Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series

  The Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series continued on Aug. 7, 2021 in a hybrid set-up! Six of us met in person at the Wilson Library, after sixteen months of only meeting virtually. Two of our book club members opted to meet over Zoom. The Branch Manager at Wilson graciously set us up with a big screen so that we could see and hear Nancy and Sarah clearly, and they could see us.   We discussed Everybody’s Son by Thrity Umrigar.   Nine-year-old Anton was left in a hot apartment with no air condition and no food for seven days during a heat wave in 1991. His mother only meant to stay out for a short while, but her drug dealer held her captive, forcing her to perform sexual acts as a way to pay off her drug debt. The police discovered Anton walking along the street all bloody from breaking out of the apartment’s first floor window. Anton’s mother had locked the door from the outside, for his protection.     A well-connected and powerful judge adopted...

  Notes from Book Discussion May 22, 2021   The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers    by Bridgett Davis 2019 17 of us met over Zoom.   I began the discussion with questions about redlining and predatory lending, especially since most of the people in this group had also participated in Cultural Academy II, where we discussed these kinds of issues in Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns .   Marion S. offered that because of the redlining, Fannie couldn’t get a loan from the bank; she had to borrow from somebody and ended up paying huge interest. Marian: Plus, she didn’t even get the deed to her house for like 14 years. Marsha: I was wondering what if that man had died? Would his wife honor that agreement? Did his wife even know about the agreement?   Shelara: That’s what Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in his article about redlining and tied it in to reparations … that happens a lot, people had b...

  The Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series resumed on Saturday Dec. 5th. There were 13 of us on the session. This book: Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You , is a YA version of an Ibram X. Kendi book called Stamped From the Beginning . This time, Jason Reynolds used the material from  Ibram X. Kendi's book to present a book that's more readable for teens. One of our members, Laura, shared that she had never read YA (Young Adult) before and she was unfamiliar with some of the words and phrases that mostly young people use. She called this a generation gap.  I found out so many facts in this book and asked the group if there were things they didn't know which were revealed in this book as well. Barbara shared with us that she didn't realize that one of the main reasons the colonies revolted against England was so that they could keep slavery. This is a good place to re-emphasize that this YA edition is a scaled-down version of the original. Whereas Stamped From ...

  The Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series continued on Saturday Oct. 17th. Eleven of us met over Zoom. This amazing book begins in 1830 when 11 year-old George Washington Black is a field slave on a sugar plantation called Faith in Barbados. His caretaker, a field slave herself, is the indomitable Big Kit. One night he and Big Kit are called upon to serve dinner at the master's house, something highly unlikely, since field slaves never go into the Master's House.  While serving this dinner, the master's brother Christopher examines "Wash" and decides he's just the right size to assist him on his "cloud-cutter," a kind of hot air balloon and implores his brother to let the child become his assistant. Christopher tells Wash to call him "Titch," and encourages him to read, to draw, and to find various plants and animals for study. But he's also a servant. Titch likes to act the part of the great abolitionist but it's questiona...