Books
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Mwen damou pou Vava – a story
I could hear this young kid narrating this story. “My friends, you know me, and you know I wouldn’t tell you stories. But one day I met a girl—or maybe I just saw a girl—and I’ve not been able to remember what life was like before she existed.”
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REVIEW: Anxious to Talk About It
You will not find this to be the “answer book.” It’s not designed for that. This is a book that invites us to join in the community, in the discussion, in the journey.
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REVIEW: Subversive Witness: Scripture’s Call to Leverage Privilege
The book’s subtitle hints at what’s to come: we are all granted some level of privilege in life that others do have; those who have the most privilege are called to use that privilege
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REVIEW: Good White Racist?
As your friend, I need to tell you something about myself that I also see in you, and it’s something that’s bringing harm to people.
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REVIEW: Urban Apologetics
This is a solid book and a solid resource for any Christian, but it is focused on the needs of the Black Christian in today’s America.
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REVIEW: How to Fight Racism
Working to bring our fellow human beings up to their full dignity as people who are endowed with full human, civil rights is a good thing for all of us,
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Review: When They Call You a Terrorist
Yet another reminder of James Baldwin’s words* “If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele, is a deep book, y’all, and it is not a philosophical treatise of the meaning and purpose of “Black Lives Matter” as something that is plopped down into life, shoving aside other things, just one of many interests in the black community. This is the story of one person growing up–and growing up–to see the world around her with an acute eye as to its hostility to her and her…
- #WakingUpWhite, Books, Celebrate Recovery, challenges, history, justice, Life Recovery Skills, racism
If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see
James Baldwin* said this, I’m told: “If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” I can’t find the source of this quote, but it is widely attributed to him, and as I see no one protesting that these are not his words, I’m gonna go with it. Which leads me to the main purpose of this post: to introduce you to a new project I’ll be undertaking with a few friends, a journey to read the book “Waking Up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race,” by Debby Irving. I’ve not read this before, so the plan is for each…
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The Color of Compromise—A Review
This is perhaps one of the most accessible, clear, and gentle book you might read about the history of, and acceptance of, white supremacy and black abasement of the American nation and in the American church. Tisby is an historian and does not shave meaning or impact by using soft words. When you read this, you understand what he is saying, directly: racism in the American church was, and is, a deliberate choice. Nothing that has happened so far had to happen. But the good news is that our American nation and our American church can be changed by the actions of interested and committed people. I would expect that…
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A Review of “Bearfish: An Almost-History of Southern Livestock”
Wildly audacious and entertaining, and deeply disappointing I would give it five stars for its entertainment and creativity, and one star for its unsatisfying delivery. I truly loved the beginning of this book, which is the alternate history of the United States wherein a President Taft signs a bill to import hippopotamuses from Africa to the southern United States as a way to solve a problem with the food supply prior to WWII. The alternate part here is that the U.S. came very close to doing just this; the bill actually failed by just one vote. What would happen if hippopotamuses were imported and, more importantly, naturalized and became a…
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A Review of David Lamb’s Novel “On Top of the World”
My rating: 5 of 5 stars (for creativity and fun) First of all, let me say this: On Top of the World, by David Lamb, is a romp. It is as much a jaundiced view of American pop culture and its worship of bling and blitz and blather as it is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the eternally fascinating dance between a man and a woman who both seek to unite but events and people get in the way. Plus, it includes Tiny Tim, and not that guy with the annoying falsetto. Yes, this is most assuredly a take-off of Dicken’s work “A Christmas Carol,” and so there are some wonderfully…
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Book Review: Slavery by Another Name
Much of the success of the South around the turn of the last century can be traced to rise of industry centered in Birmingham, Alabama and in the cotton industry before the arrival of the boll weevil; this book helps explain how these riches were accumulated and who benefited.
