I don't hide the fact that I read a lot, but perhaps what I read is less apparent.
-
I don't hide the fact that I read a lot, but perhaps what I read is less apparent. A good percentage of the books I read focus on Black liberation and the history of white supremacy in the US and committed by the US. Reading on these topics helps me to understand the ways in which whiteness has been constructed and maintained as a social norm, but also exposes the pervasive effects of whiteness on every facet of society (laws, policies, cultural attitudes, individual behaviors).
-
As a sociologist, this is particularly important to me, but I think a lot of white people fail to see the benefits of reading in this way. The external perspective on whiteness is invaluable to understanding ourselves, the decisions we make, and the ways in which powerful people try to shape narratives.
-
I think it's rather impossible as white people to full see all of the edges and details that make up whiteness from the inside. White supremacy is so embedded in every little thing in our culture.
I also feel that without being able to see those details, we can't dream of what a real liberation from that whiteness would look like.
-
A few of the more accessible books to start reading on these topics:
- Slavery By Another Name, D. Blackmon
- Caste, I. Wilkerson
- The New Jim Crow, M. Alexander
- Black Skin, White Masks F. Fanon
- They Were Her Property, S. Jones-Rogers
- We Were Eight Years in Power, T. Coates
- The Half Has Never Been Told, E. Baptist
- How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, W. Rodney -
@[email protected] thanks for the list! I've read several of these, which were all very much worth reading, and will add the rest to my list.
One other that fits into this category is Simone Browne's Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, including looking at the Lantern Laws of the 18th century (where any white person was deputized to stop any person of color caught walking without the presence of a light) as an early example of surveillance technology.
