social justice topics

Reader’s Advisory Roundtable

6/8/2022

10 people in attendance:

Holley W, O’Neal
Pam J, Southside
Maura D, Trussville
Alisha J, BPL
Michelle, Irondale
Tisha, Leeds
Nicole, Tarrant
Reba W
Bridget T
S Lewis

The next meeting will be on Wednesday, August 10th at 9am.  It will be hybrid so you can come to O’Neal Library or join in via Zoom.

We were trying to come up with books that discuss civil discourse and non-contentious approaches to leading/moderating discussions.  Here are a few:

Leading with Emotional Courage: How to Have Hard Conversations, Create Accountability, and Inspire Action on Your Most Important Work by Peter Bregman

Why Are We Yelling?: The Art of Productive Disagreement by Buster Benson

Let’s Talk About Hard Things by Anna Sale

How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide by Peter Boghossian

Mingling with the Enemy: A Social Survival Guide for Our Politically Divided Era by Jeanne Martinet

Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree With and Maybe Even Change the World by Justin Lee

We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter by Celeste Anne Headlee

Compassionate Conversations: How to Speak and Listen From the Heart by Diane Mucho Hamilton

How to Have That Difficult Conversation: Gaining the Skills for Honest and Meaningful Communication by Henry Cloud

Beyond Your Bubble: How to Connect Across the Political Divide, Skills and Strategies for Conversations That Work by Tania Israel

I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations by Sarah Stewart Holland

It’s Time to Talk (and Listen): How to Have Constructive Conversations about Race, Class, Sexuality, Ability and Gender in a Polarized World by Anatasia Kim

The topic of our meeting was material on social justice issues.  Before discussing titles, we talked briefly about environmental activism, challenges and questions about LGBTQ+ displays during Pride month, and First Amendment audits in libraries.

Inventing Human Rights: A History by Lynn Hunt

How were human rights invented, and how does their tumultuous history influence their perception and our ability to protect them today? From Professor Lynn Hunt comes this extraordinary cultural and intellectual history, which traces the roots of human rights to the rejection of torture as a means for finding the truth. She demonstrates how ideas of human relationships portrayed in novels and art helped spread these new ideals and how human rights continue to be contested today.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

Shaking the Gates of Hell: A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution by John Archibald

On growing up in the American South of the 1960s—an all-American white boy—son of a long line of Methodist preachers, in the midst of the civil rights revolution, and discovering the culpability of silence within the church. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and columnist for The Birmingham News.

Allies: Real Talk About Showing Up, Screwing Up, and Trying Again by Shakirah Bourne et al.

This book is for everyone. Because we can all be allies. As an ally, you use your power—no matter how big or small—to support others. You learn, and try, and mess up, and try harder. In this collection of true stories, 17 critically acclaimed and bestselling YA authors get real about being an ally, needing an ally, and showing up for friends and strangers. 

In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History by Mitch Landrieu

The New Orleans mayor who removed the Confederate statues confronts the racism that shapes us and argues for white America to reckon with its past. A passionate, personal, urgent book from the man who sparked a national debate.

The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature by J. Drew Lanham

By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, The Home Place is a remarkable meditation on nature and belonging, at once a deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of black identity in the rural South—and in America today.

The Experiment: Stories from an Unfinished Country podcast from The Atlantic Monthlly and WNYC Studios

It's easy to forget that the United States started as an experiment: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, with liberty and justice for all. That was the idea. On this weekly show, we check in on how that experiment is going.

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire.

American Indians in Children’s Literature

Established in 2006 by Dr. Debbie Reese of Nambé Pueblo, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books. Dr. Jean Mendoza joined AICL as a co-editor in 2016.

Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine Ceniza Choy (publishing August 2, 2022)

An inclusive and landmark history, emphasizing how essential Asian American experiences are to any understanding of US history. Despite significant Asian American breakthroughs in American politics, arts, and popular culture in the 21st century, a profound lack of understanding of Asian American history permeates American culture. Choy traces how anti-Asian violence and its intersection with misogyny and other forms of hatred, the erasure of Asian American experiences and contributions, and Asian American resistance to what has been omitted are prominent themes in Asian American history. This ambitious book is fundamental to understanding the American experience and its existential crises of the early 21st century.