Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Bondage

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness by Michelle Alexander

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I feel like I’m the last person in my circle to have not read Michelle Alexander’s landmark work The New Jim Crow. It’s one of those books I’d always meant to get to but never had the chance. I borrowed it from someone in my family over a year ago and since I’m going to see them this weekend, I figured there’s no better excuse than that to finally read it. I’ve heard a lot of arguments adjacent to it in favor of ending the drug war […]

A must read.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

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“We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others. The closer we get to mass incarceration and extreme levels of punishment, the more I believe it’s necessary to recognize that we all need mercy, we all […]

“The nature of the criminal justice system has changed. It is no longer primarily concerned with the prevention and punishment of crime, but rather with the management and control of the dispossessed.”

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

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I wouldn’t make this your first anti-racism read, but it’s a must-read after you have some basis of the history of Black people and anti-Black racism in America. Two books I read previous to this one were particularly helpful: Stamped from the Beginning, a comprehensive history of anti-Black racism in America (and, by extension, Black history), and Locking Up Our Own, which has an interesting perspective on the War on Drugs, the justice system, and the history of mandatory minimum sentencing. If you just want […]

cbr12bingo – UnCannon

Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg

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Jordy Rosenberg is a transgender writer and scholar. He teaches 18th century literature and queer/transgender theory. He is clever as all get out, well-researched, funny, and overflowing with empathy- all of these things brought into vivid color in his debut novel, Confessions of the Fox. I’ve selected “UnCannon” for this Bingo Square- but it was close call between UnCannon, Debut, Violet, and Pandemic (plague ships ahoy). I also almost gave it an “I Wish”, because good gravy, do I wish I could sit in on any […]

Been Here The Whole Time

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis

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If you look at a bestseller list at this particular moment, it’s stacked top-to-bottom with black writers and white antiracist educators. That’s good, it shows that white Americans want to learn how to identify their racism and eradicate it. However, I’ve heard from multiple black people and other antiracist educators some frustration that Angela Davis’ work hasn’t been centered more. Most of the books purchased have come out in the last few years, while Dr. Davis has been doing antiracism work for five decades. Her […]

A Bit Late to the Party on This One, But Still Relevant

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

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I have had this book on my iPad forever! Seriously, I think I downloaded it before 13th, the Netflix documentary, was even a development idea. I watched 13th last year, and yet it didn’t spur me to pick this up, but after reading The Hate U Give, this felt like a fitting follow up. I remember being very impressed by 13th, but the nice thing about reading this, is that it really gave me the chance to absorb and contemplate everything, rather than being hit […]



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