Books, TV, and Movie Recommendations

Book, TV, Movie and Documentary Recommendations

Young Adult Novels:

• Dear Martin by Nic Stone

  • Summary: Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. And despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates. Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out.

• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

  • Summary: Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed

Adult Nonfiction:

• Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

  • Summary: In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. 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. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

• • Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi

    • Summary: In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and antiracists. From Puritan minister Cotton Mather to Thomas Jefferson, from fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to brilliant scholar W.E.B. Du Bois to legendary anti-prison activist Angela Davis, Kendi shows how and why some of our leading proslavery and pro-civil rights thinkers have challenged or helped cement racist ideas in America.

  • White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

    • Summary: This read discusses the concept of white fragility, the defensive behaviors that white people automatically present when made uncomfortable by discussions of race. DiAngelo beautifully challenges the ways in which white people use white privilege and are able to escape difficult conversations whenever they want. White Fragility will change your perspective on how all white people participate in and benefit from systemic racism and ways in which they can actively work to combat these inherent privileges.

TV Shows, Movies, and Documentaries:

• Dear White People (Netflix)

  • Dear White People is a comedic drama that follows a number of black students as they pursue their studies at an Ivy League institution. At the beginning, we feel like we’re about to watch Community, but as the black characters interact with the entitled students and racist faculty it becomes clear that these young kids have an uphill battle to fight.

• When They See Us (Netflix)

  • The premise of When They See Us is taken from real life events that took place in 1989. Five young black men were prosecuted for the sexual assault for a female jogger, four of which were convicted of rape and sentenced to maximum terms. The series shows how the boys were coerced into confessing and how the judicial system failed to fulfill its role as a system that guarantees just & fair treatment for all.

• 13th (Netflix)

  • In this thought-provoking documentary, scholars, activists, and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the US prison boom.

• The Innocence Files (Netflix)

  • This documentary series delves into the history of wrongful convictions and the struggles that individuals face when dealing with the broken judicial system.

• A Different Kind of Force - Policing Mental Illness

  • This documentary focuses on how mental health is dealt with by a unit trained in de-escalation techniques and the struggles that the mentally ill, their families, and law enforcement have when faced with a mental health crisis. It also delves into the topic of police brutality. You can watch this NBC documentary at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnOLvKEYIQI.

• Disclosure (Netflix)

  • In this documentary, leading trans creatives and thinkers share heartfelt perspectives and analysis about Hollywood’s impact on the trans community.

• Living Undocumented (Netflix)

  • This documentary series follows the fates of 8 undocumented families in the United States among turbulent changes in immigration policies and practices.

• The Story of US With Morgan Freeman (Netflix)

  • This documentary series explores the forces of love, belief, power, war, peace, rebellion, and freedom and their ties that bind and destroy humanity.