Hello my lovely book bees!
I know this is being posted in July, but I read this book and wrote this review in early June. I've owned this book for a while, but hadn't gotten to it. After the riots and protests surrounding George Floyd started, I decided (like many of you probably did) to start educating myself further. I had some knowledge and some education on the topic, but no where near enough. Before I begin the review of the actual book, I want to do a preface. I've lived most of my life in the South (with the exception of two and half years where I lived in China). My dad is white and my mom is Puerto Rican and a person of color. My skin is white and so I self identify as a white-passing Latina woman of Puerto Rican descent. I've never experienced racism personally in the USA - I have in China, but no one should have to experience racism and live in fear in their own home country - and thus I can never fully understand the experience and life of a person of color. I stand with and support the Black Lives Matter Movement and believe that everyone should be treated with dignity and respect. I believe it is my ethical obligation as a Christian and as a person of white skin, to do so. I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the CampNOW Nonviolence365 Leadership Academy the summer that I graduated from high school at the King Center. I had the amazing privilege of meeting and talking to Dr. Bernice King (the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.). It was there that my eyes were widened and that I began to understand and become aware of the black experience in America and the injustices that persist to this day. But my education in this topic is not complete, I'm not sure it ever will be. So I bought books. And they've been sitting on my shelf, but now I'm pulling them out. It's overdue, and I'm sorry that it took George Floyd's death and a global pandemic, but change is change and I'm fighting to change myself and then, by extension, others. So You Want to Talk About Race is a great starter book for beginning the conversation/fight against racism both in yourself and in society at large. It's an introduction to the issues. It's easy to read, easy to understand, and has sprinkles of humor that I cherished because the subject material is heavy. It's heavy and uncomfortable, but every bit necessary. I have so many tabs sticking out of this book. And there are so many pages that I took my highlighter and just highlighted the whole page (or whole pages). I took about a week or two to read it because I was trying to take it in chunks so I could digest it easier. I would recommend taking that approach: reading maybe a chapter a day so you can digest it and meditate on it and self-reflect. If you are even the slightest bit curious about race in America, or race in general as it pertains to the struggles and experiences of Black people and people of color, as well as the injustices and issues that are still prevalent and being fought today, this is your book. It's the best introductory book for this topic and I'm glad it's the first one I decided to read. (I'll probably be reading How To Be An Antiracist next) Please read it. Even if you don't think you need to, even if you think you aren't a racist or racism doesn't affect you at all, you seriously just need to go read it. No excuses, go read it. Some quotes (there are a lot but I've whittled it down to 5):
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About the AuthorHi, I'm Rachel, and I'm here to share reviews of books with you so you can know what to read next! Archives
October 2021
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