Whether you’re a big reader or a podcast junkie, we’ve got something for you! Prolink’s DEI Chairperson, Brynn Bradley has carefully curated a list of books and audio features that celebrate black voices and black culture. Topics vary from race, pop culture, mental health, and relationships.
What to read:
All About Love – Bell Hooks
https://www.amazon.com/All-About-Love-New-Visions/dp/0060959479
Author Bell Hooks uses her incisive mind to explore the question “What is love?” her answers strike at both the mind and heart. In thirteen concise chapters, Hooks examines her own search for emotional connection and society’s failure to provide a model for learning to love. She provides a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and for a nation.
Beloved – Toni Morrison
https://www.amazon.com/Beloved-Toni-Morrison/dp/1400033411
A Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that is set in post Civil-War Ohio tells the story of an escaped slave who risked her life in order to pull herself from a living death. After losing her husband and a child, she now lives in a small house on the edge of town with her daughter, mother-in-law and a disturbing apparition.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
https://www.amazon.com/Know-Why-Caged-Bird-Sings/dp/0345514408
An autobiography of the late Maya Angelou centers around her sexual assault at the young age of 8 relating her trauma to that of a bird struggling to escape its cage. Her treatment of racism throughout provides a thematic unity to the book.
Women, Race + Class – Angela Davis
https://www.amazon.com/Women-Race-Class-Angela-Davis/dp/0394713516
Angela Davis provides a powerful history of the social and political influence of whiteness and elitism in feminism, from abolitionist days to the present, and demonstrates how the racist and classist biases of its leaders inevitably hampered any collective ambitions. Davis shows readers how the inequalities between Black and white women influence the contemporary issues of sexual assault, reproductive freedom, housework and child care.
Black Buck - Mateo Askaripour
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Buck-Mateo-Askaripour/dp/0358627982/
The story follows the evolution of Darren aka ‘Buck’, from an unambitious young Black man in his twenties, who is content with living a life of mediocrity, to becoming the best salesman in New York. Using satire, the author has depicted issues like racism and classicism that are prevalent in the corporate world.
What to listen to:
Still Processing
https://open.spotify.com/show/1wr19EefQb1OLldzfOR1KH
A podcast about tv, books, film, dating, work, and the internet as told by Wesley Morris and Jenna Wortham.
A Little juju Podcast
https://open.spotify.com/show/41WWzNCSxNEx2dDzhH8QE9
Juju gives us black womanist and witchy insight to pop culture, healing, and processing.
Code Switch
https://open.spotify.com/show/3bExJ9JQpkwNhoHvaIIuyV
Fearless conversations about race, hosted by journalists of color, led with empathy and humor.
The Stoop
https://open.spotify.com/show/68pMSb4dzcYCIAluKCXPk8
Professionally reported stories about what it means to be black and how we talk about blackness.
The Black & Raww Podcast
https://open.spotify.com/show/6YuvShs10SwaKexOf1JcHo?si=0f7242f6f34f401e
Creating a space and dialogue for black men to be authentically themselves, with conversations relating to black masculinity, mental health, and more.
