Book of the Week

The shortlist for this year's Orwell prizes - awarded for outstanding work in political journalism, fiction and non-fiction - features some particularly extraordinary books. 

Poet and teacher Kate Clanchy's inspirational Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me; Caroline Criado Perez's analysis of data's hidden sexism, Invisible Women; Bernardine Evaristo's Booker prize-winning novel Girl, Woman, Other (recommended several times already on this blog); Colson Whitehead's shocking and powerful story of systemic abuse in a children's home, The Nickel Boys; and The Windrush Betrayal, journalist Amelia Gentleman's account of how she exposed the scandal of injustice suffered by some of the Windrush Generation - British citizens who travelled from the Caribbean to the UK in the late 1940s, 50s, and 60s, but found themselves reclassified as illegal immigrants, under the Home Office's 'hostile environment' policy after 2012, and were detained, denied their medical, social and legal rights, and even deported as a result.  

Books of the Week

Recommended by Miss Warner

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (fiction)

Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala (non-fiction)

People Like Us: What it Takes to Make it in Modern Britain by Hashi Mohamed (non-fiction)

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (fiction: recommended by Will Gee here)

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge (non-fiction: recommended by Madame Lapaire-Adumekwe here)

For today’s blog I wanted to bring Toni Morrison, a wonderful writer of fiction, to your attention.

In her foreword to The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison explores the origins of her novel. In it, she attempts to tackle big and important questions that we should all be thinking about. When I first read it, I was profoundly moved. I therefore think it is worth quoting at length but here are a couple of thoughts worth your critical reflection in relation to literature and its relationship to prejudice and oppression:

• What strategies/privileges does fiction have that mean that it can begin to ‘peck away at the gaze that condemn[s]’ others, and what does Morrison mean by that?

• What can texts do to stir us into an ‘interrogation of [our]selves’ and move us from empathy into self-reflection and positive action?

• How can fiction sometimes perpetuate systems of oppression and privilege?

Book Choices on Racial Oppression and Anti-Racism

Ryan Ko 

The Black Lives Matter movement has shone a light not only on the extent of racism, but has exposed how many of us are ignorant of and know too little about the history of racial oppression, myself included. As many of us are allies and cannot truly relate to the experience of black citizens in the UK and USA, we can still try our hardest to understand the role of power in systemic oppression, the history of British Imperialism and how to be actively anti-racist. 

Books are a great source of this knowledge, both fiction and non-fiction, and I hope we can all start reading more on such topics so that we are all better equipped to fight injustice when we see it. Miss Ramsay-Overall has prepared an amazing list of books on the BAMESOC Google Classroom – it is also constantly updated with other resources. Do join! Code: 5mbi7ra.  Today's post offers some further starting points for reading, very kindly contributed by members of the SPS community and their friends.