Play Book Tag discussion

Wow, this book far surpassed my expectations. Patrisse Khan-Cullers was a primary player in the Black Lives Matter movement, and I loved her story. I tried several books before this one. I didn’t want a book about terrorism (it’s not), or an imitation of Between the World and Me (it’s much better), or just rhetoric (the personal stories and actions are very compelling.) This is a book about race that didn’t try to make me feel guilty for being white. As a bonus surprise, I learned a few things relevant to a topic that I used to teach (how to develop strong change agents).

Patrisse grew up in a poor black family in California. Her mother was completely disowned by her Jehovah’s Witness family when she got pregnant as a teenager. Her father had a good job at GM until they closed the plant, and her mother worked 2-3 jobs for most of Patrisse’s childhood. Her school experiences and friends were interesting, She was a good student who eventually got into a magnet school that focused on social justice, and she was trained to become a community organizer. Her family stories were well aligned with the topics that became her life’s work. The book made important points about poverty, family, found families, the war on drugs, prison reform, addiction, mental illness, policing, and of course violence against black men and women. The stats continue to defy reason. Whites use and sell drugs at higher rates than blacks do, but blacks are more likely to do time for drug possession. Nearly all school shooters were white, but most of the metal detectors went to black schools. Most cop killers are white, but the cops are much more afraid of black men. There are many more people with serious mental illness in LA prisons than in mental hospitals. I would love to hear more of the story, particularly about the LA sheriffs. Somehow the label terrorist is more likely to be given to nonviolent black artists and activists than to white mass shooters.

She focuses her efforts on changing bad practices not blaming everyone. She learned community action skills in high school, and she earns the respect of teams of people and had many mentors and partners along the way. Change is damn hard, even when people want to change. It’s a lot harder to change entrenched systems, and it requires the efforts of a lot of people. There are many methods that can be used - before they resort to demonstrations (and violence doesn’t help).

95 black-lives-matter tags