anti-racism

“The Best of All Possible Worlds” by Karen Lord

February 12, 2018 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Recommended to me by: boxofdelights

From the back cover: “Karen Lord has been a physics teacher, a diplomat, a part-time soldier, and an academic at various times and in various countries. She is now a writer and research consultant in Barbados.”

Like their author, the characters in this science-fiction novel have brown skin, although sadly the cover of the edition I read is white-washed. The main character is a woman, and has a woman boss. Relatedly, this is an emotionally non-violent book. Violence does occur off-screen, but the emphasis is on relating, healing, and grieving, rather than on domination and victory.

I enjoyed the plot, but the reason I kept reading is that I enjoyed watching the characters relate to each other and themselves in a future where we’ve gotten better at not oppressing each other.

Highly recommended.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Hope in the Dark” by Rebecca Solnit

February 28, 2017 by Sonia Connolly 2 Comments

Subtitle: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities

Recommended to me by: reading Rebecca Solnit’s essay “Men Explain Things to Me”, and also Haymarket Books was giving away free copies of the ebook on the occasion of the November 2016 election results

I rarely read ebooks. I prefer to hold the book in my hands and have a physical context for what I’m reading and how much is left. Ebooks feel disorientingly abstract. I put this one on my phone and have been reading it in little bits when I wait for an appointment or ride a bus. The book is a series of short chapters and essays, linked together.

Oddly (for a professional publisher) Haymarket Books used an irritating variable font so that letter size and style varies within words, and they also tagged the book repeatedly with my name and email address. I guess they wanted to make really sure I didn’t share the book with anyone, but what they did is distract me while I was reading and repeatedly remind me not to buy any ebooks from Haymarket Books.

Format issues aside, “Hope in the Dark” is an affirming, well-researched, engagingly written anodyne for the current political situation. It was written on the occasion of Bush’s contested election in 2004, and the problems and dynamics then sound remarkably like the current disasters (except Bush wasn’t, as far as we know, in league with a foreign government).

Solnit talks about how powerful entities in the limelight look immovable, but ideas and movements at the edges, on the margins, in the shadows engender change. We forget our victories because they look like they’ve always been that way, and also because those in power want us to forget and despair. Victories build slowly, happen partially, arise suddenly from years of background work.

Activist movements that practice what they want to see in the world (consensus, equity, respect for all) are already winning even if the current battle is lost. Living the way we want to live *is* activism. Distributed movements that share strategies globally but meet and act locally are finding more and more success.

I found support here for living the way I want to live. I also found urging to reach out, connect with local groups, act! The last essay is about climate change and its urgency. Hope is the determination to keep working toward the world we want to live in, non-violently, non-idealogically, peacefully, cooperatively, joyously.

Highly recommended for anyone distressed by current politics.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Ancillary Mercy” by Ann Leckie

January 9, 2016 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Recommended to me by: reading Ancillary Justice, the first book in this series.

This book has more plot drama and more heavy-handed social justice messages than the first two books. I imagine that works for the target audience of young space opera fans, but it didn’t suit me as well. It felt like the faster-moving plot crowded out some of the relationship development that I enjoyed in the first book.

The first book felt like it included me, where this book felt like it lectured me. Even though it was a lecture I agreed with about self-determination and unconscious privilege, I didn’t enjoy the book in the same way.

There was a lot less killing, and a lot more emphasis on each life being valuable. No one is cannon fodder in their own life story.

All in all, I’m not sorry I read it, but it didn’t have the WOW factor of Ancillary Justice.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Ancillary Justice” by Ann Leckie

October 14, 2015 by Sonia Connolly 2 Comments

Recommended to me by: Sam L-G

I loved this book. I saw it recommended all over the place as unusual for space opera, but it took a friend loaning me his copy, and some spare time, to sit down with it. It opens with what seems to be a dead body, so I almost put it down again, but then I found myself on page 80. I finished it the same day. I used to inhale science fiction like that when I was growing up, but I’ve gotten a lot pickier over time.

Default pronouns are female, no matter what the person’s gender. It’s not the mismatch that interests me, but the up-front declaration that this isn’t just about young white men. In fact, the protagonist and her companion have brown skin. Sensory details are described with creative care. Details of relationships, not just heterosexual pairings but working relationships, negotiations, friendships, carry this book.

Power and privilege and favoritism aren’t just taken for granted, but clearly described and taken into account. I didn’t feel erased by this book. It brought up my own feelings of being stranded, isolated, and stubbornly trying to make things better one step at a time.

Highly recommended, when you have a chunk of time to spare.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Getting to the Heart of Interfaith” by Pastor Don Mackenzie, Rabbi Ted Falcon, and Sheikh Jamal Rahman

September 14, 2014 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Subtitle: The Eye-Opening, Hope-Filled Friendship of a Pastor, a Rabbi, and a Sheikh

Recommended to me by: David Mitchell

Somewhere along the way, I acquired the mistaken idea that “interfaith” is a watered-down, lowest-common-denominator version of religion. This book makes clear that interfaith is a vibrant, active process of building connections and understanding.

The book is both a practical guide to interfaith work and the story of how the three men’s friendship developed. It includes their backgrounds, key beliefs from their religions, difficulties they have with their religions, and their descriptions of a challenging group trip to Israel. As each of them write in turn, I come to trust their inclusiveness, openness, and willingness to face difficult truths.

I was interested to notice that despite my Jewish heritage I resonated the most with Jamal’s description of Muslim practices, which are focused on compassion. In writing about Israel, he mentions his sense of Ein Gedi oasis as a sacred place, a sanctuary. I have long described it as my favorite place on the planet. In the middle of the desert, near Masada and the Dead Sea, it feels like a miraculous gift to be enclosed in rustling bamboo with water flowing down the path.

Their suggested steps for interfaith work are

Moving beyond separation and suspicion
Inquiring more deeply
Sharing both the easy and the difficult parts
Moving beyond safe territory
Exploring spiritual practices from other traditions

To me these steps form a bridge across many types of difference, including racial and cultural differences.

Highly recommended.

Rabbi Ted Falcon’s site

Sheikh Jamal Rahman’s site

Pastor Don Mackenzie on the Interfaith Amigos site

Available at bookshop.org.

“Long Hidden” edited by Rose Fox and Daniel Jose Older

May 3, 2014 by Sonia Connolly 2 Comments

Subtitle: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History

I expected this book to contain speculative stories about marginalized people, creating worlds where they/we are not marginalized. I did not expect it to be about the experience of marginalization, and thus dripping with violence. Maybe I should have expected that, but I didn’t.

There was a single story that didn’t contain at least one violent death. That story was about Nordic (white) people.

Loved the diversity in this collection. However, reading stories imbued with that much violence feels intense, overwhelming, invasive. Not a good fit for me.