Begin Again by Edward Glaude

This book may be short in length but it is long on meaning.  Especially when reading this on the heels of The New Jim Crow, which addresses the systematic racism of a caste system to keep African Americans at the bottom, by violence if other means fail.
Glaude writes that Baldwin’s voice is uniquely resonant in this moment.  As we live through the current administration’s assault on civil and human rights and its aversion to telling the truth, and as we make our way through a long summer of Black Lives Matter protests and a largely unchecked COVID pandemic, we may feel that we are struggling to hold on.  Glaude reminds us that we are not the first.
James Baldwin articulated the problem with clarity, going back over 50 years, and without much hope for eliminating the problem.  He noted two things that really resonated with me.  The first is that he gave up on himself specifically, or blacks in general solving the problem of systemic racism in America.  He realized that whites had to want to change it in order for it to happen, and as a result he sought out another country for shelter.  The second is that he identified the anger that racist white feel towards blacks serves to diminish them, they have less happiness, less ability to experience good because this oppression of others comes at a cost to them too.  This is less a how to book than one about how to be the change that you want to see in the world.