10
submitted 7 months ago by temp_acc@hexbear.net to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1882413

Hi! I am a member of a race education group in my school (11 to 18) and we are creating a reading list for the library. Our library isn't very diverse right now (most books are written by white people about the West) and we need books on race education (privilege, discrimination, etc.) and on the history (precolonial, colonial and postcolonial, could be on neocolonialism too) and culture of underrepresented people.

Please keep in mind that these books should be acceptable by the school and approachable by students who would be unlikely to accept or read very progressive material, so themes that strongly (just strongly) contradict Western narratives should be avoided.

For example, a book on the colonisation of Palestine that exposes the oppressive nature of Zionism is mostly fine, but a book presenting Hamas as a liberation group would not be accepted (and actually illegal in my country).

You can reply with books or other reading lists that we could then review and add. I'll finish this post with some examples of books on the reading list (keep in mind that it was for Black History Month, so all of the examples are on black people):

African Empires by Lyndon, Dan
Black Power: The Politics of Liberation In America by Carmichael, Stokely; Hamilton, Charles V
I Heard What You Said by Boakye, Jeffrey
The Assassination of Lumumba by Witte, Ludo de.
White privilege: the myth of a post-racial society by Bhopal, Kalwant

Thanks in advance!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] livus@kbin.social 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

@temp_acc hi! I'll give you a list of non-fiction books that relate to the colonialism/history side of it:

Telling The Truth About Aboriginal History by Bain Attwood

King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown

Histories of the Hanged by David Andersen

Britain's Gulag by Caroline Elkins

Unthinking Eurocentrism by Ella Shohat and Robert Stam

Struggle Without End by Ranginui Walker

Exterminate All The Brutes by Sven Lindqvist

Most of these are fairly straightforward to read and should be okay for the older students in your group. Unthinking Eurocentrism gets a bit theoretical in places, but I think it's worth a try because it talks about how white westerners view everyone else from their own perspective. Hit me up if you want fiction recs.

[-] temp_acc@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Many thanks for all the recommendations! Added all of them to the reading list. We are also interested in fiction recommendations, too

Unthinking Eurocentrism by Ella Shohat and Robert Stam

I'm especially interested in this book as the history of the world in a postcolonial view. How suitable could this book be for younger readers (11 to 14) in your opinion?

(Posted from an alt. account because of federation issues.)

this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
10 points (69.2% liked)

Asklemmy

43409 readers
1199 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS