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Black Literature June 2020
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Between the world and me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Told through the author's own evolving understanding of the subject over the course of his life comes a bold and personal investigation into America's racial history and its contemporary echoes.
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I'm still here : Black dignity in a world made for whiteness
by Austin Channing Brown
The author's first encounter with a racialized America came at age seven, when her parents told her they named her Austin to deceive future employers into thinking she was a white man. She grew up in majority-white schools, organizations, and churches, and has spent her life navigating America's racial divide as a writer, a speaker, and an expert helping organizations practice genuine inclusion. While so many institutions claim to value diversity in their mission statements, many fall short of matching actions to words. Brown highlights how white middle-class evangelicalism has participated in the rise of racial hostility, and encourages the reader to confront apathy and recognize God's ongoing work in the world
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How to be an antiracist
by Ibram X. Kendi
A best-selling author, National Book Award-winner and professor combines ethics, history, law and science with a personal narrative to describe how to move beyond the awareness of racism and contribute to making society just and equitable.
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So you want to talk about race
by Ijeoma Oluo
A Seattle-based writer, editor and speaker tackles the sensitive, hyper-charged racial landscape in current America, discussing the issues of privilege, police brutality, intersectionality, micro-aggressions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the "N" word. 10,000 first printing.
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When they call you a terrorist : a black lives matter memoir
by Patrisse Khan-Cullors
A lyrical memoir by the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement urges readers to understand the movement's position of love, humanity and justice, challenging perspectives that have negatively labeled the movement's activists while calling for essential political changes. Co-written by the award-winning author of The Prisoner's Wife.
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Just mercy : a story of justice and redemption
by Bryan Stevenson
The executive director of a social advocacy group that has helped relieve condemned prisoners explains why justice and mercy must go hand-in-hand through the story of Walter McMillian, a man condemned to death row for a murder he didn't commit. 30,000 first printing.
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The new Jim Crow : mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness
by Michelle Alexander
This work argues that the War on Drugs and policies that deny convicted felons equal access to employment, housing, education, and public benefits create a permanent under caste based largely on race.As the United States celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status - much like their grandparents before them. In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community - and all of us - to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.
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Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race
by Reni Eddo-Lodge
A provocative examination of race and racism by the award-winning journalist behind the viral blog post of the same name shares essential insights about what it means to be a person of color, exploring issues ranging from eradicated black history and the fallacy of "meritocracy" to white-washing feminism and the inextricable link between race and class. (This book was listed in a previous issue of Forecast.)
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The fire next time [electronic resource]
by James Baldwin
The powerful evocation of a childhood in Harlem that helped to galvanize the early days of the civil rights movement examines the deep consequences of racial injustice to both the individual and the body politic. Reissue. 20,000 first printing.
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Hood feminism : notes from the women that a movement forgot
by Mikki Kendall
An award-winning writer and frequent guest speaker presents a compelling critique of today’s black feminist movement that argues that modern activism needs to refocus on health care, education and safety for all women instead of a privileged few.
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Stamped : racism, antiracism, and you
by Jason Reynolds
A timely reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s National Book Award-winning Stamped From the Beginning reveals the history of racist ideas in America while explaining their endurance and capacity for being discredited. 100,000 first printing. Simultaneous eBook. Illustrations.
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Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? : and other conversations about race
by Beverly Daniel Tatum
"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. "An unusually sensitive work about theracial barriers that still divide us in so many areas of life."-Jonathan Kozol"
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Kindred [electronic resource]
by Octavia E. Butler
Dana, a black woman, finds herself repeatedly transported to the antebellum South, where she must make sure that Rufus, the plantation owner's son, survives to father Dana's ancestor. Reprint.
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The color purple
by Alice Walker
The lives of two sisters--Nettie, a missionary in Africa, and Celie, a southern woman married to a man she hates--are revealed in a series of letters exchanged over thirty years
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Freshwater
by Akwaeke Emezi
Traces the experiences of a deeply troubled young woman who alarms her devout Nigerian family as she succumbs to multiple personality disorder and begins to display increasingly dark and dangerous traits in accordance with her fractured personalities. A first novel.
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And this too shall pass : a novel
by E. Lynn Harris
Rookie quarterback and celibate homosexual Zurich finds his career interrupted by a sexual harassment suit from an ambitious sportscaster, and he enlists the help of an attorney and a gay sportswriter. 75,000 first printing. $75,000 ad/promo. Tour.
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Black leopard, red wolf
by Marlon James
Hired to find a mysterious boy who disappeared three years before, Tracker joins a search party that is quickly targeted by deadly creatures, in the first novel of a trilogy from the author of A Brief History of Seven Killings
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Real life
by Brandon Taylor
Keeping his head down at a lakeside Midwestern university where the culture is in sharp contrast to his Alabama upbringing, an introverted African-American biochem student endures unexpected encounters that bring his orientation and defenses into question.
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An unkindness of ghosts
by Rivers Solomon
In the lowerdeck of the HSS Matlida, a space vessel run like the antebellum South, Aster, a dark-skinned sharecropper, faces harsh restrictions and punishments from brutal overseers, but the seeds of civil war hold the key to her freedom
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Jam on the Vine
by Lashonda Katrice Barnett
Discovering a love for journalism upon stealing a newspaper from her mother's white employer, precocious Ivoe Williams eventually flees her segregated community to launch a first female-run African-American newspaper at the side of her lover. Online reading-group guide. By the award-winning author of I Got Thunder. Tour
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Red at the bone
by Jacqueline Woodson
As Melody celebrates a coming of age ceremony at her grandparents’ house in 2001 Brooklyn, her family remembers 1985, when Melody’s own mother prepared for a similar party that never took place in this novel about different social classes. (general fiction). (This book was listed in a previous issue of Forecast.)
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Speak no evil : a novel
by Uzodinma Iweala
An athlete from a private school in Washington, D.C., and his friend, the daughter of government insiders, struggle with the responses to the young man's sexual orientation before finding themselves speeding toward a violent future
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Patsy : a novel
by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Receiving her long-coveted visa to America, Patsy leaves behind her family in Jamaica, only to discover that life as an undocumented immigrant is not what her best friend had described. By the award-winning author of Here Comes the Sun. Tour
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In West Mills : a novel
by De'Shawn Charles Winslow
A woman in mid-20th-century rural North Carolina, determined to live on her own terms in spite of community gossip, finds unexpected support from a veteran fixer who struggles with an inability to correct his own troubled past.
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Redefining realness : my path to womanhood, identity, love & so much more
by Janet Mock
"In a landmark book, an extraordinary young woman recounts her coming-of-age as a transgender teen--a deeply personal and empowering portrait of self-revelation, adversity, and heroism. In 2011, Marie Claire magazine published a profile of Janet Mock in which she publicly stepped forward for the first time as a trans woman. Since then, Mock has gone from covering the red carpet for People.com to advocating for all those who live within the shadows of society. Redefining Realness offers a bold new perspective on being young, multiracial, economically challenged, and transgender in America. Welcomed into the world as her parents' firstborn son, Mock set out early on to be her own person--no simple feat for a young person like herself. She struggled as the smart, determined child in a deeply loving, yet ill-equipped family that lacked money, education, and resources. Mock had to navigate her way through her teen years without parental guidance but luckily with a few close friends and mentors she overcame extremely daunting hurdles. This powerful memoir follows Mock's quest for identity, from her early gender conviction to a turbulent adolescence in Honolulu that found her transitioning through the halls of her school, self-medicating with hormones at fifteen, and flying across the world for sex reassignment surgery at just eighteen. Ever resilient, Mock emerged with a scholarship to college and moved to New York City, where she earned her masters degree, basked in the success of an enviable career, and toldno one about her past. It wasn't until Mock fell for a man who called her the woman of his dreams that she felt ready to finally tell her story, becoming a fierce advocate for girls like herself. A profound statement of affirmation from a courageous woman, Redefining Realness shows as never before what it means to be a woman today and how to be yourself when you don't fit the mold created for you"
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Being Jazz : my life as a (transgender teen)
by Jazz Jennings
The author reccounts how her public experiences have influenced her attitude towards the transgender community, as she works to educate others about transgenderism while navigating the challenges of being a teenager
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Indianapolis Public Library P.O. Box 211 Indianapolis, Indiana 46206-0211 317-275-4100www.indypl.org/ |
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