Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I always thought I’d get farther. I’d like to blame the world for what I’ve failed to do

The Woman Upstairs; Family Matters; The Library Book; The Blank Wall; The Summer before the Dark; Those Who Knew; Ways of Disappearing; White Fragility; Call them by their True Name; Harbor Me by Claire Messud; Rohinton Mistry; Susan Orlean; Elisabeth Sanxay Holding; Doris Lessing; Idra Novey; Robin Diangelo; Rebecca Solnit; Jacqueline Woodson

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The Woman Upstairs – 2/5 Stars I found this book because of a list listing “Famous angry women in books” or something. And it’s true that the lead character and narrator of this book is very angry. I was hoping she’d be angrier and less articulate about her anger in this book. What’s this book about? It’s about a woman in her early 40s who was an artist who is also an elementary school teacher. She becomes friends with the mom of one her students. […]

Everyone should read this book. Especially maybe your mom.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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I consider myself fairly (very) liberal and open-minded which for me includes having a broad understanding of issues in America today, including the prevalence and pervasiveness of racism as it relates to being black in America. Obviously as a white woman my experience is one dimensional, and I know that I cannot really understand what it is to walk in the shoes of a black person in America. This book though, this book. Wow. If anything can really show white people what it is like, […]

45: The most important book I’ve read this year.

Mothers of Massive Resistance by Elizabeth Gillespie McRae

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I really am not exaggerating when I make this proclamation: Mothers of Massive Resistance may be the most crucial book I have read this year. I am not joking, I swear. As a white woman, I have been working diligently to do my part in activism, namely, owning up to the ways in which white women have participated in the oppression and suppression of women of color. It’s unglamorous, introspective, and uncomfortable work, but it’s one of the most vital things I can do to […]

A Short History of White Women’s Complicity

Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy by Elizabeth Gillespie McRae

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In Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy, historian Elizabeth Gillespie McRae makes a strong argument for white women’s vital role in protecting and perpetuating white supremacy and thwarting integration in the US. One hundred years ago, woman began to organize in ways that we would recognize from today’s resistance movements. They developed grassroots campaigns reaching out to other women and encouraging them to organize, to write letters, to publish, to speak up and to vote. They did this, however, […]

If only we could get back to those eight years

We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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“Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.” (123) I first discovered Ta-Nehisi Coates when a friend of mine recommended The Beautiful Struggle back in 2009. Since then, I’ve kept my eyes out for Coates, whether he’s speaking on The Daily Show, or writing a new book. When I noticed his latest book, We Were Eight Years in Power (2017), I immediately got on the wait list at the library. As a side note, I was a little […]

Practical Advice That We Need Now

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

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Best for: Everyone interested in combating white supremacy. In a nutshell: Author Ijeoma Oluo offers practical advice for ways to engage in conversations — and actions — to combat systemic racism. Worth quoting: SO MUCH. But some of my favorites include: “White Supremacy is this nation’s oldest pyramid scheme. Even those how have lost everything to the scheme are still hanging in there, waiting for their turn to cash out.” “I think about every black and brown person, every queer person, every disabled person, who […]



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