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I've Been Meaning to Tell You
I've Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to My Daughter | David Chariandy
17 posts | 9 read | 14 to read
In the tradition of Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, acclaimed novelist David Chariandy's latest is an intimate and profoundly beautiful meditation on the politics of race today. When a moment of quietly ignored bigotry prompted his three-year-old daughter to ask "what happened?" David Chariandy began wondering how to discuss with his children the politics of race. A decade later, in a newly heated era of both struggle and divisions, he writes a letter to his now thirteen-year-old daughter. David is the son of Black and South Asian migrants from Trinidad, and he draws upon his personal and ancestral past, including the legacies of slavery, indenture, and immigration, as well as the experiences of growing up a visible minority within the land of one's birth. In sharing with his daughter his own story, he hopes to help cultivate within her a sense of identity and responsibility that balances the painful truths of the past and present with hopeful possibilities for the future.
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alylalani
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candority
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Pickpick

I‘ve Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to My Daughter is a tender, intimate and heartachingly beautiful book about race and belonging. If you enjoyed Ta-Nehisi Coate‘s Between the World and Me, I think you would also enjoy this one. It touches on similar topics, but from a Canadian perspective. 4⭐️

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cleoh
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Pickpick

I‘ve fallen in love with his writing and need all of his books ASAP 😍

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Well-ReadNeck
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Soubhiville
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It‘s a quiet Sunday morning, and Froedrick is overseeing my reading.

This letter to a daughter is about how difficult it is to discuss racism and sexism and the scary things happening because of those fears in America and even Canada.

I don‘t have kids, but I find it hard to discuss these things and put the awful feelings into words with other adults. I‘m not sure how parents manage.

#PetsOfLitsy #YayLibraryBooks!

Tamra It‘s a fine line that is difficult to walk and it depends on the situation/subject. I don‘t want my kids growing up paranoid & cynical, but they can‘t be blind either. 😐 5y
Bette 🐱❤️ 5y
LauraJ Fried rickshaw! Er, Froedrick! 5y
Soubhiville 😂🤣 @lauraj aren‘t smartphones supposed to learn the words you use often? Lol. 5y
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Soubhiville
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I had to renew my library card today, so of course I checked out some books while I was there! #LibraryHaul

I also went to my mailbox for the first time in almost a week and found some #LitsyLove from @Rissreads and @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks 💕 Thank you ladies!

Then I did some shopping for my #SummerSolsticeBookExchange! I love shopping for swaps!!!

Eyelit I just checked out the future is feminist the other day! 😃 5y
Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Yay!!! I love the elephant 🐘 card!!! ❤️❤️❤️ 5y
Soubhiville @Eyelit haha! Is this your #LitsyATXReadersSociety book? I was just looking at the New In shelf and it jumped out at me 😊 5y
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Eyelit Probably not - I‘ve got a whole stack of contenders on my mount tbr shelf... and I‘m halfway through one right now 😄 like you, I saw it on the new shelf and I couldn‘t resist 5y
Rissreads Your welcome! Both those books look great! 👍💚 5y
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Bibliogeekery
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Pickpick

This book is a beautiful little offering. David Chariandy shares this lovely, intimate, real-talking letter than he has written to his 13 year old daughter. He reflects on her family history including complexities of race and class. He shares some of his own experiences as a racialized person and he is frank about his hopes and fears for her growing up in this moment in history. Such a generous gift of a book to share with the world.

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Bibliogeekery
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Loving the sunshine and shadows in my backyard and I listen to this amazing audiobook!

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Bibliogeekery
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Such a very succinct and powerful way to describe how whiteness is centred for everyone and the impacts that can have on people who aren‘t white.

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Bibliogeekery
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Next up for audiobook!

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Well-ReadNeck
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Pickpick

Chariandy addresses this narrative to his daughter discussing race and how it played out in his life and how it may play out for her. The author has a is mixed race background, South Asian and African by way of Trinidad. His daughter has the added wrinkle of having a white mother. His ambivalence about race and the myriad of ways it plays out for him make this the vulnerable and beautiful reflection that it is. #netgalley

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Lindy
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These are my 5-star reads this month. Every one a treasure!

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CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian
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In the vein of Ta-Nehisi Coates (both writers were inspired by the same James Baldwin essay), Chariandy writes a letter about race, identity, and belonging to his daughter. It's a very sweet, tender book that feels almost like you've stumbled upon something too personal, like you're trespassing. Many beautiful loving words. I'd probably recommend the print rather than the #audiobook. I found Chariandy's narration too slow & overenuciated. #CanLit

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Lindy
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Inspired by James Baldwin‘s letter to his nephew about racial politics (the same essay that inspired Ta-Nehisi Coates to write to his son) Chariandy addresses this thoughtful essay to his 13-year-old daughter. She is of mixed ethnic heritage—Black, South Asian & white—born in #Canada (as was her father) & where she must sometimes contend with the question, “Where are you REALLY from?” He talks about their family‘s past as a way to go forward. ❤️

Lindy Baldwin‘s essay is in 5y
Lindy Another literary link between Chariandy and Baldwin is that both have admired the work of Countee Cullen. Cullen‘s poem “Incident” is reproduced in 5y
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Lindy
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I have imagined that you, as such complexly mixed children, might have the opportunity to choose and declare your identity. I had forgotten that racial identity is so rarely a matter of personal choice.

(Detail of book jacket art by Sandra Brewster: “Untitled Smiths 2011.”)

GatheringBooks this looks great! 5y
Lindy @GatheringBooks It‘s wonderful. A tender approach to a painful subject. 5y
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Lindy
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A further impediment to working together was the enormous prejudice, throughout the Caribbean, based not only upon one‘s race but also upon the shade of one‘s skin. My mother tells stories about places where a brown paper bag was hung outside the door, and people were allowed entry only if their skin was judged lighter than the bag.

(Art: Untitled Smiths by Sandra Brewster)

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