Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Thinking On It

How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

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This isn’t going to be a conventional review because it’s a book I’m going to be processing for a while. Some background info: I’m a cishet white guy. Aside from economics, I’m at the top of any privilege chart (and being middle class in the States, I’m pretty high up there too). I’ve done some reading, most of it theologically based, on racism, antiracism, and specifically the black experience in the States. I’m maybe more well versed than most people who share my skin color. […]

A necessary book for white progressives interested in getting a primer on race

White fragility by Robin Diangelo

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There have been a lot of comments about this book on this site and references to it in reviewing other books, but surprisingly no actual review! So here we go. I was originally attracted to this book as a way of understanding white people. To be clear, I am white. But as a Jew, an immigrant, and a person raised in relative poverty, I’ve never felt the sense of implicit belonging Diangelo speaks about. I spend a lot of time thinking about race and racism […]

Please Stop Profiting Off Black Women’s Ideas

Rage Baking: The Transformative Power of Flour, Fury, and Women's Voices by Katherine Alford, Kathy Gunst

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If Rage Baking is a movement, it’s one that was initially catalyzed by my physical and emotional labor in a major city and in an influential group of people. It is one that was started with the simple act of being kind and encouraging in the darkest of times. I am not at all surprised that my kindness has been overshadowed by the actions of well-intended white women. That my rage and pain has been claimed as their own and their voices centered, uplifted and […]

Getting Myself Ready for Stamped from the Beginning

How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi

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This review begins with a story. So more than two years ago, I heard Ibram X. Kendi talking on NPR about his book, Stamped from the Beginning, and I knew immediately that I wanted to read it.   About six months later I bought it but it has been sitting on my to-read pile ever since—mainly because it’s a bit intimidating at 608 pages with extremely small type, but also my to-read pile is large. Flash forward to late last summer and I heard Kendi on […]

Not Just Problems, But Solutions.

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

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This has been on my radar since I first read ASKReviews’ great review in the best/worst of CBR10 post. Now that I have finally read it, I can say that I should have done that sooner. I don’t know that any book examines racism and its facets as clearly and concisely as this one does it, while also effortlessly uncovering one’s own biases and prejudices. First of all, the author discusses the definition of racism that should be used, and it is one of institutional […]

Everyone should read this

How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

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Disclaimer: I received an ARC via Netgalley.   Shortly after I finished this book, I put a quote from it up on the board in my classroom. At one point, Kendi argues that white supremacy is also anti-white and a form of genocide on whites. This is in addition to the attacks on non-whites. The interesting thing is that the black students (I use black because not all of the students are American citizens) were all nodding their heads, and the white students were all […]



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