Welcome to Litsy!

#RiseUpReads January 2025
Winning book: Hood Feminism: Notes from the women that a movement forgot - Mikki Kendall

Read at your own pace. There will be a discussion posted on Litsy at the end of the month. 

Please tag me in your posts & use #riseupreads 
If you're not currently tagged & would like to be, let me know.

Rise up Reads- reading marginalized voices ?✊?

Oh my! This was amazing. I followed along with my physical copy as I listened to the audio edition. I think there was something on almost every page that I marked or tagged. So much information, so many points that need reiterating. Well written, concise, precise, thought provoking.
5⭐️ must read for anyone calling themselves a feminist.

As a child, I wore a T-shirt with the slogan, “The best man for a job is a woman.” I call myself a feminist even. However, feminism has not appealed to me the way other inclusive or poverty-related issues were. I even resisted this book. But it is 🔥 & reconciles my thinking. A lot of readers say take it slow, think about it. Sure if you want. Or swallow it whole like Bacchanalian-style. That‘s what I did.

This was definitely not a light read. I had to take each chapter day-by-day. I can't even begin to formulate my thoughts and feelings on all of the information but all I can say is this is a must read.

There will be parts that will make you feel very uncomfortable but I think it's still important to understand that not all feminism is created equally.

4⭐️
#LMPBC #round17 #groupA

@pogue @TheBookHippie @Readergrrl
This book is going out soon.

Letting my team know that I got the book and I can't wait to dive into it!

#LMPBC #round17 #groupA

@pogue @TheBookHippie @Readergrrl @suvata

This was amazing. I will say that for me the best way to read it was a chapter or two and then think on them. @TheBookHippie @Readergrrl The book is on the way and should be there Saturday #LMPBC

This was amazing. I will say that for me the best way to read it was a chapter or two and then think on them. @TheBookHippie @Readergrrl The book is on the way and should be there Saturday #LMPBC

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Excellently skewers the ways mainstream, white-centered feminism focuses on those whose needs are already mostly met and how the mistreatment of marginalized women ultimately fails ALL women. Kendall illuminates the ways hunger, gun violence, education, and housing are all feminist issues. Definitely recommend! 🎧

#BlackHistoryMonth Recommendations
Day 9 Nonfiction

What does feminism mean to you? Does it include talks about gun violence? Hunger? Race? Politics? Education? How can you be an ally to not only the women you know but the broader community. Good Feminism takes on all of this in an easy to digest way. The writing of course is excellent, Mikki Kendall is fantastic and this is a fundamental must read.

This is a challenging but important read, which makes no apologies for how uncomfortable it may make some readers. It highlights how middle class white feminists have often (at best) failed to consider issues of race, homophobia, transphobia, class and poverty, and how the feminist movement needs to do better and challenge its own biases if it really wants to fight for the rights of all women.

#ReadHarder challenges 4, 5 and 6: an audiobook performed by a person of color of a book written by an author of color; a nonfiction book about intersectional feminism; a book about activism.

A great NF book that focuses on why women of color aren‘t included in the white feminist movement & how all women can work together. Most of the info I knew, but it made me think about how I can put more effort into certain communities in my area. I used to be more involved when I worked at an underprivileged school, but now I mostly have white clients. Reminds me of bell hooks‘ Ain‘t I a Woman. #doublespin for September

So many good points made in this book. To me they were quite obvious but unfortunately they are not obvious to many people (women included). Kendall talks about how feminism focusing on equal representation in only high profile positions is bound to fail because it neglects addressing the basic needs of poor and marginalized women. This is a short read/listen. I finished it in a day.

"The hood doesn't lack answers; it lacks resources..."
A great place to start considering modern, intersectional feminism. Very clear, accessible writing, gets to the point, galvanizing and always ends chapters with a way forward for the Black community and mainstream white feminism, also considers disabled, Latinx, Indigenous women. Please, please read. ESPECIALLY my fellow white feminists.

⏫⏫⏫👏🏻⬆️⬆️⬆️👏🏻

This should be required reading for every person on this planet! Great book. Honest and eye-opening.

Here‘s my #bookspinbingo list for March. Should be a good month of reading no matter what the bingo board looks like!

Rating: 5🌟
Book: 10 of 2022

February #DoubleSpin pick and I loved, LOVED, loved this book. Straightforward and honest, a must read/listen for all!

I can‘t shake the feeling like the author is yelling at its readership. May be deserved, but that style is isn‘t for me at this point in my life unfortunately. Only got through 2 chapters and felt the writing was dry, spitting facts without much of anything to draw me in (eg unique stories about real people, wit or humor). To educate readers, this book will most likely satisfy that requirement.

A very well written and informative book which everyone should read

This books almost feels like a collection of essays; each of the 18 chapters talks about a topic (hunger, housing, education, etc) and how it relates to feminism. It‘s a broad primer on intersectional feminism. There were parts of the book that felt a bit too tied to the moment, but most of it was able to use examples while not getting caught in a specific political moment, and was very good. (Review continued in comments…)

I learned so much from Kendall's essays in this book! I knew some of it, but she gave me new perspectives on other parts of intersectionality that I hadn't thought of before.

I've been audiobooking the tagged book while I get as many things done for tomorrow that I can. So far I've made oat balls, turkey pinwheels, and arranged the veggie tray. I still have to make green tea and fudge.

Well worth reading: a series of essays looking at racism from a black feminist perspective, particularly challenging and encouraging White feminist to integrate anti-racism and other forms of anti-oppression into their work. The direct and honest essays, which include Kendall‘s personal experiences, focus on issues such as education, beauty and body judgment, pregnancy and parenting, poverty, health access, and sexual expression.
#SheSaid

Anger can be cathartic, motivating, and above all else an expression of the innate humanity of any community. Demands that the oppressed be calm and polite and that forgiveness come before all else are fundamentally dehumanizing... anger gets the petitions out, it motivates marches, it gets people to the ballot. Anger is sometimes the only fuel left at the end of a horrible day, week, year, or generation. #SheSaid

I didn‘t read the blurb for this before I started reading, and I probably should. This book was not what I thought it would be.

Every essay start with Kendall talking about the subject on her own life before she broadens the argument. She covers subject such as gun violence, poverty, stereotypes and abortion. Some of these arguments felt very American to me and maybe that‘s why I preferred her essays on stereotypes because they are more easily

This book gave me so much to think about, I try to always be an ally but this book shows that I can do more. I need to not just be an ally but an accomplice.This gave me an opportunity to interrogate myself and look at situations in new ways. I definitely would like to read more from this author.

Listened to the audiobook last year which is fantastic but also needed a physical copy.

#BookReport

I finished Hood Feminism #SheSaid and continued The Warmth of Other Suns #OtherSuns

I finished Babylon Berlin and Read Family Lexicon. I‘m in the middle of both 304 days and Diary of a Young Naturalist.

I appreciated Mikki Kendall‘s book of essays about how mainstream (white) feminism has not served all women. I especially liked how she argued that feminist issues must go beyond reproductive rights, career issues, and work/life balance.

This was my #BookSpinBingo for October and our #SheSaid selection for the month. @TheAromaofBooks

⭐️⭐️⭐️ A lot of important information related to potential blind spots that feminists and others who care about social justice may have that ultimately weaken their effectiveness or can actually be harmful. Some of her arguments were made more effectively than others for me, and the audio recording seemed to go back and forth between sessions/styles, which was distracting. A bit of a weak pick for me. Looking forward to the #SheSaid discussion!

This is a very strong essay collection. I think I understand the racist impacts of traditional feminism better, and I hope now that I know better I can do better. I didn‘t agree with everything here, but that‘s ok. I liked Lorde‘s writing better, but it‘s good to read them in succession and see the torch being passed. I missed last week‘s discussion, so looking forward to this week. Thanks @Riveted_Reader_Melissa for another great #SheSaid pick!

Book #56: 🎧Audiobook. Required feminist reading to help educate on intersectional feminism. Going in, I knew what intersectional feminism was on a base level, but I didn‘t understand the specific issues that it included. Kendall does a great job of going into each issue, providing personal anecdotes and examples in politics and pop culture. Always learning!

In theory, gentrification can bring services and jobs to a community. In practice, it means opportunities for some and criminalization for others. It‘s easy to dismiss claims made by residents about increased police presence as speculative when you‘re new to the area, but for those who‘ve lived through the past few decades in major cities, they‘ve seen a lot of lack of investment in those neighbourhoods as children and later as adults. #SheSaid

Feminism has told white women that they have the right to occupy every space but it has not passed on the message that they don‘t have a right to force everyone else to comply with their whims.Challenging the patriarchy too often stops at challenging the ways it is used against other people and their communities...white feminist are being validated in their fear of people of color, especially Black people. #SheSaid

This is criminal.

#SheSaid

#SheSaid

I am glad to read this. I read half via eBook from the library so I captured some notes in gr through the Kindle app; I checked out the hard cover when the 14 day eBook expired. Important to read a variety of perspectives and viewpoints. I have much to learn. #racism #antiracism #allyship #feminism #EstherAssisting #DogsofLitsy

We love the idea of a strong Black woman...the same feminism that holds them up to fight the battles turns away when the war is over and doesn‘t bother to tend their wounds, emotional or otherwise. We don‘t bother to care about their feelings...We expect marginalized voices to ring out no matter what obstacles they face, and then we penalize them for not saying the right thing in the right way.

“We see a framework that restricts feminist horizons to structures that expect the individual to fight rather than the collective. This form of individualist feminism relies on the idea that an empowered woman can do anything: it ignores the economic and racial realities that some face...While we stand on the sidelines cheering women on, largely there has been minimal collective efforts to fight oppression across multiple identities.”
#SheSaid

“In many mainstream feminist circles the people talking about these issuesdon‘t know what it is to be food insecure in the long term. Things like ‘food stamp challenges,‘ in which someone lives on a budget similar to that of someone living on food stamps for a week or a month make good stunts, but they don‘t influence public policy.”

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView 😊
Thank you @DarkMina 🖤 for the tag.
🎃1. Because I'm behind I'm reading 5 books right now.
Renunciations (poetry by Donika Kelley)
Hood Feminism, Velvet Was The Night, My Heart is a Chainsaw & The Heart Principle
🎃2. So far I am enjoying all 5. I usually only like to do 1 book and 1 audiobook at a time. It's crazy reading this many at once.