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!
- Orientalism by Edward Said
We are lacking books on the East - and books with a focus on culture, too - so I greatly appreciate this suggestion!
- A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
We actually already have this book on the reading list, but thanks anyways.
- 90% of Chomsky’s work
Thanks! Do you have any suggestions? Otherwise I can just look into some of Chomsky’s work and see which books are most suited.
Che Guevara by Jon Lee Anderson - the best bio of Che that I’ve read, but it’s really, really long. Maybe just watch Motorcycle Diaries and Even The Rain (which is about modern and even liberal colonialism but not Che).
We only have two autobiographies (both on Malcolm X) and not many long-form books so thanks again. I was planning on adding books on the Cuban Revolution to the reading list so this book should help with that.
The Social Conquest of the Earth by EO Wilson. Wilson was the biologist who founded the field of sociobiology and who towards the end of his career came to the conclusion that its because humans exhibit the highest levels of cooperation (eusociality) that we’ve come to dominate the planet, for better and for worse.
Not sure about this one as it seems a bit out-of-range for the reading list, but I’ll look into it more.
The rest of the books are fine. Thanks for your recommendations!
