Ethnic groups and multicultural studies Books

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Book Synopsis?Those looking to move beyond performative allyship will find this an excellent resource.? ?Publishers Weekly"Well-informed, hard-hitting advice for antiracists.? ?Kirkus ReviewsWhat if there were a set of rules to educate people against race-based social faux pas that damage relationships, perpetuate racist stereotypes, and harm people of color? This book provides just that in an effort to slow the malignant domino effect of race-based ignorance in American communities and workplaces to help address the vestiges of our nation?s racist past.Race Rules is an innovative, practical manual for white people of the unwritten rules relating to race, explaining the unvarnished truth about racist and offensive white behaviors. It offers a unique lens from Fatimah Gilliam, a light-skinned Black woman, and is informed by the revealing things white people say when they don''t realize she''s Black.Presented as a series of race rules, this book has each chapter tackling a specific topic many people of color wish white people understood. Combining history and explanations with practical advice, it goes beyond the theoretical by focusing on what''s implementable.Gilliam addresses issues such as: Racial blinders and misperceptions White privilege Racial stereotypes Everyday choices and behaviors that cause racial harm Introducing a straightforward universal three-step framework to unlearn racism and challenge misconceptions, this book offers readers a chance to change behaviors and shift mindsets to better navigate cross-racial interactions and relationships. Through its race etiquette guidelines, it teaches white people to become action-oriented racism disruptors instead of silent, complicit supporters of white supremacy.

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Book SynopsisWorld-renowned hip-hop artist Jason “Timbuktu” Diakité’s vivid and intimate journey through his own and his family’s history—from South Carolina slavery to twenty-first-century Sweden. Born to interracial American parents in Sweden, Jason Diakité grew up between worlds—part Swedish, American, black, white, Cherokee, Slovak, and German, riding a delicate cultural and racial divide. It was a no-man’s-land that left him in constant search of self. Even after his hip-hop career took off, Jason fought to unify a complex system of family roots that branched across continents, ethnicities, classes, colors, and eras to find a sense of belonging. In A Drop of Midnight, Jason draws on conversations with his parents, personal experiences, long-lost letters, and pilgrimages to South Carolina and New York to paint a vivid picture of race, discrimination, family, and ambition. His ancestors’ origins as slaves in the antebellum South, his parents’ struggles as an interracial couple, and his own world-expanding connection to hip-hop helped him fashion a strong black identity in Sweden. What unfolds in Jason’s remarkable voyage of discovery is a complex and unflinching look at not only his own history but also that of generations affected by the trauma of the African diaspora, then and now.Trade ReviewOne of TranslatedLit.com’s Most Anticipated Books of 2020 “His writing has an ethereal, questioning quality, in sync with his background…the author’s prose is often nimble and observant, sharply considering the burdens surrounding race and masculinity. A vibrant, thoughtful memoir reflecting contemporary black cultural concerns.” —Kirkus Reviews “This touching exploration of race and heritage is incisive, heartbreaking, and heartwarming.” —Library Journal “Diakité smooths out the conflicting complications of his heritage and upbringing to create a positive form of complexity.” —Booklist

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Book SynopsisRacial identity, pop culture, and delusions of perfection collide in an eye-opening and refreshingly frank memoir by fashion and beauty insider Danielle Prescod.Danielle Prescod grew up Black in an elite and overwhelmingly white community, her identity made more invisible by the whitewashed movies, television, magazines, and books she and her classmates voraciously consumed. Danielle took her cue from the world around her and aspired to shrink her identity into that box, setting increasingly poisonous goals. She started painful and damaging chemical hair treatments in elementary school, began depriving herself of food when puberty hit, and tried to control her image through the most unimpeachable, impeccable fashion choices.Those obsessions led her to relentlessly pursue a career in beauty and fashion—the eye of the racist and sexist beauty standard storm. Assimilating was hard, but she was practiced. And she was an asset. Their “Token Black Girl.” Toxic, sure. But Danielle was striving to achieve social cache and working her way up the ladder of coveted media jobs, and she looked great, right? So what if she had to endure executives’ questions like “What was it like to drive to school from the ghetto?” Or coworkers’ eager curiosity to know if her parents were on welfare. But after decades of burying her emotions, resentment, and true self, Danielle turned a critical eye inward and confronted the factors that motivated her self-destructive behaviors.Sharp witted and bracingly candid, Token Black Girl unpacks the adverse effects of insidious white supremacy in the media—both unconscious and strategic—to tell a personal story about recovery from damaging concepts of perfection, celebrating identity, and demolishing social conditioning.

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Book SynopsisRacial identity, pop culture, and delusions of perfection collide in an eye-opening and refreshingly frank memoir by fashion and beauty insider Danielle Prescod.Danielle Prescod grew up Black in an elite and overwhelmingly white community, her identity made more invisible by the whitewashed movies, television, magazines, and books she and her classmates voraciously consumed. Danielle took her cue from the world around her and aspired to shrink her identity into that box, setting increasingly poisonous goals. She started painful and damaging chemical hair treatments in elementary school, began depriving herself of food when puberty hit, and tried to control her image through the most unimpeachable, impeccable fashion choices.Those obsessions led her to relentlessly pursue a career in beauty and fashion—the eye of the racist and sexist beauty standard storm. Assimilating was hard, but she was practiced. And she was an asset. Their “Token Black Girl.” Toxic, sure. But Danielle was striving to achieve social cache and working her way up the ladder of coveted media jobs, and she looked great, right? So what if she had to endure executives’ questions like “What was it like to drive to school from the ghetto?” Or coworkers’ eager curiosity to know if her parents were on welfare. But after decades of burying her emotions, resentment, and true self, Danielle turned a critical eye inward and confronted the factors that motivated her self-destructive behaviors.Sharp witted and bracingly candid, Token Black Girl unpacks the adverse effects of insidious white supremacy in the media—both unconscious and strategic—to tell a personal story about recovery from damaging concepts of perfection, celebrating identity, and demolishing social conditioning.

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Book SynopsisAn eloquent, restless, and enlightening memoir by one of the most thought-provoking journalists today about growing up Black and queer in America, reuniting with the past, and coming of age their own way. One of nineteen children in a blended family, Hari Ziyad was raised by a Hindu Hare Kṛṣṇa mother and a Muslim father. Through reframing their own coming-of-age story, Ziyad takes readers on a powerful journey of growing up queer and Black in Cleveland, Ohio, and of navigating the equally complex path toward finding their true self in New York City. Exploring childhood, gender, race, and the trust that is built, broken, and repaired through generations, Ziyad investigates what it means to live beyond the limited narratives Black children are given and challenges the irreconcilable binaries that restrict them. Heartwarming and heart-wrenching, radical and reflective, Hari Ziyad’s vital memoir is for the outcast, the unheard, the unborn, and the dead. It offers us a new way to think about survival and the necessary disruption of social norms. It looks back in tenderness as well as justified rage, forces us to address where we are now, and, born out of hope, illuminates the possibilities for the future.Trade ReviewAn Amazon Best Book of the Month: Biographies & Memoirs “In Black Boy Out of Time, Ziyad reflects on the longterm impacts of assimilating into a more normative society shaped by prison-based ideologies and how it left them with little understanding of who they were. Ziyad notes that Black people are refused access to childhood due to the punitive social conditioning that protects gender and class categories, and asserts that Black childhood can only be reclaimed through prison abolition.” —Black Youth Project “Although Ziyad writes explicitly as a Black writer with Black readers in mind, this extension of kindness in the place of opprobrium can be applied across cultures. They bring the same righteous energy in their writing about Black experience to the chapters on awakening to a queer identity. In the final sections, it’s heartening to find Ziyad committed to a loving relationship. With eloquence and compassion, the author examines ‘how to manage a serodiscordant relationship’—their fiancé is living with HIV, ‘a widely criminalized disease’—and how ‘to deal with the trauma from past sexual violence that refuses to stop rearing its hideous head from time to time.’ It’s an ongoing project, one that the author tackles with grace and insight via the act of writing…Ziyad successfully extracts the essence of being Black, queer, and full of tenderness.” —Kirkus Reviews “Racebaitr editor-in-chief Ziyad merges astute sociopolitical analysis with soul-baring honesty in their striking debut memoir…with its candidness and sharp prose that doggedly links the personal to the political, Ziyad’s tale is engrossing and necessary.” —Publishers Weekly “An unflinchingly honest assessment of the ways in which the lives and experiences of Black children are devalued. Recommended for readers interested in anti-racism.” —Library Journal “Amazon imprint Little A have been committed to publishing diverse voices since its inception and this coming-of-age memoir is no different…this is a compelling and moving account exploring childhood, gender, identity and race.” —Cosmopolitan UK “This moving memoir is about Ziyad’s experiences growing up Black and queer in America and explores what it’s like to reunite with the past and come of age in your own way.” —Cosmopolitan “In their debut memoir, Ziyad skillfully distills what it means to practice an abolitionist ethos, something more people seem interested in doing since the massive Black Lives Matter protests last summer and subsequent mainstreaming of abolitionist ideas…This is a book to move us forward, within and beyond the pandemic. There is going to be an after. If we want it to be better than the before, ideas and stories like Ziyad’s are crucial.” —Seattle Times “In Black Boy Out of Time, Hari Ziyad does something not many writers do: they fuse moving memoir with the complicated workings of carceral logics…Ziyad is a true literary creative and shines in book form as well…Interspersed with letters to their inner child, the book itself becomes a montage—of growing awareness, abolitionist practice, tenderness, and queer love.” —Shondaland “Black Boy Out of Time is grippingly personal and as tender as it is harrowing. Ziyad’s beautifully written, genre-bending work transcends the memoir form and intimately showcases what it means to be Black and queer in America today.” —Lambda Literary “Heartwarming and heart-wrenching, radical and reflective, Hari Ziyad’s vital memoir is for the outcast, the unheard, the unborn, and the dead. It offers us a new way to think about survival and the necessary disruption of social norms. It looks back in tenderness as well as justified rage, forces us to address where we are now, and, born out of hope, illuminates the possibilities for the future.” —Book Riot “The book tracks the limited set of choices Black children realize they have available in America, and the struggle to expand life choices beyond those limits.” —Jefferson Public Radio “Black Boy Out of Time explores childhood, gender, race, trust—both built and broken—and how those wounds can be repaired through generations. Ziyad reframes their own coming-of-age story and investigates what it means to live outside of the constrictive narratives Black children are born into.” —The Root “Their story is often painful, but it’s full of joy too, and it offers readers a new script for pushing beyond racial and gender binaries.” —Vogue “Hari Ziyad is one of those writers who transports you into the moments, the minutes, and the seconds of Black life in subtle and gentle ways that are rarely possible. Every word drips with a deep love and commitment to telling true and just stories about our nuanced Black queer lives. Black Boy Out of Time is so moving, so alive, so real. This book is a reclamation and celebration of Black childhood and coming-of-age in all its hidden beauty and pain. We need this memoir, and I’m so grateful Ziyad is here to write it.” —Jenn Jackson, Syracuse University professor and Teen Vogue columnist “Hari Ziyad consistently creates work that centers the voices and lives of the most marginalized members in our society. Not only is their work brilliant and insightful, but they challenge readers to examine themselves in a way very few writers can do. Alice Walker once wrote, ‘Those who love us never leave us alone with our grief. At the moment they show us our wound, they reveal they have the medicine.’ Ziyad’s words cut deep, but they also provide healing.” —Shanita Hubbard, author of Miseducation: A Woman’s Guide to Hip-Hop “Hari Ziyad is committed to recovering the unrecoverable—the seconds, the minutes, the hours of things shed and discarded as if there were no value to be found in what we were, even though it leads us to what we are. Ziyad is surgical in this pursuit, attempting to be as careful but incisive as possible so that memory does more than remember: it testifies. Like all of their previous writings, Black Boy Out of Time is tribute to and examination of the necessary, the overlooked, the irreconcilable, and the witnessing the world would much rather not do. Ziyad is both lightning rod and lightning bolt.” —Robert Jones Jr., author of The Prophets and creator of Son of Baldwin “Every generation has its defining writers, and Hari Ziyad is one of ours. Their writings force you to interrogate and challenge everything you thought you knew and to look at the wound you pretended wasn’t there, but they never leave you without the cure to finally heal the pain.” —George M. Johnson, bestselling author of All Boys Aren’t Blue and We Are Not Broken “Black ‘boys’ who never come of age, who are always already someone or something else, are at the heart of Hari Ziyad’s work. Ziyad writes with clarity, passion, care, and a deep love for all Black people—especially those of us who are constantly moving through and around gender. Black Boy Out of Time is a necessary read for Black queer boys and nonbinary people who can relate to finding themselves in a world designed to keep them lost.” —Da’Shaun Harrison, author of Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness “I often think about cultural work as before Hari Ziyad and after Hari Ziyad. I don’t know that there is another writer and cultural worker who has done more to make us intellectually, imaginatively, and bodily engage with the ways that traditional conceptions of gender, sexuality, Blackness, class, childhood, empire, and power necessarily mangle our relationships to each other. Hari’s work goes far beyond bombastic pull quotes or titillating essay titles. In their hands, we see language being cared for, carved up, and absolutely dismantled. More than anything, Hari’s art insists that we ask not simply the hard questions, but the unintelligible questions we’ve convinced ourselves have no answers. In their work, I understand that pointed questions rooted in a love of Black queer folk must be part of our liberation. They have changed the way people write, think, and love one another on and off the internet.” —Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy, Long Division, and How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America “Hari Ziyad’s incisive writing is a rare mix of balladry, criticism, and reportage. They write of the times with clarity and courage. They appeal to truth and beauty. And in so doing offer us Black-loving art that is both shotgun and balm.” —Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America “Hari Ziyad’s work is the cohesion of all their interests in the so-called marginalized into a single force that illuminates just how central to freedom communities that are abused and underestimated by this society truly are. If the margins are said to be the dwelling place of Ziyad’s subjectivity, then they see their job as showing how the ones in the margins are also the ones who ensure Earth keeps spinning. Through their eyes, the disfigured, the queer, and the riotous are given life, a stage, a platform, and an embrace.” —Phillip B. Williams, author of Thief in the Interior, winner of the 2017 Whiting Award, Kate Tufts Award, and Lambda Literary Award “Alongside James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, Darnell L. Moore and Danez Smith, Hari Ziyad’s work fits in as an exciting new entry in the canon of queer Black American literature. At the same time, Ziyad’s writing stands out as a stunningly original voice, and they tackle race and gender in ways writers of all races seem to find too hot to touch. Yet as challenging as Ziyad’s ideas are, they are not inaccessible. Though Ziyad writes explicitly as a Black writer with Black readers in mind (and Black children at the heart of their work), white people are always asking me about their provocative stories. Ziyad stirs impassioned debates and strong reactions from both those people I know who have been following their work for years and those who are encountering it for the first time.” —Steven W. Thrasher, Northwestern University professor and author of The Viral Underclass: How Racism, Ableism, and Capitalism Plague Humans on the Margins “Hari Ziyad is a new and important voice narrating for readers both the trauma experienced by Black people and their struggle for liberation. Throughout this text, Ziyad pulls back the curtain and interrogates how anti-Black racism manifests not only in the structures Black people encounter but also in our interactions between each other. Beyond providing texture to the hurt that, too often, animates Blackness, Ziyad’s book details for the reader the possibilities and directions of Black freedom and healing today, and it explores how we must protect Black children from a perpetual cycle of trauma. Ziyad’s book will add nuance and depth to current renderings of what it is to be Black and queer and what type of personal/political liberation is possible.” —Cathy J. Cohen, author of The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics and Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and the Future of American Politics

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Book SynopsisAn eloquent, restless, and enlightening memoir by one of the most thought-provoking journalists today about growing up Black and queer in America, reuniting with the past, and coming of age their own way. One of nineteen children in a blended family, Hari Ziyad was raised by a Hindu Hare Kṛṣṇa mother and a Muslim father. Through reframing their own coming-of-age story, Ziyad takes readers on a powerful journey of growing up queer and Black in Cleveland, Ohio, and of navigating the equally complex path toward finding their true self in New York City. Exploring childhood, gender, race, and the trust that is built, broken, and repaired through generations, Ziyad investigates what it means to live beyond the limited narratives Black children are given and challenges the irreconcilable binaries that restrict them. Heartwarming and heart-wrenching, radical and reflective, Hari Ziyad’s vital memoir is for the outcast, the unheard, the unborn, and the dead. It offers us a new way to think about survival and the necessary disruption of social norms. It looks back in tenderness as well as justified rage, forces us to address where we are now, and, born out of hope, illuminates the possibilities for the future.Trade ReviewAn Amazon Best Book of the Month: Biographies & Memoirs “In Black Boy Out of Time, Ziyad reflects on the longterm impacts of assimilating into a more normative society shaped by prison-based ideologies and how it left them with little understanding of who they were. Ziyad notes that Black people are refused access to childhood due to the punitive social conditioning that protects gender and class categories, and asserts that Black childhood can only be reclaimed through prison abolition.” —Black Youth Project “Although Ziyad writes explicitly as a Black writer with Black readers in mind, this extension of kindness in the place of opprobrium can be applied across cultures. They bring the same righteous energy in their writing about Black experience to the chapters on awakening to a queer identity. In the final sections, it’s heartening to find Ziyad committed to a loving relationship. With eloquence and compassion, the author examines ‘how to manage a serodiscordant relationship’—their fiancé is living with HIV, ‘a widely criminalized disease’—and how ‘to deal with the trauma from past sexual violence that refuses to stop rearing its hideous head from time to time.’ It’s an ongoing project, one that the author tackles with grace and insight via the act of writing…Ziyad successfully extracts the essence of being Black, queer, and full of tenderness.” —Kirkus Reviews “Racebaitr editor-in-chief Ziyad merges astute sociopolitical analysis with soul-baring honesty in their striking debut memoir…with its candidness and sharp prose that doggedly links the personal to the political, Ziyad’s tale is engrossing and necessary.” —Publishers Weekly “An unflinchingly honest assessment of the ways in which the lives and experiences of Black children are devalued. Recommended for readers interested in anti-racism.” —Library Journal “Amazon imprint Little A have been committed to publishing diverse voices since its inception and this coming-of-age memoir is no different…this is a compelling and moving account exploring childhood, gender, identity and race.” —Cosmopolitan UK “This moving memoir is about Ziyad’s experiences growing up Black and queer in America and explores what it’s like to reunite with the past and come of age in your own way.” —Cosmopolitan “In their debut memoir, Ziyad skillfully distills what it means to practice an abolitionist ethos, something more people seem interested in doing since the massive Black Lives Matter protests last summer and subsequent mainstreaming of abolitionist ideas…This is a book to move us forward, within and beyond the pandemic. There is going to be an after. If we want it to be better than the before, ideas and stories like Ziyad’s are crucial.” —Seattle Times “In Black Boy Out of Time, Hari Ziyad does something not many writers do: they fuse moving memoir with the complicated workings of carceral logics…Ziyad is a true literary creative and shines in book form as well…Interspersed with letters to their inner child, the book itself becomes a montage—of growing awareness, abolitionist practice, tenderness, and queer love.” —Shondaland “Black Boy Out of Time is grippingly personal and as tender as it is harrowing. Ziyad’s beautifully written, genre-bending work transcends the memoir form and intimately showcases what it means to be Black and queer in America today.” —Lambda Literary “Heartwarming and heart-wrenching, radical and reflective, Hari Ziyad’s vital memoir is for the outcast, the unheard, the unborn, and the dead. It offers us a new way to think about survival and the necessary disruption of social norms. It looks back in tenderness as well as justified rage, forces us to address where we are now, and, born out of hope, illuminates the possibilities for the future.” —Book Riot “The book tracks the limited set of choices Black children realize they have available in America, and the struggle to expand life choices beyond those limits.” —Jefferson Public Radio “Black Boy Out of Time explores childhood, gender, race, trust—both built and broken—and how those wounds can be repaired through generations. Ziyad reframes their own coming-of-age story and investigates what it means to live outside of the constrictive narratives Black children are born into.” —The Root “Their story is often painful, but it’s full of joy too, and it offers readers a new script for pushing beyond racial and gender binaries.” —Vogue “Black Boy Out of Time tells Ziyad’s story, also connecting moments in the author’s life to Ziyad’s research and reckoning with topics like misafropedia (a societal contempt for Black children) and carceral dissonance (existing as a Black person in an anti-Black, prison-based culture). The book hones in on ideas like prison abolition and racial disparities in healthcare…In the memoir, Ziyad manages to connect the dots between their own life to bigger topics around social justice.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer “Ziyad writes with a clarity and a strength beyond any memoir in recent memory, interweaving writing on abolition and carcerality with a stirring series of letters to their younger self as part of their inner-child work…in their memoir, Ziyad dials back the clock and turns inward. Peeling away the restraints, they reveal a wealth of truths around the necessity of Black liberation to the Black child and to the adult they will variably become if given the grace to grow freely.” —POPSUGAR “The joy of Black Boy Out of Time is in the unconditional love it emanates for all Black people and how it attends to the experiences of Black kids. It’s in its utter dedication to freer, more daring Black futures; in its imagination…Black Boy Out of Time is just profoundly great, to the point that the best this reviewer can do is to ask you to read it and know it for yourself.” —POPSUGAR “The memoir gets to the heart of larger-scale issues that might otherwise feel too abstract by tying them to personal stories that can grip the reader. It carefully yet passionately examines America’s complicated attitudes towards race, sexuality, and gender.” —The Gay & Lesbian Review “Hari Ziyad is one of those writers who transports you into the moments, the minutes, and the seconds of Black life in subtle and gentle ways that are rarely possible. Every word drips with a deep love and commitment to telling true and just stories about our nuanced Black queer lives. Black Boy Out of Time is so moving, so alive, so real. This book is a reclamation and celebration of Black childhood and coming-of-age in all its hidden beauty and pain. We need this memoir, and I’m so grateful Ziyad is here to write it.” —Jenn Jackson, Syracuse University professor and Teen Vogue columnist “Hari Ziyad consistently creates work that centers the voices and lives of the most marginalized members in our society. Not only is their work brilliant and insightful, but they challenge readers to examine themselves in a way very few writers can do. Alice Walker once wrote, ‘Those who love us never leave us alone with our grief. At the moment they show us our wound, they reveal they have the medicine.’ Ziyad’s words cut deep, but they also provide healing.” —Shanita Hubbard, author of Miseducation: A Woman’s Guide to Hip-Hop “Hari Ziyad is committed to recovering the unrecoverable—the seconds, the minutes, the hours of things shed and discarded as if there were no value to be found in what we were, even though it leads us to what we are. Ziyad is surgical in this pursuit, attempting to be as careful but incisive as possible so that memory does more than remember: it testifies. Like all of their previous writings, Black Boy Out of Time is tribute to and examination of the necessary, the overlooked, the irreconcilable, and the witnessing the world would much rather not do. Ziyad is both lightning rod and lightning bolt.” —Robert Jones Jr., author of The Prophets and creator of Son of Baldwin “Every generation has its defining writers, and Hari Ziyad is one of ours. Their writings force you to interrogate and challenge everything you thought you knew and to look at the wound you pretended wasn’t there, but they never leave you without the cure to finally heal the pain.” —George M. Johnson, bestselling author of All Boys Aren’t Blue and We Are Not Broken “Black ‘boys’ who never come of age, who are always already someone or something else, are at the heart of Hari Ziyad’s work. Ziyad writes with clarity, passion, care, and a deep love for all Black people—especially those of us who are constantly moving through and around gender. Black Boy Out of Time is a necessary read for Black queer boys and nonbinary people who can relate to finding themselves in a world designed to keep them lost.” —Da’Shaun Harrison, author of Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness “I often think about cultural work as before Hari Ziyad and after Hari Ziyad. I don’t know that there is another writer and cultural worker who has done more to make us intellectually, imaginatively, and bodily engage with the ways that traditional conceptions of gender, sexuality, Blackness, class, childhood, empire, and power necessarily mangle our relationships to each other. Hari’s work goes far beyond bombastic pull quotes or titillating essay titles. In their hands, we see language being cared for, carved up, and absolutely dismantled. More than anything, Hari’s art insists that we ask not simply the hard questions, but the unintelligible questions we’ve convinced ourselves have no answers. In their work, I understand that pointed questions rooted in a love of Black queer folk must be part of our liberation. They have changed the way people write, think, and love one another on and off the internet.” —Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy, Long Division, and How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America “Hari Ziyad’s incisive writing is a rare mix of balladry, criticism, and reportage. They write of the times with clarity and courage. They appeal to truth and beauty. And in so doing offer us Black-loving art that is both shotgun and balm.” —Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America “Hari Ziyad’s work is the cohesion of all their interests in the so-called marginalized into a single force that illuminates just how central to freedom communities that are abused and underestimated by this society truly are. If the margins are said to be the dwelling place of Ziyad’s subjectivity, then they see their job as showing how the ones in the margins are also the ones who ensure Earth keeps spinning. Through their eyes, the disfigured, the queer, and the riotous are given life, a stage, a platform, and an embrace.” —Phillip B. Williams, author of Thief in the Interior, winner of the 2017 Whiting Award, Kate Tufts Award, and Lambda Literary Award “Alongside James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, Darnell L. Moore and Danez Smith, Hari Ziyad’s work fits in as an exciting new entry in the canon of queer Black American literature. At the same time, Ziyad’s writing stands out as a stunningly original voice, and they tackle race and gender in ways writers of all races seem to find too hot to touch. Yet as challenging as Ziyad’s ideas are, they are not inaccessible. Though Ziyad writes explicitly as a Black writer with Black readers in mind (and Black children at the heart of their work), white people are always asking me about their provocative stories. Ziyad stirs impassioned debates and strong reactions from both those people I know who have been following their work for years and those who are encountering it for the first time.” —Steven W. Thrasher, Northwestern University professor and author of The Viral Underclass: How Racism, Ableism, and Capitalism Plague Humans on the Margins “Hari Ziyad is a new and important voice narrating for readers both the trauma experienced by Black people and their struggle for liberation. Throughout this text, Ziyad pulls back the curtain and interrogates how anti-Black racism manifests not only in the structures Black people encounter but also in our interactions between each other. Beyond providing texture to the hurt that, too often, animates Blackness, Ziyad’s book details for the reader the possibilities and directions of Black freedom and healing today, and it explores how we must protect Black children from a perpetual cycle of trauma. Ziyad’s book will add nuance and depth to current renderings of what it is to be Black and queer and what type of personal/political liberation is possible.” —Cathy J. Cohen, author of The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics and Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and the Future of American Politics

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Book SynopsisLewiston, a mill town of about thirty-six thousand people, is the second-largest city in Maine. It is also home to some three thousand Somali refugees. After initially being resettled in larger cities elsewhere, Somalis began to arrive in Lewiston by the dozens, then the hundreds, after hearing stories of Maine’s attractions through family networks. Today, cross-cultural interactions are reshaping the identities of Somalis—and adding new chapters to the immigrant history of Maine.   Somalis in Maine offers a kaleidoscope of voices that situate the story of Somalis’ migration to Lewiston within a larger cultural narrative. Combining academic analysis with refugees’ personal stories, this anthology includes reflections on leaving Somalia, the experiences of Somali youth in U.S. schools, the reasons for Somali secondary migration to Lewiston, the employment of many Lewiston Somalis at Maine icon L. L. Bean, and community dialogues with white Mainers. Somalis in Maine seeks to counter stereotypes of refugees as being socially dependent and unable to assimilate, to convey the richness and diversity of Somali culture, and to contribute to a greater understanding of the intertwined futures of Somalis and Americans.

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Book SynopsisAn emotional, page-turning account of unhealed trauma and personal transformation that will break your heart and change your mind, in the tradition of Somebody's Daughter, A Piece of Cake, and Jesmyn Ward's Men We ReapedRiveting, honest, and raw, I Can Take It From Here recounts Lisa Forbes's harrowing journey into darkness — including a fourteen-year-long stint in a maximum-security prison — and her fierce resolve to understand the effects of the trauma she endured, to take personal responsibility for her actions, and to ensure that her history does not dictate her destiny.The youngest of six children, Lisa grew up in a Chicago housing project where she endured sexual, religious, and emotional abuse as a little girl. A voracious reader, she graduated high school at 15 and went to work as a secretary in a downtown insurance office, became pregnant at 16 and, at 19, unexpectedly and uncharacteristically committed a violent act, stabbing and killing the father of her daughter. Providing powerful insights into what we as a society need to learn and confront in the ongoing epidemic of mass re-incarceration, Lisa is a stunning example of an individual who through determination, knowledge, and hard work has been able to reclaim her own life.The book ends with Lisa's rousing call to action to support the people—as well as the shorthanded employers—who need the help, and need each other, more than ever.

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Book SynopsisFINALIST - Governor General's Literary Award for NonfictionWINNER - 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writers Prizes for Nonfiction FINALIST - Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for NonfictionAn unforgettable coming-of-age memoir about a Black boy adopted into a white, Christian fundamentalist familyPerfect for fans of Educated, Punch Me Up to the Gods, and Surviving the White Gaze“An affecting portrait of life inside the twin prisons of racism and unbending orthodoxy.”  --Kirkus ReviewsA powerful, experiential journey from white cult to Black consciousness: Harrison Mooney’s riveting story of self-discovery lifts the curtain on the trauma of transracial adoption and the internalized antiblackness at the heart of the white evangelical Christian movement.Inspired by Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man the same way Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me was inspired by James Baldwin, Harrison Mooney’s debut memoir will captivate readers with his powerful gift for storytelling, his keen eye for insight and observation, and his wry sense of humor.As an adopted and homeschooled Black boy with ADHD at white fundamentalist Christian churches and tent revivals, Mooney was raised amid a swirl of conflicting and confusing messages and beliefs. Within that radical and racist right-wing bubble along the U.S. border in Canada's Bible Belt, Harrison was desperate to belong and to be visible to those around him.But before ultimately finding his own path, Harrison must first come to understand that the forces at work in his life were not supernatural, but the same trauma and systemic violence that has terrorized Black families for generations. Reconnecting with his birth mother--and understanding her journey--leads Harrison to a new connection with himself: the eyes looking down were my true mother’s eyes, and the face was my true mother’s face, and for the first time in my life, I saw that I was beautiful.

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Book Synopsis★ Publishers Weekly starred review "A superior volume on Christian antiracism."--Publishers Weekly Racism is omnipresent in American life, both public and private. We are immersed in what prominent faith leader Willie Dwayne Francois III calls white noise--the racist speech, ideas, and policies that lull us into inaction on racial justice. White noise masks racial realities and prevents constructive responses to microaggressions, structural inequality, and overt interpersonal racism. In this book, Francois calls people of all racial backgrounds to take up practices that overcome silence and inaction on race and that advance racial repair. Drawing from his anti-racism curriculum, the Public Love Organizing and Training (PLOT) Project, Francois encourages us to move from a "colorblind" stance of mythic innocence to one that takes an honest account of our national history and acknowledges our complicity in racism as a prelude to anti-racist interventions. Weaving together personal narrative, theology, and history, this book invites us to engage 6 "rhythms of reparative intercession." These are six practices of anti-racism that aim to repair harm by speaking up and "acting up" on behalf of others. Silencing White Noise offers concrete ways to help people wrest free from the dangers of racism and to develop lifelong Christian anti-racist practices.Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Why We Are Lulled to Racial Inaction1. Cues to Color: Embracing Difference as GiftWhite Noise: "I don't see color. We are all the same in Christ."2. Momentum to Encounter: Confronting the Histories of WhitenessWhite Noise: "It's not my fault. Slavery was so long ago. Get over it."3. Pattern Recognition: Honoring Our InterdependenceWhite Noise: "I've had it hard too, but I worked hard."4. Syncopated Identity: Exploring Our Fuller SelvesWhite Noise: "Why does everything have to be about race?"5. Pulse to Risk: Sacrificing Our Power and PrivilegeWhite Noise: "It's not my job to fix racism."6. Downbeat Truth: Naming Our Complicity with RacismWhite Noise: "I'm scared of the backlash."Conclusion: Invent Hope Every Day

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Book SynopsisAspiring business owners and executives seeking to climb to the next rung, young to mid-career professionals seeking tools for life achievement, and general readers interested in biographies of successful people will like Larry Thornton’s "Why Not Win?". The book is a front-row seat to how one man altered his thinking to transform his life. The book begins with his growing up with brown skin in the 1960s in segregated Montgomery, Alabama. A desegregation school pioneer, Thornton was a classroom failure until a perceptive English teacher showed him he had value and encouraged him to go to college. Like the educator who changed his life, Thornton became a classroom teacher. But budget cuts took his job, and he decided to rewrite his story using his artistic talent. Thornton’s artistry and work ethic got him attention at Coca-Cola, both for the good and the bad. He had to figure out a way to navigate this new world, where higher-ups praised him but co-workers reminded him of his "blackness" by drawing a noose in his workstation. He persevered by learning to appreciate and embrace diversity, people resources, and conflicting opinions. While his success grew at Coca-Cola, Thornton did the unthinkable: set out to be the first African American to own a McDonald’s franchise in Birmingham. This thorny journey was peppered with threats, attempts to thwart his mission and a marriage he could not keep from falling apart. He absorbed the "try, try and try again" motto, and came to see that failure was a prelude to feasting upon the sweet fruit of success. Thornton’s own mother never had a checking account, but years after her passing he found himself on the board of directors for a major financial institution. He slowly became a part of a small fraternity of captains of industry and fought past guilt and insecurity to pave the way for others who look like him to join him at the table. Trying to fit into this new world, he learned that "Thank you," "Please," and "Excuse me" are perhaps three of the most powerful phrases in communication. Thornton made up his mind that he would spend each day on a mission to show his unbending gratitude for his life and its benefits by fostering a supreme attitude and maintaining consistency in vision, purpose, and an unwavering commitment to principles. Thornton’s journey from Madison Park, Montgomery, has been a long one. "Why Not Win?" reflects on his most useful lessons and the anecdotes associated with them. If he were a Zen monk, his koan might well be: "Plan your past." By that he means, think ahead one day, one week, one year, even twenty years out, and decide today your desired outcome, and work for it. "Thank God for memories," he says; "Let’s plan to make them pleasant ones.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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