by Aimé Césaire
★★★
Tag archives: nonfiction
Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminism
by Uma Narayan
Fluidly written essays about cultivating dissent and critical thinking amidst intermingled identities and the complications of colonialism
Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday
by Angela Y. Davis
★★★★
Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples
by Linda Tuhiwai Smith
★★★★
Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power
by Lola Olufemi
An incisive work of Black feminism in Britain covering reproductive justice, trans inclusionary feminism, supporting sex workers, prison abolition, and—excitingly—art as witness. I would have been bowled over if the chapter on food concentrated on food justice with inspiration from Vandana Shiva. Olufemi envisages a living, breathing practice … Read more
Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development
by Vandana Shiva
First off, Shiva cannot seem to write without clobbering repetition. The heart of her ideas and activism, however, are galvanising and foundational. She has transformed the way I think about food justice and agroecology. She questions the sanctity of science and development and [reveals] that these are not … Read more
Whites, Jews, and Us: Toward a Politics of Revolutionary Love
by Houria Bouteldja
She talks about colonialist principles being applied to Europe in WWII (Césaire), conditional absorption into whiteness, and revisionist histories—in riddling analogies and immoderate irony. She writes more straightforwardly about internalised racism and white men in Europe claiming to stand up for women only when they can pin patriarchal … Read more
The End of White World Supremacy: Four Speeches
by Malcolm X
I didn’t expect so much patronising flattery and unscientific claptrap in the opening speech. Very little of this collection is agelessly thundering in exposing the crimes of imperialism, the prison walls of America, and the artifice of white liberal allyship.
Resurrecting Slavery: Racial Legacies and White Supremacy in France
by Crystal Marie Fleming
This is a dissertation work on collective memory and commemorative activism. Although there are stretches of empirical research to wade through, it is fortunately also explicitly polemical. France is not unique as a country that refuses to acknowledge racial oppression (unless it’s in America or unless it’s … Read more
Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present
by Robyn Maynard
A comprehensive dissection of anti-Black racism across history, in Canada, and across all borders. If repetitious it’s as a direct reflection of unrelenting anti-Black demonisation, surveillance, containment, and violence in all our societal structures. Policing Black Lives is intersectional, potently researched, and crystal clear.
The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race
by Jesmyn Ward
“Black and Blue” by Garnette Cadogan is the highlight ★★★★★
Carceral Capitalism
by Jackie Wang
★★★★★
The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls
by Mona Eltahawy
★★★★½
What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays
by Damon Young
★★★
The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness
by Rhonda Magee
My ambivalence about mindfulness took a dive exactly during her example of taking care of the feelings of a racist instigator (Dan) with equanimity.
Turtle Island: The Story of North America’s First People
by Eldon Yellowhorn, Kathy Lowinger
★★★★
Thinking Through: Essays on Feminism, Marxism and Anti-Racism
by Himani Bannerji
I glazed over on the more academic chapters, which in general by my definition are too diffuse. When Bannerji writes of the personal, it’s harrowing and electric, to read about the everyday trailblazing of the author and of X.
Radiant Voices: Feminist Storytelling for Rising Up
by Carla Bergman (Editor)
★★★★½
Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis
by Vandana Shiva
★★★★
Making Our Way Home: The Great Migration and the Black American Dream
by Blair Imani
★★★★★