Hello Readers, it’s co-editor Gail.
I know I am speaking for both Meagan and myself that we are heartbroken and livid over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery and countless others by police and white supremacists. We believe that silence is violence and complicity and therefore we stand with the Black Lives Matter movement and the protesters across the country and the world. We feel it would be irresponsible not to acknowledge what is happening in our country but to definitely acknowledge that as two white individuals, we are speaking from a place of extreme privilege and have no right to comment on the complexities of this issue. In lieu of my regular blog post this week, we have decided to use our privilege and our platform to highlight black writers and their work. So in no particular order, here is a list of excellent writing by black authors past and present.
Citizen by Claudia Rankine-”Claudia Rankine’s bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seemingly slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV—everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person’s ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named “post-race” society.”
Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates-”What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder.”
The Tradition by Jericho Brown-”Jericho Brown’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry collection, despite and inside of the evil that pollutes the everyday. A National Book Award finalist, The Tradition questions why and how we’ve become accustomed to terror: in the bedroom, the classroom, the workplace, and the movie theater. From mass shootings to rape to the murder of unarmed people by police, Brown interrupts complacency by locating each emergency in the garden of the body, where living things grow and wither—or survive.”
Homie by Danez Smith-”Homie is Danez Smith’s magnificent anthem about the saving grace of friendship. Rooted in the loss of one of Smith’s close friends, this book comes out of the search for joy and intimacy within a nation where both can seem scarce and getting scarcer. In poems of rare power and generosity, Smith acknowledges that in a country overrun by violence, xenophobia, and disparity, and in a body defined by race, queerness, and diagnosis, it can be hard to survive, even harder to remember reasons for living. But then the phone lights up, or a shout comes up to the window, and family—blood and chosen—arrives with just the right food and some redemption. Part friendship diary, part bright elegy, part war cry, Homie is the exuberant new book written for Danez and for Danez’s friends and for you and for yours.”
A Small Needful Fact by Ross Gay– A poem by Ross Gay about the life of Eric Garner.
Let America be America Again by Langston Hughes– A poem by Langston Hughes in 1935 that “speaks of the American dream that never existed for the lower-class American and the freedom and equality that every immigrant hoped for but never received. In his poem, Hughes represents not only African Americans, but other economically disadvantaged and minority groups as well. Besides criticizing the unfair life in America, the poem conveys a sense of hope that the American Dream is soon to come.”
A Pledge to Rescue Our Youth by Maya Angelou– A song written by Maya Angelou written for the National Cares Mentoring Movement.
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin- “Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin’s story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future.”
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/when the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange- “Filled with passion, humor, and raw honesty, legendary playwright/poet Ntozake Shange’s form-changing choreopoem tells the stories of seven women of color using poetry, song, and movement. With unflinching honesty and emotion, each woman voices her survival story of having to exist in a world shaped by sexism and racism.”
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry– “Lorraine Hansberry’s landmark drama was one of the first on Broadway to examine African-American life on the cusp of the civil rights era. Walter Younger and his mother, Lena, both yearn to move their family out of Chicago’s Southside ghetto. When Lena’s late husband’s insurance check arrives, Lena hopes to use it to buy a house in a white neighborhood — while Walter hopes to invest it in a liquor business.”
Fences by August Wilson-”Troy Maxson, a former baseball player in the Negro Leagues now reduced to collecting trash, must deal with his headstrong football-player son and his wife, who reevaluates their marriage when Troy comes home with the baby he fathered with another woman.”
Sweat by Lynn Nottage– “A group of friends have spent their lives sharing drinks, secrets and laughs while working together on the line of a factory floor, but when layoffs and picket lines begin to chip away at their trust, they themselves pitted against each other in the hard fight to stay afloat.”
Quicksand and Passing by Nella Larson– “Nella Larsen’s novels Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) document the historical realities of Harlem in the 1920s and shed a bright light on the social world of the black bourgeoisie.”
Notes from the Field by Anna Deavere Smith– “Anna Deavere Smith’s extraordinary form of documentary theater shines a light on injustices by portraying the real-life people who have experienced them. In Notes from the Field, she renders a host of figures who have lived and fought the system that pushes students of color out of the classroom and into prisons.”
All articles from the 1619 Project-”The 1619 Project is an ongoing project developed by The New York Times Magazine in 2019 with the goal of re-examining the legacy of slavery in the United States and timed for the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Africans in Virginia.”
Hunger by Roxanne Gay– “New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health.”
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison– ”Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity.”
We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks– “We Real Cool” is a poem written in 1959 by poet Gwendolyn Brooks and published in her 1960 book The Bean Eaters.”
The Body Is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor-”The Body Is Not an Apology offers radical self-love as the balm to heal the wounds inflicted by these violent systems. World-renowned activist and poet Sonya Renee Taylor invites us to reconnect with the radical origins of our minds and bodies and celebrate our collective, enduring strength. As we awaken to our own indoctrinated body shame, we feel inspired to awaken others and to interrupt the systems that perpetuate body shame and oppression against all bodies.”
American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassin by Terrence Hayes– “In seventy poems bearing the same title, Terrance Hayes explores the meanings of American, of assassin, and of love in the sonnet form. Written during the first two hundred days of the Trump presidency, these poems are haunted by the country’s past and future eras and errors, its dreams and nightmares.”
There are of course so many more brilliant black writers it is impossible to list them all on one little blog post. But I hope you all check out the ones I have mentioned here and do your own research to find more.
Our first issue’s theme is “birds of a feather” as a metaphor for people coming together in difficult times. Aside from the pandemic, we had no idea how relevant that kind of thinking would become. While deeply tragic, this fight for justice is necessary and we applaud those doing what ever they can, no matter how small.
We also feel it is our duty to provide links to some of the multitudes of causes and organizations that need our support right now and share to donate, sign petitions and get the word out.
Official George Floyd Memorial Fund
National Police Accountability Project
Unicorn Riot Alternative Media
Keep fighting and stay safe.
Say their names.
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Thank you, Gail! A very informative piece.