When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors & Asha Bandele
Synopsis:
A poetic and powerful memoir about what it means to be a Black woman in America―and the co-founding of a movement that demands justice for all in the land of the free.
Raised by a single mother in an impoverished neighborhood in Los Angeles, Patrisse Khan-Cullors experienced firsthand the prejudice and persecution Black Americans endure at the hands of law enforcement. For Patrisse, the most vulnerable people in the country are Black people. Deliberately and ruthlessly targeted by a criminal justice system serving a white privilege agenda, Black people are subjected to unjustifiable racial profiling and police brutality. In 2013, when Trayvon Martin’s killer went free, Patrisse’s outrage led her to co-found Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi.
Condemned as terrorists and as a threat to America, these loving women founded a hashtag that birthed the movement to demand accountability from the authorities who continually turn a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon people of Black and Brown skin.
Championing human rights in the face of violent racism, Patrisse is a survivor. She transformed her personal pain into political power, giving voice to a people suffering inequality and a movement fueled by her strength and love to tell the country―and the world―that Black Lives Matter.
When They Call You a Terrorist is Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele’s reflection on humanity. It is an empowering account of survival, strength and resilience and a call to action to change the culture that declares innocent Black life expendable.
Note: 4.5/5
Review:
In this memoir, Patrisse Khan-Cullors recalls her life as a Black Queer woman and her family’s struggles that led to the Black Lives Matter Movement. She tells the reader how racism was a part of her youth, how it shaped her. Her experience with racism starts when she sees her brother Monte being searched against a wall for just spending time outside with his friends.
She also notices a considerable difference with White people when she goes to have dinner at one of her school friends’ houses who is white. There, she discovers that her friend’s family eats together around a dinner table, talking about everyone’s day when in her family, her mother has to work two to three jobs from sunrise to sunset to make ends meet.
In this book, you will discover how it feels to grow up being African-American in the United States and how the police go to violence instead of healing. As a white person, I’ve learned so much from this book, I’ve always known I was privileged to have been born white in Europe, this memoir made me realize how much.
By reading this book, you will learn how the police forces will deny someone medication when they have mental health issues. How they are beating up and encouraging sexual assaults on prisoners. How they are torturing prisoners and their families. How they are making prisoners disappear for a while, or how they’re tearing up family. Basically, you will discover how hard police forces are trying to strip the Black community of its humanity.
This book is an excellent example of a read to better educate yourself on how to be an ally of the Black community and be an anti-racist. No matter how hard the police try to silence the African-American community, BLACK LIVES MATTER, AND POLICE BRUTALITY AND DISCRIMINATION HAVE TO STOP!
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