Book Suggestions

Discussion Questions:

1. What reasons would you have for deciding that the increase in the rate of incarceration affects racism in American society?

2. How might the social silence around incarceration affect a movement for change? What factors does Alexander feel have caused Americans to deny the fact of mass incarceration of people of color? In what ways might a movement for change want to address them?

3. What kinds of strategies can be helpful in including all, including poor whites?

4. How do we engage people in promoting change whose interests are not so immediately involved in dismantling the system of mass incarceration?

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1. Explain Davis’ assertion that about prisons that there is “reluctance to face the realities hidden within them, a fear of thinking about what happens inside them. Thus, the prison is present in our lives and, at the same time, it is absent from our lives” (15).

2. Why is the discussion of “prison reform” problematic for Davis (20)? 

3. Explain how the convict lease system can be seen  as a legal extension of slavery. 

4. What is the “prison industrial complex (50)?”

5. Explain the process that led to more corporate interest in prisons in the 1980s (90).

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1. What, if anything, in this book surprised you? How did this book challenge your beliefs?

2. Stevenson notes in his book that “the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice.” How did poverty play a pivotal role in the lives of the people in the book? Are poverty and justice able to exist together? Did we see any examples in the book? How should society work to right this grievous wrong?

3. Why do courts often ignore severe mental illness and intellectual disabilities at trial? Outside of the criminal justice system, do we as a society do any better?

4. Based on Stevenson’s work, your interpretation and understanding of it, combined with your past experiences before reading this piece, what is your definition of “just mercy?”

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1. Do you agree with the author that the working class as a whole, “Black, brown, and white,” has “an interest in exposing the racist nature of US society?” 

2. Do you think anything fundamental has changed that the way police have related to Black communities since James Baldwin wrote, “they are present to keep the Negro…” Why has “professionalization” and diversification of police forces failed to address institutional racism?

3. To what extent has the “de-racialization” of Black politics been the condition of admission of African-Americans into electoral politics? 

4. “The struggle for reforms that are possible today” as part of “the struggle for revolution, which is a long term project”? What would differentiate reforms that are part of such a project from those that are part of a purely reformist agenda?

Discussion Questions:

1. Discuss the concept of fear and how it relates to Coates’s message. What does he fear? At what moments in his life does he fear for his own life?

2. How does this book connect to Black Lives Matter? Do you see Coates and this book as being an important element to the BLM movement?

3. Discuss the message that Coates has about Black bodies being sacred and worthy of praise and admiration. Why do you think he focuses so much attention and value on physical bodies?

Discussion Questions:

1. The introduction is titled and closes with the words “we are stardust.” Why are those words important to Patrisse?

2. Growing up, did you interact with the police? How do your experiences compare and contrast with those of Patrisse and her family?

3. If you were an elected official, would you try to put laws in place that could have helped protect Monte in prison? If so, what kind of laws? If not, why?

4. Did this book make you think differently about Black Lives Matter? Why do some people call members of Black Lives Matter “terrorists?”

Discussion Questions:

1. How does Lorde’s upbringing contribute to her early feelings of isolation?

2. How would you describe the connection between being Black, female, and a lesbian  in 1950s America?

3. Was Audre right to think that her experience as a Black lesbian was different from the experiences of her white lesbian friends? Or is it better to think of them as sharing common experiences?

4. What is the nature of Andre’s draw to femininity?

5. How is the inclusion of both autobiographical and mythological methods in the book able to create a more well rounded portrayal of the authors life journey?

Discussion Questions:

1. What is your understanding of the concept that gives its title to Dr. Newton’s book, revolutionary suicide? 

2. Why do you think autobiography is so central to the history of African-American letters?Reading this memoir, do you feel you are reading about a real person or a self-constructed myth? 

3. How well does Newton succeed in conveying his personality to the reader?

4.  What portions of the Black Panther Party’s platform, set forth on pages 122 through 125, would you support? What portions, if any, would you reject? Why?

Discussion Questions:

1. How does Santiago address issues of Puerto Rican identity in this memoir about her childhood and immigration experience? 

2. How is race and ethnic identity discussed in the reading? Discuss the complexities involved in self-identifying alongside location, gender, class, and nationality.

3. Describe challenges and successes of the Puerto Rican community in New York, particularly during the 1940s-70s.

4. What is the significance of a word and identity like “jibara?” 

5. What is the relationship between food and culture?

Discussion Questions:

1. What role has the segregation of housing and/or schools played in your life?

2. Who is in your social network? How has your social network shaped your worldview? Do you agree that limited cross-racial interaction is a barrier to understanding the experiences of people of color in the U.S.?

3. Think of your earliest race-related memory. How old were you? What emotion, if any, was attached? Did you talk to anyone about what happened? If not, why?

4. Do you agree that color-blind racial ideology is widespread? Why do the social scientists cited in the book agree that being “color-blind” is problematic?

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1. The book makes a  case that white rage is pervasive, consistent, and powerful across time throughout the United States.  The systems and laws intended to protect people repeatedly fail.  If this is true, how do we “diffuse the power of white rage (175-176)?”

2. Anderson argues that Black rage is more visible than White rage.  Why might this be so?  Do you agree?

3.  What are the examples of  tactics GOP-led state legislatures used to make it harder to vote post-Obama’s election?  Where these successful?  How do you know?

4. Anderson leaves us on an optimistic note.  Why is she optimistic?  Do you agree?

Discussion Questions:

1. What are the details of the spiritual geography of Baldwin’s adolescence as presented in the first part of “Down at the Cross?” 

2. What are the reasons for and the circumstances of the seventeen-year-old Baldwin’s renunciation of his religious calling and of Christianity itself?

3. How does Baldwin personalize history and the issue of Black oppression in the United States? Does this personalizing result in too narrow  a focus or does it intensify his account’s impact and our response?

4. What are the links among sexual awakening, crime, religion, racial discrimination, and self-realization in The Fire Next Time? What are their personal and public implications?

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1. What was the source of tension between the women’s suffrage movement and the Black suffrage movement? In what ways were Black women victimized by this tension and in what ways did they rise above it?

2. What does “womanhood” mean for the oppressor and how was it enforced?

3. What was the source of tension between the women’s suffrage movement and the Black suffrage movement? In what ways were Black women victimized by this tension and in what ways did they rise above it?

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1. In “Solidarity Is Still for White Women,” Kendall tells us that many white feminists dismissed her #solidarityisforwhitewomen campaign as “infighting.” Have you ever experienced what might be considered infighting in your community, or in campaigns in which you’ve been involved? What was your reaction to it at the time? Did Kendall’s reframing of infighting change your thinking about it?

2.  In “How to Write About Black Women,” Kendall writes, the “people most addicted to maintaining the status quo are those who reap the greatest rewards.” Can you think of ways in which you’re gaining or losing rewards from your own identity? What would you gain or lose in a society that was truly equal?

3. After reading this book, how would you articulate the goal of white feminism? What about hood feminism?

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1. What are the three taboos in textbook publishing, according to Loewen?  Why do they exist?

2. Columbus and other members of his expedition left behind firsthand accounts of violent subjugation of the Natives into slavery… Why do you think textbooks leave out these matters? Who might such omissions alienate?

3. Loewen defines “syncretism” as taking elements from two (or more) cultures to form something new. Had you heard of the term? Might learning it help decrease Americans’ ethnocentrism?

4. How is John Brown remembered today? What does this say about the current political climate in the United States and the viability of antiracism?

5. In school, did the narrative of the “exceptional fairness of America” rub you the wrong way? If not, did Loewen’s argument convince you that it should have?

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1. How did the African-American Civil Rights Movement affect Mexican-American youth? How did it motivate them to become involved? 

2. How did the Mexican Revolution affect Mexican immigration to the United States? Why did Mexicans migrate to the U.S. during that time?

3. How did Mexican immigrants build up their own anti-defamation infrastructure?

4. How were the Chicano and farm worker movements different? In what ways were their efforts linked?

5. How did Mexican-American youth, particularly college students in California, contribute to the development of the Chicano Movement?

6. Why did Chicano identity politics develop differently in California than they did in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico?

7. Despite some differences, what were the common themes of the movimiento?

Discussion Questions:

1. What are some of the elements required for a caste system to succeed?

2. Caste and race are not the same thing. What is the difference between the two? How do casteism and racism support each other?

3. Did learning about the language and lens of caste change how you look at U.S. history and society? How?

4. Wilkerson discusses three major caste systems throughout the book: India, Nazi Germany, and America. What are some of the differences that stood out to you among these three systems? What are the similarities? How did learning about one help you understand the other? For instance, did the fact that the Nazis actually studied America’s segregation practices and Jim Crow laws help underscore the depth of our own system

5. Wilkerson gives examples that range from the horrifying (lynching) to the absurd (the Indian woman who walked across an office to ask a Dalit to pour her water from the jug next to her desk) to illustrate caste’s influence on behavior. How do both of these types of examples—and everything in between—help cement her points? Why do we need to see this range to clearly understand caste?

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