November 2021 Reads

The past few months have been extremely challenging as I have attempted to navigate working while battling severe medical problems with my thyroid. Everything really came to a head in November and even featured a several-day-long stay at the Cleveland Clinic where, after creatively suppressing my thyroid, it both became extremely apparent that I need surgery and that my thyroid is the culprit for my feeling terrible for quite some time. This has limited the number of books I have managed to listen to or read, but that is a small price to pay for feeling so, so, so much better! Surgery to remove the thyroid is scheduled for early December.

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 edited by Ibram X. Kendi

In five-year increments, beginning in 1619, a human history of African America is told by an array of voices from a range of perspectives. By beginning in 1619, before the heyday of the plantation, it was fascinating to discover the constant evolution, though always subservient, of individuals of African descent in the United States (and colonies pre-dating the establishment of the independent nation). Most frustrating, throughout the read, is the unevenness in which rules and policies were applied. African Americans were (and are) constantly at the mercy of others and how they are judged and treated are far too dependent on benevolent, often, white folks, and less on the law. That seems to be gradually changing, but the unfairness is enraging.

The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee

I think Heather McGhee has found the way to market the harms of racism to those denying racism exists. While a hefty read, if pieced out and shared with groups touched by a given topic, I think this might be the most moving argument for the harms and damage of the racist system and environment we live in. The arguments and explanations of what white folks are missing out on are legion. Indeed, the explanation that white folks are the most segregated race, by their own doing, made a lot of sense after my time in the United States, but conceptually still really moved me.

As a professor, however, I think I was most hurt by how the utilization of institutions of higher education, particularly those that are public, by people of color has seemingly simultaneously stripped away funding and interest by state legislatures to support these institutions. The scenario that played out in California was nauseating and, indeed, when as an immigrant I attempted to apply and considered enrolling at San Francisco State University in the mid-2000s, I took the hint—even though the hurdles we not meant for people who look like me.

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester

Simon, stay focused. Winchester packs a lot of interesting information in his books, I made some really fascinating discoveries in his book about the Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, but he meanders mercilessly and a lot of these side trips are not necessary nor do they have a clear connection to the topic at hand. Sometimes it is OK to omit some of the items gathered in discovery while publishing a nonfiction book! Despite the meandering, I think he could have said more about the brutality of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia. I also found the history of the news services, like Reuters, and the nascent infrastructure that facilitated communication in a matter of hours about the eruption.

Pick of the Month: November 2021

While I have learned so much about race in America by reading so many classic and contemporary works, my eyes opened wider by Heather McGhee’s The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. The discovery that tuition hikes and states backing out of funding public institutions of higher education as integration increased left me absolutely incensed. If you are willing to only read one book about why race and racism still matter in America, read this book. Learn how racism hurts you and not just people who look different from you. In America, we have all been victims of racism at different points and scenarios in our lives. Here’s the proof.