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Oprah's Book Club

9 Crucial Reads That Help to Educate Us on Racism in America

We asked poet Claudia Rankine to compile a reading list with the aim of making all of us more educated and enlightened citizens.
By Claudia Rankine
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The Literary Criticism You Might Not Have Read Since College
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison
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This Required History Reading
The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter
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Extra Credit
Wrenched of the Earth by Franz Fanon
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This James Baldwin Essay
"Stranger in the Village" by James Baldwin (from his book Notes of a Native Son)
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More Baldwin
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
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On Talking About Racism
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
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This Groundbreaking Article
"The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates (From The Atlantic’s June 2014 issue)
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On the Modern Protest Movement
They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement by Wesley Lowery
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On Mass Incarceration
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander



Claudia Rankine is a poet, essayist and playwright. She is the author of Citizen and her next book, Just Us: An American Conversation is forthcoming with Graywolf Press. She teaches at Yale University.
Published 07/29/2020
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