Book Recommendations: August.
- Nicole Dickinson
- Sep 2, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 21, 2020
Adam Rutherford, How to Argue with a Racist.
Reading Rutherford’s concise guide to the genetics behind racism – and anti-racism – evoked a sense of scientific cleverness in me that I haven’t truly felt since I was revising for my A-level biology exams. This book, however, does it much more easily than the two years of blood sweat and tears that I devoted to scientific pursuits. This book is where genetics and social justice meet, and demonstrates my firm belief that reading is the key to understanding typically-silenced narratives and making the world a better, more educated, and more peaceful place to exist. Debunking many myths about race, Rutherford not only provides a fascinating narrative, but centres it in scientific discourse and extensive research, pulling from what seems like an endless mental database about the genetics behind race, human populations, and physical appearance. Rutherford backs up his claims with genetic, anthropological and historical arguments which are both fact-based and captivating. In some ways Rutherford’s work reminds me of Yuval Noah Harari’s factual epic Sapiens in the deep impression it left on my mental knowledge (and fun-facts-for-the-family) bank.
Anti-racism is something I have long felt passionate about, but arguing with prejudiced people about the importance of this is something that has always struck fear in me. Rutherford has produced a pocket-sized guide to help anyone like me to combat common pseudo-scientific arguments about race. Having read this, I feel as though I have an armoury of additional and concrete information that falls outside my usual humanities-based approach to anti-racism research, but which can be used alongside it to effectively champion the cause. Proving that science is socially embedded and used to reinforce real-life inequalities, Rutherford facilitates a conversation between these two seemingly-separate realms. In doing so, he highlights that however important the social construction of race is to the functioning of contemporary society, its base in genetics is flawed to say the least. This is a book I will come back to time and time again, and forms a useful tool in the contemporary battle against racial prejudice.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun
This is a stunning read, full of juicy description that leaves you wanting more. Adichie captures so well the joy in human interaction, in finding home and in family, that comes alongside tragedy and violence. I was slightly apprehensive of the length of this novel when I began it, and although it took a little longer to read than many I have worked my way through recently, at the end I was left aching for more. It centres around three intersecting characters, and their experiences of the lead up to and the violence of the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-70. The characters are likeable, rich, and fully fleshed out (although all are far from perfect); I left the novel with a warm sense of having gotten to know these people, inside and out.
Adichie captures the numbing brutality of extreme violence through harrowing descriptions which centre those affected by it. Chapter lengths vary as Adichie plays with pace. Early on in the narrative (set in the early 60s), the long chapters extend out ahead as the characters stretch their legs in their young lives as newly-independent Nigerians, no longer colonial subjects. However, as time goes on, their lifestyles become undercut by threats of violence, and the pace quickens as these come to fruition. This novel, by showing postcolonial conflict through the eyes of the civilians it most affected, offers a critique of the ongoing impacts of colonial violence, and demonstrates how British colonisation has indelibly scarred Nigeria's political landscape.
As Adichie states in a 2009 Ted Talk, "Stories matter ... Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize." Through Half of a Yellow Sun, Adichie exemplifies this perfectly: she takes a widely-known narrative of British colonial dispossession and domination, and reweaves it through a humanizing, detail-rich narrative which demonstrates Nigerians' deep-running resilience, cultural values, and sense of family, despite this deeply violent history of injustice.
Link to Ngozie Adichie's 2009 Ted Talk, "The Danger of a Single Story.":
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