cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1882413

Hi! I am a member of a race education group in my school (11 to 18) and we are creating a reading list for the library. Our library isn’t very diverse right now (most books are written by white people about the West) and we need books on race education (privilege, discrimination, etc.) and on the history (precolonial, colonial and postcolonial, could be on neocolonialism too) and culture of underrepresented people.

Please keep in mind that these books should be acceptable by the school and approachable by students who would be unlikely to accept or read very progressive material, so themes that strongly (just strongly) contradict Western narratives should be avoided.

For example, a book on the colonisation of Palestine that exposes the oppressive nature of Zionism is mostly fine, but a book presenting Hamas as a liberation group would not be accepted (and actually illegal in my country).

You can reply with books or other reading lists that we could then review and add. I’ll finish this post with some examples of books on the reading list (keep in mind that it was for Black History Month, so all of the examples are on black people):

African Empires by Lyndon, Dan
Black Power: The Politics of Liberation In America by Carmichael, Stokely; Hamilton, Charles V
I Heard What You Said by Boakye, Jeffrey
The Assassination of Lumumba by Witte, Ludo de.
White privilege: the myth of a post-racial society by Bhopal, Kalwant

Thanks in advance!

  • Doubledee [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    Nell Irvin Painter’s History of White People was really helpful for me in understanding the origin of race as a category and the way it is constructed to benefit people and hurt others. Not sure if it’s exactly the type of thing you’re looking for but it is about race and it isn’t overtly radical or scary, I read it as a lib.

    • temp_acc [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      9 months ago

      Thank you! Upon further reflection, the title does look a little scary (and a lot of books are) but your synopsis and summaries online show this book as a great and comprehensive introduction into the origins of race. Will be adding this to the reading list.