Thick: And Other Essays | 
#BlackHistoryMonth Recommendations Day 16
Nonfiction
Revolving around Black Womanhood this essay collection is brilliant. Cottom gives depth, intelligence and within each essay. There is not a piece in this book that isn't noteworthy. A terribly important read.
#manicmonday #letterT @CBee @Librariana
📚 Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom
✍️ Amor Towles
🍿 Ted Lasso
🎤 Tina Turner
🎶 Tiny Dancer (Elton John) my absolute favorite song
pickInsightful and thought provoking.
I like how she explains a situation then turns in back in on itself - Obama didn't win because he saw white people and their vote. Obama won because white people saw him.
She mentions Twitter a few times which is really interesting to read in this moment in time.
pickReading this book was a sad experience for me because it validates what has been said before: ‘The most disrespected,unprotected human is the black woman‘.Black women will forever remain at the bottom because we aren‘t considered human. As teens we are sexualised and not protected, as grown women we are regarded as ‘strong‘ and left to do everything and more. We are socialised to ‘not bring a brotha down‘ even at our expense.
pickAn amazing collection of essays about sexism and racism that intersect with other current issues in society for Black women.
pickFantastic collection of essays on racism and sexism. Intellectual and humorous, Cottom uses her voice to make excellent points. Well written and thoughtful; each essay was equally as good as the next. Highly recommend!
pickThis book covers not just racism, and sexism, but how the healthcare system is a failure for women of color, most noticeably black women as well as sexual themes and misconceptions of women, in a way that not only I related to but in some cases had first hand experience in, while in others have heard about from other women. It's a read that gave me a lot to think about.
#readingwomenchallenge #readharder
pickNot sure how I missed this gem when it came out in 2019, but I‘ve just ordered a bunch for Skylark Bookshop as it blew my mind and I want to talk to people about it. It‘s incredibly smart, funny, brave, provocative and made me rethink, oh, pretty much everything. I underlined a *ton*. Absolutely required reading.
"Big Beauty is just negging without the slimy actor. The constant destabilization of self is part and parcel of beauty's effectiveness as a social construct"
"At every turn, black women have been categorically excluded from being expert performers of persuasive speech act like in the public that adjudicated our humanity."
pickSearing and smart. I couldn‘t put it down. A no bullshit intellectually, well—thick—insight into racism, its lived truths and results. Sharp in every sense of the word.
pickThoughtful perspective and personal experiences presented in this series of essays focused on the built-in racism that exists in the US and what black women have to work against daily. The language was easy for me to digest while also being academic. There were some hard subjects that you are confronted with here and you are forced to sit with the uncomfortableness, but those moments that hit me the hardest also felt the most powerful.
pickThought provoking and smart, this short book of essays lacks a strong punch! Highly Recommend! #BookspinBingo #ownvoices #blackbooksmatter
Halfway through this fantastic book of essays! They are really resonating with me!
Excited to see these ladies in the group! Jacqueline Woodson, N.K. Jemisin, and Tressie McMillan Cottom, were all named as 2020 MacArthur fellows.💗
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/10/06/macarthur-foundation-2020-...
pickEach essay was thought provoking. It is critical we listen to black females. This really gave me some insight into a handful of black females‘ perspectives that I was really unaware about.
these hips are big hips/they need space to/move around in,/they don‘t fit into little/petty places. these hips are free hips. Lucille Clifton
pickI loved this book! It was pretty short but each essay was very impactful and thought-provoking.
pickThis wasn‘t an easy book of essays, despite it‘s relatively slim size. Every sentence is crafted to pack a punch. Cottom wastes no words, and crafts each thought with care. I know I‘m not the intended audience here. But I can appreciate and learn from what Cottom writes. And plenty did connect for me, despite how different our lives are.
Full review http://www.TheBibliophage.com
#thebibliophage2020 #nonfictionchallenge2020 #aboutrace
#FriYayIntro @howjessreads @4thhouseontheleft
1. The only funny meme that didn‘t have a lot of curse words ... 🤪
2. These essays are thought provoking, for sure.
3. Getting plenty of sleep, walking or yoga most days, making great desserts, epsom salt baths
4. Always dark chocolate—as dark as I can find.
pickFirst 5-star read of 2020! And how well-deserved. I loved every essay in this collection, found it all to be insightful & sharp & also funny & unique. She ties together each individual piece w/a cohesive narrative and really makes you fucking THINK. This was a great reminder that even while she and I share many experiences as women, my whiteness affords me privilege that I must always work to counteract. Just brilliant from start to finish. 5/5 ⭐️
... I learned that being a woman is about what men are allowed to do to you. I was fourteen years old.
All the busywork produced by the technological society perversely creates new ways for technology to make our anxiety a profitable extractive regime. It is a vicious cycle. Such is the foolishness of wanting to be competent in a political economy that can only sell you ways to *feel* competent, but does not offer sufficient ways to enact competency.
They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that ugly is as ugly does. Both are lies. Ugly is everything done to you in the name of beauty.
Knowing the difference is part of getting free.
If beauty is to matter at all for capital, it can never be for black women. But if I believe I can become beautiful, I become an economic subject. My desire becomes a market [, my faith] a salve for white women who want to have the right politics while keeping the privilege of never having to live them. White women need me to believe I can earn beauty b/c when I want what I cannot have, what they have becomes all the more valuable. I refuse them.
When I say that I am unattractive or ugly, I am not internalizing the dominant culture‘s assessment of me. I am naming what has been done to me. And signaling who did it.
In a modern capitalist society, what is moral is often determined by what has economic value.
pickThis is a #bhm reread of a powerful book. Quick mention of two important points.
One is competence. She had a terrible miscarriage because she was not believed competent to speak for herself on health matters. Black women are over twice as likely to die in childbirth in the US!
The discussion of R. Kelly and his well known predation of young girls bothered me. Her own family was divided over which women were “hoes” and which deserved protecting.
Part 1 Botm to be read books for 2020
I get the hype.
pickProvocative and thoughtful essays. She writes with ease. Well worth the read.
#bookreport
#weeklyforecast
I did very little physical reading this week. It has been holiday parties just about every night!! I have about an hour left in Disappearing Earth and I am loving it. Hope to finish both the pictured books today. My library hold of The Man Who Saw Everything: Deborah Levy came in yesterday. I may start that when we are on vacation the week of Christmas. How is your December reading going?
#weeklyforcast As usual I have started several books at once (blame it on library holds coming in!)
Loving Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. Almost done with Shrill and just started Thick by Tressie McMillan Cotton. I am dipping in and out of the Rilke Poems. The one book not in the picture is my audio read: Instructions for a Heat Wave. December is a crazy busy month both at work and social, so we will see what I can finish.
pickStarted this ages ago and was loving it, but set it aside because all I had was the e-book and I am sometimes not good at e-books. Finally got to the audio and, as expected, fully adored the entirety of this book. Cottom is an exceptional sociologist, and her writing is as vivid and engaging as it is analytically impressive. Absolutely one I‘ll get in print and return to often.
pickA wonderful series of essays by a black woman about both the suppression of and the power of black women
The author discusses how she is considered smart, but her Grandmother was much smarter in the wrong time for a poor black woman to be smart. She makes a powerful point.
