Unprofessional. Messy. Out-of-control. Unkempt. Not well-groomed. Strange. Weird. Wrong. Ugly. Dirty. Hair  "Why don't you...?"  [Just conform to whatever expectations make the oppressors feel comfortable while reinforcing their sense of cultural dominance.]   For months, the Barbers Hill Independent School District in Houston,Texas has been waging war against a child (who's now 18 years old) because, in my opinion, they want to crush him into conformity by bullying him about his hair. Two weeks ago the Barbers Hill Superintendent used a full-page print ad to justify and endorse the continued bullying of this child by some adults who believe doing so is a worthwhile use of their time, energy and taxpayers' dollars.  https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/barbers-hill-isd-crown-act-18617658.php This ongoing saga poked at my own past wounds related to my "ethnic" hair and expectations of conformity among people and in spaces where Blackness and ...

  Currently reading  Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What is Human in a World of Machines  by Joy Boulamwini, Random House, October 2023 (a complementary read to Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble, 2018)   Comfort reading a sweet historical as a brain break from the seriousness of contemplating the proliferation of the machines.  And our across-the-street neighbor with a snow blower that hadn't been needed for the past two years cleared our driveway and sidewalk, allowing us to stay inside to read and bake!  

Since 2024 is off to a super hectic start for me, probably no more actual reviews this month, just book pics of current reads and binge options.   My version of emergency preparedness Happy reading!  (& yes, that includes audiobooks, Braille text, comix...) 

Don't Let Them Bury My Story, The Oldest Living Survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre in Her Own Words by Viola Ford Fletcher & her grandson, Ike Howard  Mocha Media Publishing, August 2023  non-fiction autobiography & history  This gripping, emotionally grueling, compact autobiography begins and ends with Mother Fletcher's and her brother Mr. Hugh "Uncle Redd" Van Ellis's May 2021 testimony to the U.S. Congress regarding the massacre of Black people in the Greenwood community in Tulsa, Oklahoma in May 1921. Divided into three parts, her story personalizes the history of the United States in multiple layers: ideals, strengths, weaknesses, tragedies, triumphs, and wisdom earned the hard way. The foreword by her brother and the introduction by her grandson provide more essential context.  Mother Fletcher, her family, and her community were hunted, traumatized,and temporarily erased from the official historical record. Don't Let Them Bury My Story ends with...