September’s books ran over into October and then I caught up on a few magazines, so there is no real October Book Club, but there is a November Book Club-  With a really upbeat (not really) but important topic- Race.

Books Included:

An Easy Burden by Andrew Young

Started October 18th         Finished- November 1st

This book was okay. I wanted and expected a little more as a historical retelling of the civil rights era. I was disappointed and kind of bored by all of the biographical information about the author. It did make me want to read others’ accounts of what transpired during that era. I did learn a bit more about what happened, but would I really like to understand is why the movement collapsed and how can we use the experiences of that time to really rally people around today’s issues.

Children of the Dream – Children Growing up in the Civil Rights Era

Started October 25th                 Finished November 3rd

This was an interesting read. The main theme of all of the essays was how each now-adult learned about race as a child and how they learned it. Interesting was all the essays on girls hair and light skin vs. dark skin.

Race- An Anthology in the First Person

Started: November 1               Finished November 13th

I appreciated this book because it didn’t just focus on African Americans but rather other races as well. I wouldn’t call the book memorable excep the essay by Henry Gates and Audre Lord. Those essay I would like to keep copies of, although there are so many books to read that I will probably never get back to reading them again.

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

Started: Nov 13th             Finished: November 27th

What an amazing book! Wilkerson does a great job of weaving in the narratives of three individuals who migrated from the South to the North in three different decades with the journalism and information on the country at the time. One of the things I found most impressive was the way she was able to weave in the stories of other individuals who may have been tangentially connected to one of the three main characters. There were shocking stories to illustrate the illogicality and disgust of racism, which shouldn’t have been shocking but were.

One of the aha moments I had while reading is that we can justify the current state of race relations in the county by saying, “well, it’s is better than it used to be.” People define racism by how previous generations displayed their racism. My parents generation find the idea of lynchings abhorrent, but racial slurs and discriminatory hiring practices were not as shocking or disgusting. My generation abhors racial slurs and any outright displays of racism, therefore we have to hide our racism a little better. We do it by imprisoning a great number of the male workforce with drug laws that are inherently racist. We do it by allowing economic policies that do not give those born and raised in a racist system a fair chance of ever getting out. Let’s hope the next generation finds these policies as abhorrent as we find racist language.

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