One Scholar, One Book: Social Justice Reading Recommendations
Last month, we asked the Cooke Scholar and Alumni community to help us curate a list of books on the topic of social justice. Below are social justice readings that opened your fellow scholars’ eyes or gave them a deeper understanding about an issue that inspired them to take action. Many thanks to everyone who contributed. We hope you are able to find one (or more!) title that will help enlighten you on these important issues.
Credit for idea: Jerry Mathes, 2004 Cooke Graduate Scholar & PEN America Writing for Justice Fellow.
So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo
In this book, Ijeoma Oluo clearly and concisely explains many important aspects of institutionalized racism. I was familiar with a lot of it, but it certainly expanded my understanding of some nuanced topics. What really stuck with me though was her personal stories. Through her narrative, she showed what people of color deal with and go through every day in the United States.
Recommender: Katie Johnson
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
This book brings to light the importance of social justice within healthcare and highlights the phenomenal contributions of one black woman to science and our current ability to culture human cells.
Recommender: Melissa Cunningham
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye is objectively well-written literature and beyond that, offers a swift introduction to the pervasive racism of America's history and present that maintains eerily well, despite being published 50 years ago. Though fictional, it has very real, very tangible perspectives on generational trauma, warped standards of beauty, and internalized racism. The novel frequently addresses situations of intersectional discrimination, namely the harm done unto Black women, and portrays a grueling journey into womanhood. Morrison focuses not on why certain destructive self-perceptions and adoptions of white culture by Black/African Americans occur, but rather, on how – which is equally important and perhaps the most formidable to dissect. It is a relatively quick read, reliant on experiences, but covers a multitude of extremely complex topics, and does so in a manner which mandates further research and self-education regarding social justice issues. The Bluest Eye is at times, awkward, uncomfortable, nightmarish, and frustrating to digest, but has so much for us to observe. Re-readings are heavily encouraged. (Major warning! This book contains instances of language that is pornographic and sexually violent in nature.)
Recommender: Michaela Zollicoffer
Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama
Obama’s first book and memoir offers his personal reflections on his global upbringing (born in Hawaii, raised in Indonesia, living and working in Chicago) and his journey to understanding his own Black identity. This memoir offers powerful insight to the early life of one of the greatest leaders of our time, and it challenges readers to think about race in a global context.
Recommender: Chelsea Hipwell
How To Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi
The book is extremely relevant to the current world that we live in, it also shows the negative side effects to neutrality which have led to perpetuated racism in society. Actual book description: “ A radical new way to think about racism and an inspiring treatise for what to do about it from the Winner of the National Book Award 2016 and founding Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center”.
Recommender: Homero Sosa Mendoza
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
This book offers a Native American Indian perspective on the history of the United States - American history is seen through the lens of the Native peoples who have been most impacted by it. Each chapter flows well into the next and the author has done a good job of covering a board range of events, people and topics. Often indigenous communities are overshadowed by other social justice causes. This books not only shows their history, but shows that they are still here, still fighting and still thriving despite centuries of oppression and neglect.
Recommender: Robert C. Piemme
Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance
Most social justice books focus on people of color, and this is of course understandably so. Hillbilly Elegy shows the difficulties a low-income white man faces in his own college and law school process and beyond, and offers non-conservatives a view into why Trump Republicans vote the way they do.
Recommender: Santiago Potes
Stamped from the Beginning, Ibram X. Kendi
This book is a very thorough account of American history through the lens of anti-Black racism. I won't lie -- it is a dense book. But for someone like me, I really appreciate the depth of research the author did to write this book, and it's a barrage of evidence to show that the legacy of slavery, colonialism, white supremacy, and genocide remain with us to this day.
Recommender: Grace Ha
A Brief History of Neoliberalism, David Harvey
In this widely cited work, Harvey elucidates the concept of neoliberalism, the current dominant ideology of our political economy. Harvey describes, in both a historical and political context, how this free market fundamentalist system came to be in the beginning of the 1970s, and how it has impacted our society since its inception and execution.
In the era of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been clear that the free markets do not represent the real economy. In the United States, during the worst months of recorded unemployment rate, the stock market has been booming. Why is there a collective delusion that the market is a proxy for the health of the economy, and is thus the bottom line metric that must be propped up at all costs? Harvey's book explains this in detail.
It is important to comprehend the motivations and goals of the ruling elites of our time. By understanding their implicit assumptions and strategy, as discussed in Harvey's text, we step closer to reasoning about the current model of the world and how we can offer an alternative to the mess we are in now.
Recommender: Rex Ledesma