Nominating George Lipsitz's The Possessive Investment in Whiteness, please. It's been a while, my memory's crap and I should re-read (so I'm nabbing someone else's blurb here), but it really affected me. From the blurb: "Attacking the common view that whiteness is a meaningless category of identity, Lipsitz shows that public policy and private prejudice insure that whites wind up on top of the social hierarchy."
OK, I'm sitting on the floor in front of my bookshelves, and piles of as-yet-unshelved books are next to me Since we just moved, everything's out of order so I know I am going to forget some good ones. But:
* Orlando Patterson - Slavery and Social Death, The Ordeal of Integration, and Rituals of Blood * Noel Ignatiev - How the Irish Became White * Matt Wray & Annalee Newitz - White Trash: Rcae and Class in America (anthology, some essays are problematic but most are outstanding) * I second Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks * The superb Margaret Anderson-Patricia Hill-Collins anthology Race, Class, and Gender * C.L.R. James' Mariners, Renegades and Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In - the story of how the book was written is as instructive as James' brilliant analysis itself. * Todorov's The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other * Golden & Shreve's anthology Skin Deep: Black Women & White Women Write About Race * Ruth Frankenberg's White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of
( ... )
they underscore the disconnect between detached eurocentric academia and the more direct experience of postcolonial subjects (even academic ones)
I'm going to have to look at those, but it sounds like they might be a little heavy. I've been bingeing on academia so this looks like a summer of knitting...and finishing up a human rights commission report that I started last month.
Call me crazy and old-fashioned, but the first book to open my eyes to the issues between blacks and whites was Die Nigger Die! by H. Rap Brown.
The second was The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
The third was the poetry of Nikki Giovanni.
All of these are specially about African-Americans, not other ethnic groups. But I am not huge on the idea that "academia" alone can dictate discussion about race - I would rather hear things loud and clear from people who have something to say.
That's actually why I like blackfolk so much. At its best, it's exemplary of that principle.
Oh I definitely agree, writing from all registers as well as personal interactions are important.
Fanon, for me, isn't academic at all. I mean, he was a psychoanalyst, so that's what he writes about, but he's more accessible than Freud I think and honestly, I believe that if the world weren't so racist he would be as famous as Freud if not moreso. There's pain and passion and brilliance in his words that is just impossible to be unaffected by, I think.
Totally, and some of his passages have this razor-edged bitter humor that gives me delicious chills. It's a powerfully moving book.
The books on my list above represent several disciplines, some more academic than others. I agree we learn best from a variety of text- and real-world sources. But this was, after all, a request for a reading list.
I would read Fanon - in large part because the very people I mentioned (anyone involved with the Black Power movement in particular) refer to him over and over again, and he was instrumental in their rhetoric. I can also get behind the more psychological angle that he supposedly presents. So yeah, he's on my list now. :}
I think it's good to see such a balanced reading list. There's nothing wrong with having academic books either; I'm just saying that personally it's an eye-opener for me, as a white Jewish female, to hear Nikki Giovanni say "it's impossible to love a Jew." Oddly enough, the more extreme literature does a better job at blasting away my own personal blocks. We need all kinds of books on that list, though, for sure.
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*off to order it*
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Race, Class, and Gender by Angela Davis
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Killing Rage by bell hooks
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* Orlando Patterson - Slavery and Social Death, The Ordeal of Integration, and Rituals of Blood
* Noel Ignatiev - How the Irish Became White
* Matt Wray & Annalee Newitz - White Trash: Rcae and Class in America (anthology, some essays are problematic but most are outstanding)
* I second Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks
* The superb Margaret Anderson-Patricia Hill-Collins anthology Race, Class, and Gender
* C.L.R. James' Mariners, Renegades and Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In - the story of how the book was written is as instructive as James' brilliant analysis itself.
* Todorov's The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other
* Golden & Shreve's anthology Skin Deep: Black Women & White Women Write About Race
* Ruth Frankenberg's White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of ( ... )
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I'm going to have to look at those, but it sounds like they might be a little heavy. I've been bingeing on academia so this looks like a summer of knitting...and finishing up a human rights commission report that I started last month.
Thanks. This will be mailed to my inbox now. ;p
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Still, when you feel ready to read, I promise an eventful experience.
mwaah.
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The second was The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
The third was the poetry of Nikki Giovanni.
All of these are specially about African-Americans, not other ethnic groups. But I am not huge on the idea that "academia" alone can dictate discussion about race - I would rather hear things loud and clear from people who have something to say.
That's actually why I like blackfolk so much. At its best, it's exemplary of that principle.
Reply
Fanon, for me, isn't academic at all. I mean, he was a psychoanalyst, so that's what he writes about, but he's more accessible than Freud I think and honestly, I believe that if the world weren't so racist he would be as famous as Freud if not moreso. There's pain and passion and brilliance in his words that is just impossible to be unaffected by, I think.
Reply
The books on my list above represent several disciplines, some more academic than others. I agree we learn best from a variety of text- and real-world sources. But this was, after all, a request for a reading list.
Reply
I think it's good to see such a balanced reading list. There's nothing wrong with having academic books either; I'm just saying that personally it's an eye-opener for me, as a white Jewish female, to hear Nikki Giovanni say "it's impossible to love a Jew." Oddly enough, the more extreme literature does a better job at blasting away my own personal blocks. We need all kinds of books on that list, though, for sure.
Reply
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