We’ve reached another milestone with Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, celebrating thirty-three weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List! It’s climbed as high as number two in the listing. And now, we’re excited to announce that we’re signing a second book with DiAngelo that will build on the conversation that started with White Fragility. The follow-up book will explore the need for white people to break with white solidarity in order to better support efforts toward racial equality. It is tentatively scheduled for release in late fall 2020 or spring 2021. Read more →
9 posts from February 2019
A Q&A with Pamela D. Toler | I’ve been fascinated by the concept of women warriors ever since I was a nerdy kid who read every biography of famous women I could get my hands on and who regularly blew her allowance on comic books with female superheroes. But the real trigger for me came in 1988, when Antonia Fraser published Warrior Queens. Fraser’s book not only introduced me to women I’d never heard of before, but also to a new idea: that women “fought, literally fought, as a normal part of the army in far more epochs and far more civilizations than is generally appreciated.” Once I was aware that women warriors had existed in many times and places, it seemed like I ran across references to them everywhere. I began collecting their stories with no particular purpose in mind. After a couple of decades, that file was pretty fat, and I decided it was time to share. Read more →
By Feminista Jones | Twenty years after I first began writing publicly about Black Americans’ experiences with oppression, I didn’t think I’d still be at it. I didn’t think I’d still be writing about our collective struggle, the restoration of our full humanity, and respect for our autonomous citizenship. At least not with the same ferocity or the same lamenting heart. Yet here I am. We have so much more work to do to achieve equal rights for all. But at the heart and forefront of modern movements for social justice is one group who I believe will lead Black communities to the personal freedom and collective liberation we’ve been fighting for. We will be led by Black women. Read more →
February: a month that’s too short to celebrate the centuries’ worth of contributions Black Americans made to American history—and in 2019, evidently, a hot mess of a breeding ground for racial stupidity in the news! Whether it’s Liam Neeson revealing his past racist vendetta. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam admitting he was in a racist yearbook photo involving blackface. Or Gucci apologizing for and removing its “blackface” sweater. So much blackface. Even though we’re in 2019, it keeps happening. And because it keeps happening, we need to keep learning why and what to do about it. Time to hit the books! Again! In the spirit of Ibram X. Kendi’s anti-racism syllabus, we put together our own. Read more →
By Richard Blanco | Seventeen suns rising in seventeen bedroom windows. Thirty-four eyes blooming open with the light of one more morning. Seventeen reflections in the bathroom mirror. Seventeen backpacks or briefcases stuffed with textbooks or lesson plans. Seventeen good mornings at kitchen breakfasts and seventeen goodbyes at front doors. Seventeen drives through palm-lined streets and miles of crammed highways to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School at 5901 Pine Island Road. Read more →
By Thomas Norman DeWolf | I looked forward to Dr. Robin DiAngelo coming to the town where I live, Bend, Oregon, since her appearance was announced a few months ago by The Nancy R. Chandler Visiting Scholar Program of Central Oregon Community College (COCC). She was the featured speaker for this year’s Season of Nonviolence. I’m a big fan of her work, and we share a publisher: Beacon Press. I’ve not had the opportunity to see her present until now. I reserved tickets for her Wednesday evening presentation as well as her workshop the following morning. I attended with several friends, members of our local Coming to the Table affiliate group. Read more →
By Feminista Jones | Black women have endured generations of being treated, by media and community alike, as if we are unworthy of love and respect, are unattractive and undesirable, and we are expected to rise above the negativity and continue to put others before ourselves. We can no longer internalize this hateful, damaging nonsense, and we have to do everything we can to make sure the next generation of little Black girls coming into this world know they are valued, told they are beautiful, encouraged to reach their fullest potential, and embody the “Black Girl Magic” that lives in each of us. Read more →
By Richard A. Serrano | For years, I have carried around in my head a haunting tale—that of a handsome young black army soldier named John Arthur Bennett, and what occurred along a snowy winter creek in Austria and deep in the bowels of death row basement at the army’s Fort Leavenworth prison. Read more →
I was an English major in college and worked on online publications and art journals while there, because I wanted to be directly involved with spreading the good word of the works that I thought were important. I always knew I would be in publishing in some capacity after realizing I can manage paper deadlines, print deadlines, and still having that passion and drive to work on projects long term. I was a publicity intern at Beacon my last semester in college, and then I stayed on as an editorial intern after graduating and I’ve never left. Read more →