Be a Revolution
How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World—and How You Can, Too
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
From the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of So You Want to Talk About Race and Mediocre, an eye-opening and galvanizing look at the current state of anti-racist activism across America.
In the #1 New York Times bestseller So You Want To Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo offered a vital guide for how to talk about important issues of race and racism in society. In Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, she discussed the ways in which white male supremacy has had an impact on our systems, our culture, and our lives throughout American history. But now that we better understand these systems of oppression, the question is this: What can we do about them?
With Be A Revolution: How Everyday People are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World—and How You Can, Too, Oluo aims to show how people across America are using community organizing to create real positive change in our structures. Looking at many of our most powerful systems—like education, media, labor, health, housing, policing, and more—she highlights what people are doing to create change for intersectional racial equity. She also illustrates various ways in which the reader can find entryways into this essential social justice work, or can bring some of this important work being done elsewhere to where they live.
This book aims to not only be educational, but to inspire real change. Oluo wishes to take our conversations on race and racism out of a place of pure pain and trauma, and into a place of loving, transformative action. Be A Revolution is both an urgent chronicle of this important moment in history, as well as an inspiring and restorative call to action against systemic racism.
Drawing on extensive interviews with grassroots organizers, Be a Revolution provides a practical toolkit for change, exploring actionable strategies in areas like:
Abolition in Action: Go beyond the theory of reform and punishment to see how activists like Richie Reseda are building new systems of accountability and transformative justice.Intersectional Gender Justice: Learn from movement leaders like Tarana Burke why the fight for bodily autonomy must address the unique ways race, queerphobia, and transphobia impact our communities.Disability Justice: Discover why there is no racial justice without disability justice, and how ableism underpins the hierarchies of body and mind that fuel systemic oppression.Labor and Environmental Justice: Uncover the deep connections between racism, labor exploitation, and environmental apartheid with organizers like Chris Smalls and Jill Mangaliman who are fighting for a just transition.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Oluo (So You Want to Talk About Race) affirms that "everyone has different roles in this revolution" in these enlightening profiles of people who've put their anti-racist values into action. Each chapter highlights the tie between racial justice and some other topic—such as gender, disability, policing, education, and the arts—through detailed life stories of activists that center their changing understanding of the world and how they managed challenges. For example, a chapter on Richie Reseda relates how his encounters with Black feminist theory in prison led him to found Success Story, a workshop to help incarcerated men think about how internalized patriarchal ideas have shaped and harmed them. Throughout, Oluo showcases a variety of ways to promote anti-racism, many of them intended to be of use to people for whom anti-racist organizing is not necessarily a central focus of their activism. She also admirably demonstrates how she continues to grow through self-education and reflection, at one point frankly addressing earlier shortcomings in her thinking about disability. Readers will find inspiration and clarity.
