A Book Recommendation: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

                                                                    
I can hear your objections now.         

"My book list is too long as it is."
"The stack of books on my nightstand are about to fall over."
"Everyone seems to be recommending books I must read now. Please no more."

Well, too bad, because here is one more book, and before you order it from your local independent bookstore, you might ask your teenage grandchild or neighbor, if they have a copy. That might truly be the case.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas https://angiethomas.com/the-hate-u-give is a young adult (YA) title published in 2017, and it won all sorts of awards, including a Coretta Scott King Honor Award and the Honor Book designation from the American Library Association. It has also been made into a movie. 

I had heard about the book, seen it in stores and noticed it on many lists, but I don't read many YA books. When I do, however, I usually enjoy and appreciate them. I found a brand new copy of this book in a Little Free Library when I was on a morning walk and inside the cover the person who donated the book wrote "Black Lives Matter. Please read and pass on." 

I set aside all the other books waiting to be read, including a shelf full of nonfiction books about white privilege and the history of racial relations in this country and all the things we need to do and know now. I will return to that necessary and worthwhile task, as part of re-educating myself. But often a novel touches my heart and frees me to imagine myself into realities I have not experienced. When I read a piece of fiction that is so well-written, as this book is, I become part of the story. I no longer look from the outside in or from the present back to the past.

I am part of the setting and the time period. I am one of the characters--or maybe more than one. I experience the story as it unfolds, and that allows me to learn more on a heart level. 

The story in The Hate U Give is not unfamiliar, unfortunately.  A young black man confronted by police for no real reason and the tragic and far-reaching results of that. This was published in 2017, as I said, but it could have been published today, and you will feel that, too. 

I didn't always understand the language or the cultural references, being a white woman in her 70's, nor can I possibly feel the same anger or fear felt by the characters in the book, but the book illustrates what happens when humans do not treat other humans as human. It also illustrates when humans do treat other humans as humans, and that according to Austin Channing Brown, the author of I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, another book on my long list, is the work of anti-racism. 

The main character in the book is the primary witness to the killing of her friend, and her dilemma is how to respond. I am quite sure Angie Thomas, the author of the book, was familiar with the words of Rep John Lewis, "Never ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble." 

Reading a book relevant to what is happening in our country now--or not happening-may not seem as if it can make a difference, but I think the reading I choose to do opens me to the ways I am racist. I may not do obvious racist things, like yelling "White Power," or beating someone up or tearing up a Black Lives Matter sign, but I have racist thoughts, and it is my job to become clear about what they are.

The theologian Walter Brueggeman asked "How can this time of unease be holy time?" This time becomes holy when we dare to listen to the pain and history and fears and hopes and dreams of others, but also when we dare to listen to the uncomfortable thoughts and beliefs and assumptions we hold within ourselves. 

So I repeat what Austin Channing Brown said in a recent conversation with Brene Brown, (podcast)  "The work of anti-racism is to become a better human in order to treat other humans better."

An Invitation

What inspires you to be a better human? What are you learning about yourself as a racist? 

A final note: What a privilege it was when I was on a civil rights tour in 2018 to walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma where John Lewis and so many other brave souls walked, in order to make us all better humans.