book recommendations from Ta-Nehisi Coates
TNC’s recs from his City Arts lecture last night
Last night I went to Ta-Nehisi’s lecture, in conversation with Alexis C. Madrigal. I’m still processing everything. Still feeling a lot. Thinking about a lot.
He responded to critiques of his book excluding the black woman’s narrative by refusing to accept the burden of being the book for the black experience. “It was a necessarily limited project,” Coates said. “[Between the World and Me] is viewed as a primer for white people to understand. I don’t want that role. I didn’t ask for that role.”
“I don’t want someone to read this book and say ‘aha.’ Read the book. If you like it, say, ‘damn, that’s interesting — and go read something else. That’s how you appreciate it.”
So to that end, here’s Ta-Nehisi’s book recommendations on the topic of systemic racism and plundering of black people in America:
- “Stuck in Place: Urban Neighborhoods and the End of Progress toward Racial Equality” by Patrick Sharkey
- “Out of the House of Bondage” by Thavolia Glymph
- “Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life” by Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields
- “For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law” by Randall Kennedy
- “Punishment and Inequality in America” by Bruce Western
- “Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect” by Robert J. Sampson
- “The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin [TNC has been compared to Baldwin, and this is copped from his list of his 10 favorite books.]
