LIST: 10 Important New Books About Racism, Anti-Racism, and Racist Violence
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The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 turned the nation’s attention to the issue of deep-seated American racism — and ignited a massive grassroots movement against police violence. Throughout the nation’s history, writers have been shining a light on American racism and issuing clarion calls for change. It is a necessary tradition: as James Baldwin wrote in Notes of a Native Son. “I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
These powerful critiques keep coming. Here are ten recent, important books that explore racism, anti-racism, and racist violence from a variety of perspectives:
1. Getting Smart About Race: An American Conversation
Margaret L. Andersen
Rowman & Littlefield
A clear and engaging introduction to understanding racial inequality, and a look into why racial healing should be at the forefront of our everyday discussions about race.
2. Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning
Ibram X. Kendi & Jason Reynolds
Little, Brown and Co.
A crucial and energizing narrative that shines light on the many forms of racism and anti-racism in America.
3. The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth and Power
Deirdre Mask
St. Martin’s
An illuminating discussion of the striking ways street names and addresses work to decide who counts and who doesn’t.
4. Reactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream
Aurelien Mondon & Aaron Winter
Verso Books
A meticulous deconstruction of the current hegemonic discourse around race in America –– one that works to blind us to the systemic forces underpinning our current model of democracy.
5. Digitize and Punish: Racial Criminalization in a Digital Age
Brian Jefferson
University of Minnesota Press
A comprehensive study of the use of digital technology in American criminal justice –– how it enables our current state of mass incarceration and further entrenches our nation’s racialized policing.
6. American Poison: How Racial Hostility Destroyed our Promise
Eduardo Porter
Knopf Doubleday
A timely exploration into how racial animus in the United States has worked to perpetuate a system that fails not only its black and brown citizens, but white Americans as well.
7. Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World and Become a Good Ancestor
Layla F. Saad
Quercus
A crucial guide for white people looking to dismantle privilege within themselves, and work to avoid inflicting –– often unconsciously –– damage on people of color.
8. Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone
Minna Salami
Zed Books
Prying apart systems of power and privilege, Salami forges a path for a radical Black feminist way of knowing for everyone.
9. Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting of American Psychiatry at the Milledgeville Asylum
Mab Segrest
The New Press
A scathing look at the racist origins of modern-day American psychiatry, a practice forged in the traumas of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.
10. Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger
Julie Sze
University of California Press
An exploration into the ways in which environmental injustices have manifested across racial and class divides in disastrously disproportionate ways.
