Honoring the Day

Radical Love

Later this evening, I’ll post a list of the books referenced in earlier posts and other books by Black authors, and tomorrow we’ll be back to catch-up chapters. For now, I think the words that follow are a fitting conclusion to the posts about the power of the written word.

From Adam Fernandez, Vice President of Lawyers for Good Government and according to his description of himself, a lawyer of color, on MLK Day:

“Radical love doesn’t mean accepting defeat or ignoring an evil act. It means actively fighting for justice, but with love in our hearts. That’s what brought me to become a civil rights attorney, how I responded to my own death threats, and how we as a country must respond to the grave threat of the ongoing white supremacist insurrection.

We must reject disingenuous calls for unity that seek to ignore the evil acts perpetrated at the capitol; calls for unity that put false labels on those evil acts; or calls for unity that seek to hide those responsible from justice and history. But so too must we rise over our raw emotions and recognize that reflexively acting on those emotions will only make matters worse. Now is not the time for retributive justice. It is the time for restorative justice, for addressing the underlying causes of the crime — white supremacy.”

Rainbow Heart image by Jiroe

#ReadABook

Continuing the series on Black authors, we’ve posted a title for young adults, for middle grade readers, and for younger children – just a tiny sample from a wealth of options.

But trying to choose a title for adult readers is impossible - there are just too many great reads! Rather than reinvent the wheel, we’ll simply urge you to check out the list from this June, 2020 article in marie Claire: 17 Books by Black Female Authors that Should Really Be on Your Bookshelf, by Alexis Jones and Bianca Rodriguez. https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/g26075869/best-books-by-black-authors/

Photos by Thought Catalogue, Oladimeji Ajegbile

Continuing the thread . . .

For younger kids, the series published by Jelani Memory’s company: “A Kids Book About.” Books for kids about tough subjects, with the byline: Kids are Ready.

“It all started with A Kids Book About Racism, a book written by co-founder and CEO, Jelani Memory. As a black father with a blended family (four white kids and two brown kids), racism was an inevitable topic of conversation . . . .” www.akidsbookabout.com

Photo of children in a field by Robert Collins

Next up: A Good Kind of Trouble, by Lisa Moore Ramée, for middle-grade readers.

“Shayla Willows and her best friends Julia and Isabella make up the “united nations.” Shayla is African-American, Julia is Japanese-American and Isabella is Puerto Rican--three girls from different racial backgrounds but alike in everything that really matters. At least that’s what they’ve always thought. Junior High changes things.” https://www.lisamooreramee.com/books

I have not had a chance to read this one or her most recent book (Something to Say) - time to get reading, obviously!

If you missed the first book in this collection for Honoring the Day, keep reading! We’ll continue to post a new one every hour or so at the top of this same post.

In honor of the day, and in keeping with the post this morning that telling tales is or at least can be meaningful work toward justice and peace, Brillig will post a note about a work of fiction or poetry by a Black author every hour or so. We’ll post the new one on top of this same post and re-publish, so if you miss earlier posts you can simply scroll down.

First up: Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi.

They killed my mother.
They took our magic.
They tried to bury us. 
Now we rise.

https://www.tomiadeyemi.com/books

Fascinating storyline and characters, magical beasts and mysterious powers, Children of Blood and Bone is the first in a series currently being developed for film. The story is a beautifully written exploration of what it means to fight back against oppression, and the difficulty (maybe impossibility) of building trust between oppressed and oppressor to fight for a new and better world. (Spoiler alert: if the oppressor betrays the burgeoning trust for fear of losing power and influence, there can be no trust . . . ).