Meaning of Freedom
What is the meaning of freedom? Angela Y. Davis' life and work have been dedicated to examining this fundamental question and to ending all forms of oppression that deny people their political, cultural, and sexual freedom. In this collection of twelve searing, previously unpublished speeches, Davis confronts the interconnected issues of power, race, gender, class, incarceration, conservatism, and the ongoing need for social change in the United States. With her characteristic brilliance, historical insight, and penetrating analysis, Davis addresses examples of institutional injustice and explores the radical notion of freedom as a collective striving for real democracy - not something granted or guaranteed through laws, proclamations, or policies, but something that grows from a participatory social process that demands new ways of thinking and being. The speeches gathered together here are timely and timeless, writes Robin D.G. Kelley in the foreword, they embody Angela Davis' uniquely radical vision of the society we need to build, and the path to get there.
The Meaning of Freedom articulates a bold vision of the society we need to build and the path to get there. This is her only book of speeches.
Davis' arguments for justice are formidable. . . . The power of her historical insights and the sweetness of her dream cannot be denied.--The New York Times
One of America's last truly fearless public intellectuals. --Cynthia McKinney, former US Congresswoman
Angela Davis deserves credit, not just for the dignity and courage with which she has lived her life, but also for raising important critiques of a for-profit penitentiary system decades before those arguments gained purchase in the mainstream. --Thomas Chatterton Williams, SFGate
Angela Davis's revolutionary spirit is still strong. Still with us, thank goodness!
--Virginian-Pilot
Long before 'race/gender' became the obligatory injunction it is now, Angela Davis was developing an analytical framework that brought all of these factors into play. For readers who only see Angela Davis as a public icon . . . meet the real Angela Davis: perhaps the leading public intellectual of our era. --Robin D. G. Kelley author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
There was a time in America when to call a person an 'abolitionist' was the ultimate epithet. It evoked scorn in the North and outrage in the South. Yet they were the harbingers of things to come. They were on the right side of history. Prof. Angela Y. Davis stands in that proud, radical tradition. --Mumia Abu-Jamal, author of Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A.
Behold the heart and mind of Angela Davis, open, relentless, and on time! --June Jordan
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Not My Idea: A Book about Whiteness
An honest explanation about how power and privilege factor into the lives of white children, at the expense of other groups, and how they can help seek justice. --THE NEW YORK TIMES
ONE OF HUFFPOST'S RECOMMENDED "ANTI-RACIST BOOKS FOR KIDS AND TEENS"
**A WHITE RAVEN 2019 SELECTION**
NAMED ONE OF SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL'S BEST BOOKS OF 2018
Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness is a picture book about racism and racial justice, inviting white children and parents to become curious about racism, accept that it's real, and cultivate justice.
This book does a phenomenal job of explaining how power and privilege affect us from birth, and how we can educate ourselves...Not My Idea is an incredibly important book, one that we should all be using as a catalyst for our anti-racist education. --THE TINY ACTIVIST
Quite frankly, the first book I've seen that provides an honest explanation for kids about the state of race in America today. --ELIZABETH BIRD, librarian "It's that exact mix of true-to-life humor and unflinching honesty that makes Higginbotham's book work so well..."--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (*Starred Review)
A much-needed title that provides a strong foundation for critical discussions of white people and racism, particularly for young audiences. Recommended for all collections. --SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL (*Starred Review)
A necessary children's book about whiteness, white supremacy, and resistance... Important, accessible, needed. --KIRKUS REVIEWS
A timely story that addresses racism, civic responsibility, and the concept of whiteness. --FOREWORD REVIEWS
For white folks who aren't sure how to talk to their kids about race, this book is the perfect beginning. --O MAGAZINE
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Sing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues: Education for the Liberation of Black and Brown Girls
A groundbreaking and visionary call to action on educating and supporting girls of color, from the highly acclaimed author of Pushout
Monique Morris is a personal shero of mine and a respected expert in this space.
--Ayanna Pressley, U.S. congresswoman and the first woman of color elected to Boston's city council
Wise Black women have known for centuries that the blues have been a platform for truth-telling, an underground musical railroad to survival, and an essential form of resistance, healing, and learning. In her highly anticipated follow-up to the widely acclaimed Pushout, now a core text for teachers and principals on the criminalization of Black girls in schools, leading advocate Monique W. Morris invokes the spirit of the blues to articulate a radically healing and empowering pedagogy for Black and Brown girls.
A clarion call for educators, parents, and anyone who has a stake in a better tomorrow to transform schools into places where learning and collective healing can flourish, these pages journey from Oakland to Ohio and from New York to Iowa City and beyond. Morris describes with candor and love what it looks like to meet the complex needs of girls on the margins. In doing so she offers a collection of gems from educators who are attuned to the patterns of pain and struggle, and who show how adults working in schools can harness their wisdom to partner with students and help the girls they teach find value and joy in learning.
Sing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues reimagines what education might look like if schools placed the thriving of Black and Brown girls at their center. Morris brings together research and real life in this chorus of interviews, case studies, and the testimonies of remarkable people who work successfully with girls of color. The result is this radiant manifesto--a guide to moving away from punishment, trauma, and discrimination toward safety, justice, and genuine community in our schools.
In the tradition of For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood and Other People's Children, Morris's new book is a clarion call--for educators, parents, students, and anyone who has a stake in a better tomorrow--to transform schools into places where learning and collective healing can flourish.
Book cover photograph by Brittsense/brittsense.com.
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Strange Fruit, Volume I
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Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All
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Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves
"Yes, Well-Read Black Girl is as good as it sounds. . . . [Glory Edim] gathers an all-star cast of contributors--among them Lynn Nottage, Jesmyn Ward, and Gabourey Sidibe."--O: The Oprah Magazine
Remember that moment when you first encountered a character who seemed to be written just for you? That feeling of belonging remains with readers the rest of their lives--but not everyone regularly sees themselves in the pages of a book. In this timely anthology, Glory Edim brings together original essays by some of our best black women writers to shine a light on how important it is that we all--regardless of gender, race, religion, or ability--have the opportunity to find ourselves in literature. Contributors include Jesmyn Ward (Sing, Unburied, Sing), Lynn Nottage (Sweat), Jacqueline Woodson (Another Brooklyn), Gabourey Sidibe (This Is Just My Face), Morgan Jerkins (This Will Be My Undoing), Tayari Jones (An American Marriage), Rebecca Walker (Black, White and Jewish), and Barbara Smith (Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology) Whether it's learning about the complexities of femalehood from Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison, finding a new type of love in The Color Purple, or using mythology to craft an alternative black future, the subjects of each essay remind us why we turn to books in times of both struggle and relaxation. As she has done with her book club-turned-online community Well-Read Black Girl, in this anthology Glory Edim has created a space in which black women's writing and knowledge and life experiences are lifted up, to be shared with all readers who value the power of a story to help us understand the world and ourselves.
Praise for Well-Read Black Girl "Each essay can be read as a dispatch from the vast and wonderfully complex location that is black girlhood and womanhood. . . . They present literary encounters that may at times seem private and ordinary--hours spent in the children's section of a public library or in a college classroom--but are no less monumental in their impact."--The Washington Post "A wonderful collection of essays."--Essence
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When They Call You a Terrorist (Young Adult Edition): A Story of Black Lives Matter and the Power to Change the World
Patrisse Khan-Cullors' and asha bandele's instant New York Times bestseller, When They Call You a Terrorist is now adapted for the YA audience with photos and journal entries!
A movement that started with a hashtag--#BlackLivesMatter--on Twitter spread across the nation and then across the world. From one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement comes a poetic memoir and reflection on humanity. Necessary and timely, Patrisse Khan-Cullors' story asks us to remember that protest in the interest of the most vulnerable comes from love. Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement have been called terrorists, a threat to America. But in truth, they are loving women whose life experiences have led them to seek justice for those victimized by the powerful. In this meaningful, empowering account of survival, strength, and resilience, Cullors and asha bandele seek to change the culture that declares innocent black life expendable.- Please log in to review this product
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
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Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
The classic, bestselling book on the psychology of racism -- now fully revised and updated
Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides. These topics have only become more urgent as the national conversation about race is increasingly acrimonious. This fully revised edition is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of race in America.
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