#recs requested

It looks like I’m teaching a few sections of introductory composition and some public writing in the fall. Both of these courses are great venues for recognizing and combating white supremacist rhetoric (which feels especially important in East Tennessee), and I’ve already got some texts in mind.

But if you have any recommendations for pieces written by black authors, or voices you in particular would like more people to hear, I want to assign as many as possible. Shorter pieces will, I think, have a better chance at impacting these freshmen. But I want to collect a list of recommended reading for them as well, if they want to learn more and do better outside and after the class. So long pieces are great, too.

Can be anything from essays to poems to chapter excerpts to twitter threads. Voices can be academic, activist, artist, or just plain insightful. Historical or contemporary (although preference goes to contemporary).

You are a dude

You start in a city with a small band of fighters

You do odd jobs for the local notables, mostly radiant fetch/kill quests

With that money you hire bigger and better troops

Eventually you can sign on to one of the big competing factions

These factions regularly to war with each other

You can then get your own, upgradable city, which can generate revenue for you

You can then strike out on your own, create your own faction, and take over the world

Or you can skip all that and become a trader in the fully realized goods economy, caravaning from place to place