- Ariel H.
- Thursday, June 23, 2022
The Journey:
Whether you've grown up hearing the stories from your relatives or your vision is being unblurred and unbiased for the first time, this book is definitely one you'll want to add to your mental repertoire.
In honor of National Wellness Month, a book list (located below) was created for those who want to dive a little deeper and continue to learn how to improve their communication, humanity, humility, and compassion for others that don't quite fit within their comfort zone. Or maybe those seeking to expand their knowledge on racial and/or gender injustices and inequalities. Along with that book list, we are highlighting one book that inspired this conversation, Killing the Black Body by Dorothy E Roberts.
The Journey (cont'd)
Above, there is a TedTalk Dorothy did discuss some of these racial issues that are unfortunately still prevalent today. This book covers topics from birth control and Norplant to the contraceptive vaccine; welfare; reproduction seen as a crime within the black community; race and the new reproduction; and finally the meaning of liberty.
A little over 2 decades ago, this book was written with the aim to educate, expose, and also cast a vision for the future. Topics focused mostly on the Black female and her journey throughout history as obstacles emerged around every corner to hold her back, despite the multiple profits made from her bloody, sweaty, and painful sacrifices.
KILLING THE BLACK BODY
By Dorothy E Roberts
Publisher: Vintage, 1998
Format: Book, eBook, eAudioBook
Killing the Black Body remains a rallying cry for education, awareness, and action on extending reproductive justice to all women. It is as crucial as ever, even two decades after its original publication. "Monumental. . . . An important contribution to the literature of civil rights, reproductive issues, racism, and feminism." San Francisco Chronicle In 1997, this groundbreaking book made a powerful entrance into the national conversation on race. In a media landscape dominated by racially biased images of welfare queens and crack babies, Killing the Black Body exposed America's systemic abuse of Black women's bodies. From slave masters' economic stake in bonded women's fertility to government programs that coerced thousands of poor Black women into being sterilized as late as the 1970s, these abuses pointed to the degradation of Black motherhood and the exclusion of Black women's reproductive needs in mainstream feminist and civil rights agenda.
Dorothy Roberts is a George A Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of three nonfiction, Killing the Black Body, Shattered Bonds, and Fatal Invention, and has coedited six works on constitutional law and gender. She lives in Philadelphia.
Four Hundred Souls
A Black Women's History of the United States
How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics
Doing Harm
Doing Harm
Doing Harm
An Untamed State
White Tears Brown Scars
Health First!
Sisters of the Yam
I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying
Hood Feminism
Pushout
Body and Soul
Choice & Coercion
Birthing a Slave
The Big Letdown
Undivided Rights
Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired
Black Man in a White Coat
Medical Apartheid
#OwnVoices at Richland Library is a way for African American staff to provide thoughtful and well written book reviews, book lists and blog posts to promote African American authors and their work about the African American experience. The series invites our customers to learn one more way we are continuing the conversation in our community and speaking our voice. Find more resources on race, equity and inclusion, here.