Social justice book reviews
One of the most notable traits of the white evangelical church today is the rampant, toxic patriarchal sexism. It is one of the many reasons that so many people, including women, are leaving the church. Notably, many women who leave their toxic churches stay religious or spiritual, but I’m not talking about them today. I’m talking about women, men, and atheism.
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I believe that reading is a form of activism, that knowledge is power, and that an open mind makes for a better world. This applies to the topic of abortion just as it does for everything else. Thus, I’ve compiled a list of what I think are the best books to introduce you to what people actually mean when we say that abortion is a good thing and a necessary human right.
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Everyone knows that access to abortion is a critical human rights issue. The potential overturning of Roe v. Wade is more than unconstitutional, it’s inhumane. An unjust human rights violation. But the worst part? As many activists have said, it’s the floor, not the ceiling, of reproductive justice. That’s where Loretta J. Ross and Rickie Solinger’s Reproductive Justice: An Introduction becomes crucial to understanding what that ceiling might look like.
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For years I have proudly identified as a pro-choice feminist. As Roe v. Wade is effectively being overturned state-by-state, I’ve begun to educate myself more on the history of abortion while I’ve become more outspoken in defense of women’s rights. Ironically, it has been this journey that has made me begin to question whether pro-choice is the right identity for me.
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I have made a horrible mistake.
I allowed Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe by Simon Singh to sit on my bookshelf for three and a half years, unread. After finally reading this thrilling, enlightening, and entertaining book, I now know that all these years I was missing something great. And holographic.
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On September 21st, 2021 at 10:42 pm, I received a text from a friend.
“Do you want to see the new Tammy Faye movie sometime?”
I had no idea who or what that was, so I Googled it and immediately texted back, “Yes!”
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If you’re like me, your eyes are opened to more and more of the injustices in our world every day. And if you’re like me, you wish that there was something that you can do about them. I read a lot of books on social justice, but the books always warn, “Just reading isn’t actually doing anything. You’ll have to take what you’ve learned and put it into action.” It’s always scary. I have no idea how to do that.
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I have always felt most at home in communities of nonbelievers. In my very first-ever blog post in 2016, I said this for the first time.
Read moreThe only problem is that I only know one atheist other than myself. I have almost no outlet for my discoveries or my questions. I hope that this blog acts as a way for me to go from being a rogue atheist to a member of a community of individuals who are either in a situation similar to my own or who were brave enough to be able to come out. I intend to share my experiences and discoveries with you as I make my way through works of atheistic literature, learn more about natural science, and form my own opinions and lifestyle choices based on my beliefs.
The crimes of white supremacy have not gone unrecorded. They are etched into the bodies of brown and black people the world over. Our scars, past and present, physical and emotional, bear witness to the violence white men and women insisted they were not inflicting. White society marked the bodies of women of color as a receptacle for its sins so that it may claim innocence for itself, and, as the chosen symbol of the innocent perfection of whiteness, the white damsel with her tears of distress functions as both denial of and absolution for this violence.
Ruby Hamad, White Tears/Brown Scars, p. 101
(Trigger warning: racism, colorism, fatphobia, ableism, child abuse, sexual abuse, and suicide.) 90-minute read.
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For the past few years, I have been inching closer to Progressive Christianity. Before you ask, I’m not going to become a Christian. However, since exiting my Angry Atheist phase, I’ve felt confident and curious enough to explore who Progressive Christians are and what they believe.
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