Taegan Lion
Identity politics is a complicated subject, heck even I don’t fully understand it (and I’m a journalist). Here are the 6 best books to read on identity politics as suggested by people much smarter than I.
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#1 Hair Story by Ayana Byrd & Lori Tharps
If you want to understand African-American identity politics, you have to begin with the hair. Hair Story explains the who, what, where, when and why Black hair has become so tangled up with politics and identity in the United States.
Want to read more reviews of this book or buy it? Check out the links below:
Contributors: Lori L Tharps from MyAmericanMeltingpot
#2 Same Family, Different Colors by Lori L Tharps
Talking about colorism or skin color politics is still taboo in the United States, but if you want to have a real conversation about identity politics you have to understand how colorism, not racism, is part of the picture. Same Family, Different Colors examines the concept of colorism in the African American, Latino, Asian American and Mixed Race communities. The New York Times said Same Family, Different Colors was a thoughtful, honest, historically textured and valuable book.
Want to read more reviews of this book or buy it? Check out the links below:
Contributors: Lori L Tharps from MyAmericanMeltingpot
#3 The Possessive Investment in Whiteness by George Lipsitz
This classic, widely influential book, now in a 20th Anniversary edition, has been updated to address racial privilege in the age of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and Donald Trump. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness argues that public policy and private prejudice work together to create a possessive investment in whiteness that is responsible for the racialized hierarchies of our society.
Whiteness has a cash value: it accounts for advantages that come to individuals through profits made from housing secured in discriminatory markets, through the unequal educational opportunities available to children of different races, through insider networks that channel employment opportunities to the friends and relatives of those who have profited most from past and present discrimination, and especially through intergenerational transfers of inherited wealth that pass on the spoils of discrimination to succeeding generations.
White Americans are encouraged to invest in whiteness, to remain true to an identity that provides them with structured advantages. In this twentieth anniversary edition, Lipsitz provides a new introduction and updated statistics; as well as analyses of the enduring importance of Hurricane Katrina; the nature of anti-immigrant mobilizations; police assaults on Black women, the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Freddie Gray; the legacy of Obama and the emergence of Trump; the Charleston Massacre and other hate crimes; and the ways in which white fear, white fragility, and white failure have become drivers of a new ethno-nationalism.
As vital as it was upon its original publication, the twentieth anniversary edition of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness is an unflinching but necessary look at white supremacy.
Want to read more reviews of this book or buy it? Check out the links below:
Contributors: Gary Kramer from Temple University Press
#4 Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots
This book delves into masculinity and why it's so heavily policed into being one very strict, very structured thing.
Want to read more reviews of this book or buy it? Check out the links below:
Contributors: Kitty Stryker from KittyStryker
#5 Whipping Girl by Julia Serano
I feel like this is a really good introduction to what trans women in particular deal with as it pertains to femininity and identity.
Want to read more reviews of this book or buy it? Check out the links below:
Contributors: Kitty Stryker from KittyStryker
#6 Executive Career Advancement by Lorenzo G. Flores
Career advancement is as American as apple pie. Learning to manage the political side of your career is an investment in your livelihood. No matter what your dream job is--getting it and holding on to it will be competitive, complex, and intense. We need creative ways of thinking and new tools to deal with 21st-century career challenges. After reading this book you will have a better grasp of :
- The Career Advancement Equation _______+ _______ + _______+ _______= Promotion
- Conventional Wisdom Model Promotions are based on performance and merit
- Real World Model How people are actually promoted
- Improve your political IQ for career advancement
- Self-assessment tools—know your strengths and limits
This book presents an eye-opening 30,000-foot view of the who, what, when, where, why and how of career advancement politics. After reading it you will have new insights and tools to keep you ahead of the political learning curve.
Want to read more reviews of this book or buy it? Check out the links below:
Contributors: Lorenzo G, Flores from Executive Career Advancement Politics
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