4 Books to Read for the Resistance

Reclaiming woke

As a librarian I feel like my purpose is to share information. I’m one of Mr. Rogers’ people in the neighborhood. It’s not just a job, but a calling and in these times where executive orders are flying out of the Oval Office with barely a second to process their impact many of us are looking for information on what to do next. Is marching going to help? Is protesting going to help? Should we boycott? There is just so much confusion and I want all of us to take a breath. The devil is the architect of confusion, as the old people say. So what we need is understanding.

We also need patience and that’s something that reading does for us, it builds patience when we sit and chew on these words and seek understanding. We are here in this moment because people are more interested in acting before they think critically so here are 5 books I recommend for clarity.

1. Viral Justice by Ruha Benjamin

There are so many people who googled how tariffs worked after the election. They’d believed the rhetoric about how tariffs would lower the cost of eggs, but they didn’t know exactly how they worked. We can judge but how many of us have acted before we had all the information or were unaware of the difference between full and partial coverage before we bought our first car insurance policy? Viral Justice is about how systems work. Because individual actions can be scrutinized but its systems that do the real damage. We can call out as many so-called Karens as we want, but whether they admit it or not it is the system of policing that is weaponized against Black and Brown people. A quote:

Ultimately, then, this is not a book for those interested primarily in policy, however important policy remains. Rather, this is a call to action for individuals to reclaim power over how our thoughts, habits, and actions shape—as much as they are shaped by—the larger environment.

2. How We Can Win by Kimberly Jones

So if I played 400 rounds of Monopoly with you and I had to play and give you every dime that I made, and then for 50 years, every time that I played, if you didn't like what I did, you got to burn it like they did in Tulsa and like they did in Rosewood, how can you win? How can you win?

After Luigi’s alleged actions there is some idea that class consciousness has taken hold in America. If so, I’d like to see it because race and class are conjoined twins in America. You cannot separate one from the other and this book, which is part memoir and part manual. Poverty cannot be escaped by gumption and hard work alone. Poverty is a manmade disease and it is virulent and pernicious and it has been passed down through the generations and it will take awareness and targeted action to cure it.

3. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

You may or may not know that slavery is still legal in the United States. Let’s look at the 13th amendment to the US Constitution.

Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

“Except as punishment for a crime”. Being homeless is now criminalized in some states and more and more bills are being passed to further that idea. Being undocumented in America is a crime. Do you really believe that they are going to put millions of undocumented people on planes back home to their countries of origin? I don’t. I think they are going to enslave them. This book gives the foundation of how it’s been done since the 13th amendment was passed.

4. Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall

There was a time and maybe we’re still in it where Black women didn’t want to identify with the word “feminist”. Some didn’t want to be associated with anything that rejected femininity given how much protection femininity affords women in America and how little Black women are allowed to claim that protection. Some thought that it boiled down to whether women should work or be stay at home mothers and too many of their own mothers never got a choice between the two to debate. It was a white woman’s word and a white woman of a certain class and education at that, but while there is understanding there I have to disagree. Feminism is plainly the idea that women are people, but 1st, 2nd, and 3rd wave feminism has been too quick to sacrifice the needs of Black and Brown women in order to lean in. Hood Feminism talks about how food stamps and hunger is a feminist issue. What of the women on the margins?

One of the biggest issues with mainstream feminist writing has been the way the idea of what constitutes a feminist issue is framed. We rarely talk about basic needs as a feminist issue. Food insecurity and access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. Instead of a framework that focuses on helping women get basic needs met, all too often the focus is not on survival but on increasing privilege. For a movement that is meant to represent all women, it often centers on those who already have most of their needs met.

I’ll be reading more and sharing more, but this is a good start. Let me know if you’ve read any.

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Each link to the books on this page will take you to Bookshop.com. It allows you to buy online and support an indie bookshop of your choice. This time I’ve chosen The Book Worm in Powder Springs, GA. A Black owned gem in the South, it is cozy and cute and you should stop by if you’re in town.