One of the best new book
releases of this week is …
I Can’t Breathe:
A Killing on Bay Street
Matt Taibbi
Hardback: Spiegel & Grau, 2017
Buy Now: [ Amazon ] [ Kindle ]
Archives For Race
I Can’t Breathe:
Listen to Matt Taibbi’s interview with NPR’s Terry Gross,
Tomorrow (August 5th) is the birthday of theologian James Cone. In honor of the occasion, we offer this introductory reading guide to his work.
We’ve ordered this list in the order that we think the books should be read, and we offer a brief explanation of why each book was included. We’ve included excerpts of most the books via Google Books.
1) A Black Theology of Liberation
The Puzzle Box Top:
Seeing the Big Picture of Racism and American Evangelicalism
A Feature Review of
The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege
Ken Wytsma
Hardback: IVP, 2017.
Buy Now: [ Amazon ] [ Kindle ]
Reviewed by Cynthia Beach
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My puzzle pieces were disparate. My African American student who overnighted with us and who, when he wandered the grocery aisles in my small (white) town, perspired heavily—as if he was distressed. Or that essay by Brent Staples, the African American who, when he roamed midnight sidewalks, would whistle Vivaldi to lessen the fears others had assigned his skin color. Or Hidden Figures when a smart woman’s heels click-clacked as she rushed out one building and into another to use the colored ladies restroom. I held the pieces, but not the picture until I read Ken Wytsma’s The Myth of Equality.
This Oregon pastor’s fourth book handed me the proverbial puzzle box lid that helped me fit together pieces to the disturbing puzzle, our American racism and white privilege. Finally, the picture was clear. When I finished this potent book, I thought, Now I get it. Now I see it.
A Difficult Church Service
to Sit Through
A Review of
Tears We Cannot Stop:
A Sermon to White America.
Michael Eric Dyson
Hardback: St. Martin’s Press, 2017.
Buy Now: [ Amazon ] [ Kindle ]
Reviewed by Jordan Kellicut
My first memory of race was the Rodney King beating and subsequent riots. Growing up in a white family, in a white community, in a white school, race was not a thing I ever considered. I do, however, remember watching King being beaten on the evening news. I always assumed that the four police officers who perpetrated this act of racially charged violence were charged, convicted, and jailed for the crime. I was shocked to learn, in Michael Eric Dyson’s Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, that these men were found innocent (though two were later convicted in Federal court). This likely illustrates the very issue of race in America – namely many white Americans (like myself) are oblivious to the experience of people of color, and as we have seen in the past few years, often hostile to their story.
Seven Societal Lessons
We Need to Learn
A Review of
Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
Heather Ann Thompson
Hardback: Pantheon, 2016
Buy Now: [ Amazon ] [ Kindle ]
Reviewed by John Hawthorne
This review originally appeared on
the reviewer’s blog,
and is reprinted here with permission.
I tell my students that there were five radicalizing events that led to me being a sociologist, although I didn’t know it at the time. It started with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968. I was old enough to have been following the civil rights movement and understood how the killing was a reaction to a quest for justice. That was followed just two months later by the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Because I was Kennedy campaign chairman in my eighth grade history class, I’d gotten my Very-Republican grandmother to drive me to Kennedy headquarters to pick up campaign paraphernalia. And now he was dead. In May of 1970, four students were killed by the Ohio National Guard during a Vietnam War Protest. That introduced me to the idea that government officials might act badly. Between 1972 and 1974, I watched in fascination as the President of the United States had his illegality exposed and resigned the presidency in disgrace.
Tomorrow (June 2) marks the birthday of philosopher and social critic Cornel West…
In honor of the occasion, we offer a series of our favorite brief video clips featuring West…
The Bond of Truth Seeking:
One of this week’s best new book releases is:
The Color of Law:
A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Richard Rothstein
Hardback: Liveright, 2017
Buy now: [ Amazon ] [ Kindle ]
Here is a great interview that the author did
with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air…
Saturday April 29 is the birthday of theologian Willie James Jennings!
Watch for our review of his new commentary on Acts in our Fall 2017 magazine issue…
Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible
Willie James Jennings
Hardback: WJK Books, 2017.
Buy Now: [ Amazon ]
Listen to a great interview that Jennings did
with the LA Review of Books’ Marginalia podcast:
One of this week’s best new book releases is:
Locking Up Our Own:
Crime and Punishment in Black America
James Forman, Jr.
Hardback: FSG Books, 2017
Buy Now: [ Amazon ] [ Kindle ]
Listen to an NPR interview with the author from All Things Considered…
Continue Reading…
This week marks the release of the latest book by John Perkins, the former civil rights activist and founder of the Christian Community Development Association!
In honor of its release, we’re giving away
FIVE copies of this new book…
Dream with Me: Race, Love, and the Struggle We Must Win
by John Perkins
Hardback: Baker Books
Enter to win a copy of this book!
Enter now to win (It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3!) :
