Sable’s Interesting Reads: Books and Poetry
when you don’t see yourself in classic American literature, you read elsewhere
In the prologue to Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison you find these words, “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me”. The following books allowed me to see myself, my community, the African diaspora, and all our many beautiful, complicated, and particularistic layers.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Though I was born in Brooklyn, New York, there is no confusion that generations prior my family lived significantly below the Mason Dixon line, the original boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania often used colloquially as the separation between the north and the south. The manner in which Hurston so beautifully captured Janie, arguably the first Black female protagonist, was both radical and liberating to read. The desire for Janie to be free and to love in the deep, poor, rural South in a time where the history of chattel slavery wasn’t a distant memory, solidified the beauty and value in the Black southern experience, particularly for Black American women. I am a self-proclaimed city girl, but reading that I, a Black woman, was deserving to be loved no matter where I resided and how I conjugated my verbs.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
Growing up in a community that utilized words like liberation often, I found myself with loads of questions. I understood the mechanics of slavery. I comprehended the logic behind the Jim Crow era. I understood why the Reconstruction Era had to be deconstructed in order for racism to sustain its power and the status quo. At the time, I engaged with Freire, I had begun reading about communities that experienced oppression globally. Racism isn’t uniquely American, neither is classism, sexism, colonialism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and disabilism. However, learning the ways in which these systems of oppression take shape in different contexts and the ways in which they are maintained was something I began to discover and unpack. As I continued to research, I began to ask, ‘what happens when freedom is secured?’- globally. I recognize freedom can be defined in different ways largely based on context, but once the oppressed are no longer oppressed- what happens next? Freire deeply aided this exploration.
Native Son by Richard Wright
I first encountered Native Son in high school. I’m not sure how it got in my hands but mid-way through 9th grade, I was absolutely disgruntled with the book choices for a school with a largely brown and black demographic, so I created my own book list. Reading the story of Bigger Thomas, the book’s main character, allowed me to see into the hearts and minds of young Black boys, often inaccurately referred to as men, that aren’t seen as anything other than brutes. It illuminated the day to day impact that structural racism and classism have on their lives and how this influences decision making. What does one do in a society that is designed to produce a certain outcome(s) for you according to the pigment of your skin and the features of your face?
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
As a Black woman who sits at the intersection of racism, sexism, colonialism, and classism, Shange was and is a necessary read. It’s a celebration of womanhood, my womanhood, a multifaceted womanhood not often celebrated in mainstream spaces. Furthermore, though it doesn’t shy away from the injustices of the world, it says to the Black woman so clearly, you are worthy, you are enough, just as you are.
Black Skin White Masks by Frantz Fanon
If you haven’t read this by now, you should. It was my sophomore year at Temple University when I thought to myself- everyone needs to read this, if only just once, though honestly it requires more than one go at it. Fanon explores the long-term effects of colonialism, the unconscious desires of Black people to be dependent on white Europeans, he digs into the Black patterns of resistance and the embracing of a Black consciousness, and the psychological impacts of being ‘a Negro’. As a university student at the time of my first reading, I was challenged; I felt exposed. From childhood you learn and often internalize through several mediums, education attainment among a few other key ingredients such as talking properly will allow you to ‘escape’ the suffering of racism and classism. Fanon told my 19-year-old self, that was untrue. If someone is interested in wrestling with the structural ways in which racism operates, then they need to start here.
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Not everything can be unseen, unfelt, unremembered. The brutal inhumane history of American chattel slavery doesn’t just go away. Morrison wanted us to know that. When someone asks me, and it’s fairly frequently, “why can’t I get over slavery”? I typically think of some of the decisions women in my life have made and I reply, “read Beloved”.
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
The women in my family love science fiction films. I have watched my share of films with them due to being outvoted year after year. If you asked, I would tell you I didn’t like science fiction, then I met Butler, a master at her craft. Published in 1993, I was lost in this dystopian future for 2 days unable to put it down. The most stirring reality of the world that birthed Earthseed is how much it resembles the world we live in today. There is so much more I could say, but honestly you need to read it, and then go read Kindred.
I could continue this list but I thought to end it here and list some of my favorite poems instead.
Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” , Maya Angelou, “Woman Work”, Claude McKay, “If We Must Die”, Nikki Giovanni, “Ego Tripping” and Lucille Clifton, “won’t you celebrate with me”
There’s a song by Donnie McClurkin with the lyrics ‘what do you do when you’ve all you can? You just stand’. Morrison said to let go of dead weight and fly.
