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¡Hola! ¡Hola! It’s Suzy, head Book Whisperer Extraordinaire for Beauty and the Book. I’m back with another edition of Book Talk Tuesday. This week I’m bringing you, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. This non-fiction book is a young adult remix of Dr. Kendi’s National Book Award-winning, Stamped from the Beginning.
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
The book begins by outlining racism and colorism and details just how far back into history these go. (Spoiler alert…they started way before Africans were brought to America as slaves.) It not only defines what it means to be racist, assimilationist, and antiracist, but it describes how key players in history fell into each of these categories respectively, and therefore shaped modern-day racism as we know it. Take Thomas Jefferson for example. He is described as the first white person of his time to essentially say, “I can’t possibly be racist. I have Black friends.” Buuuuut, he had first-hand knowledge of the horrors of slavery yet still didn’t include Black people in the part of the Constitution that established that “All men are created equal.” Ummmm okay TJ we believe you. The book then brings you all the way through to modern-day racism as we know it.
With its use of graphic text and conversational tone, this is the Hamilton of YA books about racism. It’s like getting the real story behind all of the false truths that you ever learned in school from the cooler and wiser big cousin you always looked up to. If you want to understand racism, its very long roots, and how they still affect our society today then this is a book that should go to the top of your must-read list.
Quick Facts:
A remix of Stamped From the Beginning by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
284 pages
Ages 12 and up
¡Hasta la próxima!
Looking for more reviews like this? Check out my post about the history of voter inequality.
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