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#LuckyInLove Day 11: These titles sound like a #RomanticGetaway of sorts - but they are actually heavy going reflections and thoughtful essays on dismantling systemic racism and prejudice and conversations on social justice.

I'm immensely glad I read this beautifully presented book of essays and poetry that examines white supremacy in America. Claudia Rankine leaves nothing unscrutinised.

Although sometimes I would question / further probe some of Rankine's conclusions, this is a tough and uncompromising critique of the status quo that has widened my understanding of racism.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 stars

I see that several littens have already recommended Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.

So I thought I should recommend this one instead.
I should probably take it as a sign to read more by her, this the the second Rankine that I read and the second one that I recommend during this #AlphabetGame #LetterJ

A powerful and thought-provoking mix of essays, images and poetry. Rankine‘s previous book, Citizen: An American Lyric, is also a must read.

#ToldInVerse #BookMoods
@Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Interesting format. Great info. Rankine‘s writing draws the reader in.

Some of these essays are perfect walk length!

https://lithub.com/5-audiobook-essay-collections-ideally-suited-to-your-quaranti...

Finished today.... What a book to be reading on a week like this after a year like we just had. The first 3 books of my year have been from voices of color, for which I have been grateful. I think I will carry this book‘s thoughts & queries forward for many years. #newyearwhodis Glad AnneCecilie recommended it.

The publisher‘s choice to print this on glossy acidfree photo paper was interesting. It adds to the book‘s physical & emotional weight.

I forgot to take a pic before I returned this to the library, but this was my #doublespin for #bookspinbingo, @TheAromaofBooks

I have now read three of her books and really liked this one and Citizen a lot. Would definitely encourage reading this one in print, as the format is creative.

Day 4 of #12Booksof2020

Rankine‘s take on white privilege. I particularly enjoyed her views on why women color their hair blond.

Food for thought

My favorite part about this time of year....reading by the glow of Christmas lights.

Claudia Rankine on her ideal reading experience. I still haven't read the books she mentioned. 😶

Claudia Rankine Wishes More Writers Thought About Whiteness https://nyti.ms/39gJhUo

This feels slightly more personal than “Citizen”. In here she uses experiences from her own life, a meeting with the teachers at her daughter‘s school, dinner parties and men queuing at airports while at the same time looking at white fragility and white supremacy.

As someone who color/ bleach their hair blond/ blonder, I found her chapter on why women color their hair blond interesting, and some of her conclusions a little disturbing.

I attempt to answer my silent questions by remembering my therapist once told me that some white patients who identify with trauma and victimization see themselves as black or Jewish in their dreams. Their understanding of what they have experienced, how they feel, becomes apprehensible only through the lens of antiblack racism or anti-Semitism. To fully embody their pain, their trauma, they need it to mirror historical, institutional structures

Centered in hurt and history, Beyoncé‘s Lemonade addresses infidelity, four hundred years of racism and its effects on devastated black families, none of which where wholly our issues but I still find it consoling. Perhaps it‘s because the “visual album” also addresses black love, or is it just love? Beyoncé zoomed us out in order to see how all of history was against the success of her marriage and she isn‘t wrong. (p. 79)

So these are my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin for November. I‘m so excited. I‘ve been looking forward to these books ever since I found out they were being published this fall at the beginning of the year

Claudia Rankine is amazing, not only for her intellectual rigour in these essays about the racist structure of American society, but also for her open-minded engagement in conversation with white people—friends and strangers—on this topic. Her desire to understand racist viewpoints strikes me as a useful step in dismantling them, and creating a better future. #outstanding

A friend insists that attaching blondness to whiteness and white supremacy is ridiculous. It just looks better on most women, she claims. I am not white, so I try to inhabit her form of certainty. My friend‘s unwillingness to interrogate why “better” and “blond” are married interests me.

The idea that one can stand apart is a nice fantasy but we can‘t afford fantasies.

My own interracial marriage exists inside a racist America whose ways make life more difficult. Many times driving in NYC and NJ, we were pulled over by police and asked how we knew each other; there are all the places my husband walks into while I‘m stopped at the door; and there are the white women who understand our relationship to be anything but a marriage as they step between us to flirt.

As a blond I become myself, so many say. Funny. If you say I want to be myself and the culture says the self that matters is blond, then oh, well—too bad—so be it. Shit. After a while, everyone is in agreement about who looks human, youthful, beautiful, human, and—did I say human?

...historians have discovered that after World War II in West Germany, sexy “Bild Lilli” dolls based on a popular cartoon character were sold in barbershops and bars. They are said to have inspired the original Barbie.

A white friend tells me she has to defend me all the time to her white friends who think I‘m a radical. Why? For calling white people white? For not wanting black people to be gunned down in our streets or black girls to be flung across classrooms & thrown to the ground by officers? What does that even mean? I ask her. Don‘t defend me. Not for being human. Not for wanting us to simply be able to live.

Claudia Rankine imagines herself walking up to random white men to ask how they understood their privilege. “Would they react as the police captain in Plainsfield, Indiana, did when his female colleague told him during a diversity training session that he benefited from ‘white male privilege‘? He became angry & accused her of using a racialized slur against him. (She was placed on paid administrative leave and a reprimand was placed in her file.)”

Let us not forget that Africa has been the source of all kinds of diasporas—not only the forced diaspora imposed by the West through the slave trade, but also of millions of all types of diasporas before—that have populated the world.
-Édouard Glissant

"Among white people, black people are allowed to talk about their precarious lives, but they are not allowed to implicate the present company...to create discomfort by pointing out the facts is seen as socially unacceptable. Let's get over ourselves, it's structural not personal...."

Just Us pokes into areas of discomfort surrounding issues of race. Rankine calls up white friends/colleagues to try to understand how they are seeing or experiencing differently. She doesn't play nice during a faculty dinner. She documents the places where she fact checks her own statements. She does not provide easy answers, she is instead modeling the kinds of conversations we need to be able to have with one another if we are to move forward.

Thanks to #partner @NetGalley for the digital ARC of Claudia Rankine‘s Just Us: An American Conversation in exchange for an honest review. The book will be published on Tuesday, September 8, 2020.⠀
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I will need to read Claudia Rankine‘s Just Us again. I think it is brilliant and important and thoughtful, but I know that there‘s more to absorb, more to contemplate. ⬇️

Made my purchases from bookshop.org on Independent Bookstore Day. Really looking forward to both of these! I got to hear Yusef Salaam speak a few years ago and it was powerful and engaging.

Rankine‘s poetry collection, Citizen is on every Black Lives Matter reading list out there. This collection of essays (with a few poems), scheduled to be published on September 8 is sure to be added to the lists. Her writing is stunning and her ability to capture stories that illustrate so many of the topics being discussed right now is impeccable. Highly recommended. #BLM #ARC #Edelweiss