Real American: A Memoir

Real American: A Memoir, by Julie Lythcott-Haims

Real American is a book, like Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me, or Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility, that all white people need to read...or even better, listen to, which is how I absorbed this beautiful and heart-breaking memoir. (And of course, people of color should read it too!)

If you are white, it will make you profoundly uncomfortable (a condition we white people need to feel a whole hell of a lot more often), and it will make you think and view the world differently and more sensitively, like the other two books.

Lythcott-Haims was born to a white (British) mother and a Black American father. All her life she never felt like she fit into either race, beginning in kindergarten when her friend asked, "What are you?" In high school, her best friend described her love of "Gone With the Wind" and told Lythcott-Haims that she thought of her as "normal," but not Black. Her locker was defaced with racist slurs on her birthday. These are just a few of the racist acts she experienced.

After being raised in an academically focused, cosmopolitan family, she attended Stanford University in the 1980s before earning her law degree at Harvard and an MFA in writing from the California College of the Arts. After working as the Dean of first-years at Stanford for 10 years, she wrote How to Raise an Adult, an acclaimed treatise on how not to helicopter parent.

Much of the book is about her growing-up years, and it's a love letter to her parents, neither of whom had easy lives. Her father eventually became a prominent pediatrician and served in Jimmy Carter's administration...but he made the decision to raise his family in predominantly white circles, which had a huge impact on her throughout her life.

In the second half of the book, as she ends up marrying a white Jewish man and becomes a mother herself, she comes to grips with her low self-esteem and lack of a sense of belonging. She elaborates on the constant microaggressions she and other people of color receive every day...even (and especially?) at fundraisers for her children's school when a few people show up in costume and blackface.

I urge you to read this unforgettable book. I just happened across it when I was looking for an audio book for a car journey, and I think it needs a lot more attention!

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele

My Lutheran-Catholic church Spirit of Grace has been studying two books: When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by artist, organizer and freedom fighter Patrice Khan-Cullors and minister, theologian, and civil rights leader Howard Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited. I just finished When They Call You a Terrorist today on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

I was particularly inspired to pick it up when I saw a friend open our worship service by sharing her thoughts of the book. This white woman has worked for social justice her whole life and has traveled to the important sites of the civil rights era in the south. As she described what she learned in this book, she was brought to tears. I knew I had to read it right away.

When They Call You a Terrorist is the beautifully written story of a Black girl growing up in inner-city Los Angeles by a hard-working single mother and a father and stepfather who come and go. Although raised in poverty, she and her family fiercely love and protect each other...as they have to do big time when her beloved brother Monte is repeatedly targeted, beaten, and incarcerated for his mental illness.

Patrisse emerges from her childhood with a feisty, creative, and confident spirit in spite of the fact that she sees firsthand the destructive damages of racism every single day. And when Trayvon Martin and so many other Black children and adults are gunned down and their assassins go free, she knows she has to act. With a team of other Black women and people in the queer community, she starts a movement, #BlackLivesMatter. Not only do they fight against racism and hatred, but they also take care of each other's mental, physical, and spiritual health because so many of them have been traumatized by racist violence on a daily basis.

And what do these committed activists get for their efforts? They are called terrorists. They are terrorized by police departments. They are killed in their cars. They are the ones called racist.

Today, on this holiday when we celebrate the greatest civil rights leader of our time, people will be sharing his quotes freely on social media. But as author/activist Ally Henny wrote on Facebook,

"You might be seeing a lot of activists telling you not to quote King today
unless you’re standing up for black folks every day.
Maybe you’ve been confused or bothered by this. “But shouldn’t we be honoring Dr. King today?,” you might be asking yourself. And yes. We absolutely should be honoring King today.
The issue is that, if you’re out here sharing quotes and whatever else by Dr. King, but you’re not living the principles that he stood for, your “commemoration”
rings hollow to the black folks in your circles.
Today is a “safe” day to talk about race. It’s a day where a lot of folks want to get sentimental and talk about race in America as if we’ve somehow arrived. We haven’t.
What are you going to say the next time white supremacists march?
What are you going to say when the next black persons is murdered by the police?
What are you going to say when black kids in your community
 are trying to learn in inferior environments?
What are you going to say when your coworker does something racist?
What are you going to say when your company, church, school, or other institution that says they’re “committed to diversity” but they’re an unsafe place for black, brown, and indigenous people?
Posting a quote, picture, or speech doesn’t mean crap if you’re not out here every other day fighting white supremacy."

Here's who needs to read When They Call You a Terrorist:

• Every white person who thinks we've transcended racism.
• Every person who has ever uttered "All Lives Matter" or "Blue Lives Matter."
• Every white person who thinks they are "woke."
• Every white person who has never had to fear their children being arrested for just existing.
• Every white person who looks away when #BlackLivesMatter comes up in discussion.
• Every white person who voted for Trump.
• Every white person who voted for anyone else but Trump.
• Every white person who thinks that police are always fair and friendly.
• Every white person who believes people should "pull themselves up by their bootstraps."
• Every white person who thinks there are more drugs in Black neighborhoods than white ones.
• Every white person who thinks that people in prison deserve to be there.
• Every white person who lives in a predominantly white neighborhood or community.
• Every white person who has never been pulled over and questioned because of their race.
• Every white person who can conveniently stop thinking about racism when they want to.
• Every white person.

And everyone else too. 

Patrisse Khan-Cullors is our modern-day MLK Jr., and she needs to be heard. What will you do on this day of commemoration? I am going to start by listening.

America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America

By Jim Wallis

Jim Wallis calls this book his "lament of the white father." A central theme of the book is the fact that parents of black children have to have "the talk," about how to behave around police and how to just behave in general, in order to survive. Wallis was inspired to write this book after Trayvon Martin was shot and he witnessed the ignorance of the white Christian evangelicals in his midst. He realized that if his own son, a six-foot-tall athlete, had been walking down the street, doing the same thing, he would have been fine.

Wallis identifies racism as the true original sin. As Michelle Obama recently said, "I live in a house that was built by slaves." As Wallis says, "This nation was founded by the near genocide of one people and the kidnapping of another people to build this nation. So slavery and the indigenous destruction of those who were here--that was our original sin. And it still lingers in our criminal justice system--in most of our systems."

Wallis aims most of his message specifically evangelical Christians, because he was disappointed and dismayed by their response to recent highly publicized shootings of African-American men. But it's an important message for all white Americans to hear. He believes it's the call of our Christian faith to work for racial justice, and I agree.

The Little Friend: Excellent story telling but unsatisfying ending

The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Harriet, akin to Scout of To Kill a Mockingbird, is a bright, tough tomboy of a 12-year-old growing up in Mississippi. The death of her older brother 11 years previously casts a shadow over her whole family and life. Her parents are essentially separated, and she lives with her mother and sister and African-American housekeeper, in a household swathed in grief. She receives more care from her grandmother and maiden aunts than her own parents give her.

She and her friend Hely decide to track down her older brother's murderer (the case was never solved) and they begin to stalk a family of low-life brothers, "country folk."

Overall, this is a deeply sad story, with race and class implications. Anytime I read about a child who grows up lacking love and attention, it makes me sad.

Tartt does an excellent job of setting the scene and describing the many characters in depth. Many readers believe that this novel moves too slowly, but I thought it was a very interesting read.

I have two quibbles with this book. One is that a character, presumed to be dead, is not dead...and the circumstances are way too far-fetched. Second, I found the ending to be highly unsatisfying. I prefer books with more conclusion to them--I think that's another reason why other readers have been unhappy with this book.

So if you like plots to be wrapped around in a nice package at the end, you should probably avoid this book. But if you enjoy excellent story telling and command of language, and don't mind a slow-moving plot, you should give it a try.

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