Stamped: A Review
Title: Stamped
Genre: Young Adult Non-fiction
Author: Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds
Rating: 5/5
Growing up, I hated history books. They’re so dry and difficult to read. There are so many names, dates, and locations to get bogged down by. But this book was everything a history book isn’t. It’s easy to read and follow and so plainly lays out the history school never taught us.
This isn’t going to be a long review because I don’t have much to say about this book other than everyone needs to read it. I took for granted for so long that what we were taught in school was history, that it was everything. But there’s so much more that I don’t know and reading this book was the first step in unlearning bias I’ve had my entire life and learning how to be a real ally. Read this book to understand racism better. Read this book to learn.
“And guess what they did during the development of Harvard? They made it so that Greek and Latin texts could not be disputed. Which meant Aristotle, a man who believed in human hierarchy and used climate to justify which humans were better, could not be disputed, and instead had to be taken as truth.”
I can’t understand and I’ll never be able to, but I can stand with my friends and demand justice. And part of that is educating myself. We can’t, as a society, wait for someone to educate us, we must do it ourselves. So, do yourself a favor and pick this book up. And while you’re here, here are some websites and resources we’ve been using and that you might find helpful as well!
The Basic Guide is a google doc created by Amelia Aversano. It explains why Black Lives Matter is needed, about the protests, what it means to abolish the police, and so much more information.
This Black Lives Matter website has petitions to sign, phone numbers to text and call, places to donate, information on voting, and more resources on Black Lives Matter to educate yourself.
Email Them is a website that gives you your local representatives for your state and all the ways to contact them (email, facebook, youtube, twitter, phone number, etc.). It even has an auto email and auto Tweet button, making it easy to contact your representatives.
This NPR article gives you 5 ways to take action beyond protesting.
Goods Unite Us is both an app and a website that allows you to look up the companies you are purchasing from. It shows you their donation history (to what political campaigns or parties they’ve donated to) and whether it’s senior employees (such as CEO’s) or the company that is donating the money. This is a great way for us to know where our money is going when we’re purchasing things. There’s a section on this site called a Campaign Finance Reform Score, which is an indicator of whether purchasing from the company will keep corporate money in politics. If you’d like to learn more about Campaign Finance Reform Score, I’ve linked an article on their website.