Our Statement Against Racism
As many in our community, we have been appalled by the continuous violent presence of racism in the world. We have been reading, reflecting, standing up and working to continue to create a community in which we are all truly free and equal. With the publication of Falmouth University’s statement on racism, we wanted to reach out to our community. We decided to do this via this post and in the form of a joint statement from our School’s director and from the Head of our Department.
“As the university statement explicitly states, we abhor racism. We have been working for some time on ensuring that our curriculum reflects the multicultural make-up of the UK, rather than the regional demographic balance. English & Creative Writing have spent the past year reviewing and redesigning the curricula – and reading lists – to reflect a global approach to story-telling. Race and gender in particular were key considerations. This is an ongoing conversation and by no means complete. So we welcome your ideas and commitment as we continue to make the content of courses inclusive and sensitive to cultural difference.”
Our Staff-Curated Reading List in Solidarity with Black Lives Matter
As part of the ongoing conversation, we also asked our staff to share their recommendations of readings, texts, artefacts, both critical and creative, that help us understand structural racism, white privilege and the experiences of Black and BAME people in the UK and the world. This is also a response to the efforts of the literary world to gather important resources and support Black writers. Here is an example by the National Writing Centre. Here are some of the recommendations from our staff.
David Devanny’s recommendations
Extracted from modules’ reading lists (at least in extract form if not in full).
Criticism:
W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America (1935). This later work from the inspiring late 19th and early 20th century sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois lays out a foundational revisionism and outlines his concept of ‘psychological wage’ explaining how white privilege worked in working class America.
Stefano Harney & Fred Moten, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study (2013). This unapologetic critique of the present delivers a theoretically robust call to action, including suggestions for how universities can act and function. It’s available free online.
Juliana Spahr, Du Bois’s Telegram: Literary Resistance and State Containment (2018). In this amazing and recent piece of literary historical research, Juliana Spahr uncovers in detail the FBI’s coercive involvement in Black literary production.
Poetry:
Etheridge Knight, Poems from Prison (1968). This poetry collection written while Knight was serving time captures some of the spirit and pain of the 1960s civil rights movement. There are recordings of Knight reading from the work freely available on PennSound.
Linton Kwesi Johnson, Dread Beat an’ Blood (1978). Lot’s has changed since 1970s England, but plenty hasn’t changed as well. This book is the second collection from Dub Poetry star Linton Kwesi Johnson and it was also released as an album with Dennis Bovell.
Danez Smith, Don’t Call us Dead (2017). The first collection from the trailblazing performance poet Danez Smith who draws on their heritage as African American, gay, gender-neutral and HIV positive. Lots of their work is available on YouTube too.
Jo Parson’s recommendations
Passing by Nella Larsen. This novel is set in 1920s Harlem and it is concerned with the idea of 'racial passing'. It tells the story of Clare, who is able to pass as white. Clare is married to a wealthy and unsuspecting man, who is clearly a racist; it also explores her relationship with Irene, who is confused about her feelings towards Clare. It is a powerful and beautifully written masterpiece that explores complex racial issues alongside questions of gender and sexuality.
Sherezade Garcia Rangel’s recommendations
Film and series:
Pelo Malo by Mariana Rondón. This brilliant, heartbreaking film, translated as Bad Hair, examines the intersections of race, gender identity, sexuality, income and politics in contemporary Venezuela. It draws on the intricate web of misogyny, homophobia, racism and economic breakdown that are structurally embedded into our culture. It is hard to watch, and yet unmissable. There’s nothing quite like it in Venezuela’s film production.
Beasts of the Southern Wild by Benh Zeitlin. This film turns post-Katrina New Orleans into a magic land of community, love and sheer beauty despite the direst of adversities. Cast with non-actors, the film succeeds in presenting one of the most beautiful relationships between father and daughter I have seen in the big screen. Greatly influential in my own writing, I can still hear the key phrase: Once there was a Hush Puppy, and she lived with her daddy in The Bathtub.
Moonlight by Barry Jenkins. A thing of quiet, slow beauty, this film brings amazing performances by the great Mahershala Ali, the immensely talented Naomie Harris and a profoundly moving Trevante Rhodes. It stays with you and it teaches you about loneliness and love within a contemporary Black American experience.
POSE by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Steven Canals. This Netflix original series follows the story of the Black and Latino LGBTQ communities in New York in the 80s focusing on ballroom culture. Moving, heartbreaking and challenging, this series has illuminated a world I knew very little about and inspired me to continue learning. It’s done with such love and joy too, that it also has challenged my writing.
Thomas Highflyer by Brighton and Hove Black History. This came from my network of people interested in cemeteries and storytelling. It’s a project about a boy who was rescued in an by a captain og the Royal Navy’s East African Anti-Slave Trade Squadron and brought to Brighton, where he received an education. Unfortunately he died quite young. His story was found via tweet and his gravestone and retold by Brighton and Hove Black History as an important part of Brighton’s heritage
Podcasts:
About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge. This companion to her award-winning non-fiction book about the experiences and history of Black people in the UK, continues the conversation of seeing and dismantling structural racism. Informative and thought-provoking, like her writing.
Ear Hustle by Earlonne Woods, Antwan Williams, Nigel Poor and Rahsaan “New York” Thomas. This ground-breaking podcast – the first to be created inside a prison – tells the daily lives inside prison, as well as stories from the outside, including post-incarceration. A unique podcast, and an excellent use of the form itself.
Have you Heard George’s Podcast? by George the Poet. I cannot wait to examine this podcast with our students in the upcoming academic year. Winner of the Best Fiction Podcast in the 2019 British Podcast Awards, this great example of what can be achieved with this form takes us through contemporary London making full advantage of sound.
Non-fiction:
Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay. This beautiful, incredibly funny and heartwarming memoir traces Scottish Makar Jackie Kay’s journey through finding her birth parents, parallel to her experiences as a young Black gay woman in Scotland nestled in the love of her politically active, hilarious and kind adoptive parents. A monumental feat, this memoir is about belonging, that ever awkward question of where are you from and the way we create, deconstruct and remake our families. Featuring other great writers such as Chimamanda Adichie and Kachi Ozumba almost in roles of fairy godmothers, it traces Kay’s journey to Nigeria to meet her birth father and connect to her ancestral culture.
Becoming by Michelle Obama. In audiobook version and narrated by the former first lady herself, this book accompanied me a couple of months ago on a plane journey. It couldn’t have been a better companion. Another moving, insightful tale of the experience of the person who would become the most prominent Black woman in the United States. Candid in its balance of humour and heartbreak, this memoir traces Michelle Obama’s lead up to the White House through the challenges facing Black communities in the US for decades.
Why I am No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge. This award-winning book has been a constant and significant presence in my time at Falmouth University. I was assigned to a module that had it in the reading list, and not knowing anything about it before I started reading, this book has lead to some of the most challenging experiences I’ve had as a lecturer at Falmouth. I read it, fascinated and in shock, whilst in the USA visiting family. Having experienced racism personally as an immigrant, and most recently in the UK, I was in awe at my lack of awareness of many of the events and personalities of Black history in the UK that are studied in the book. In awe I would be too at the pedagogical challenges this book would create for me, which have undoubtedly made me rethink my teaching practice, as it is not only about including Black writers and the Black experience, but it is also about how we have the difficult discussions in a critical way through academic and creative discourse within university. Including relevant books is one step, but focusing on designing activities and enabling learning that invite openness instead of shutting down more doors is another complex part of this. This year, the 3rd years voted this book as the most wanted to stay in our reading list and it will feature in the Contemporary Writing and incoming Writing Now modules.
Tutorial activity in February 2020 where students played the Relevant Britain award, a literary award game designed to enable discussion and overcome resistance around difficult topics including racism, white privilege and white feminism. For two years running, students have awarded the Relevant Britain award to Eddo-Lodge’s book unanimously.
Abigail Wincott’s recommendations
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. It’s much read, I know, but I loved the immersion in a world that centres on Nigerians, where white invaders are the outsiders. Arriving to wreck things. It’s also a great read and the protagonist is a fascinatingly awful and moving anti-hero. This book is studied in our 3rd year module Global Voices.
Chelsey Flood’s recommendations
Fiction:
The Color Purple by Alice Walker. We were made to read this at school, and coming from a world of Enid Blyton and Jackie Collins my mind was opened up. The story is unbelievably violent and traumatic, and yet it is really about the power of the human spirit and how deep love can heal. An astonishing masterpiece.
Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo. A love story about charismatic showboater, Barrington Jedidiah Walker Esq, an Antiguan man in love with his best friend, though married to a long-neglected woman. What makes this book is the voice, which comes to life immediately and makes you long for Barrington to get his heart's desire.
Coconut Unlimited by Nikesh Shukla. A hilarious and moving coming of age story about a group of British Asian boys trying to find their place in communities that don’t seem to respect or understand them. In service of proving their worth, they decide to form a hip-hop band, in spite of the fact that none of them can rap. Japes ensue.
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams. Queenie is an irrepressible, vulnerable, funny young black woman, trying to make her way in the world of media after her heart has been trampled on. Unable to accept that her relationship with her white boyfriend is really over, she falls into an online dating addiction that takes her lower than she knew it was possible to go. A traumatic, but ultimately uplifting story of friendship, survival and the importance of self-love.
YA:
Home Girl by Alex Wheatle. Alex has written lots of YA novels, and this isn't his most famous, but it is my favourite. It is about a tough and vulnerable girl called Naomi trying to find her forever home. The subject matter is difficult, but Alex's gift for dialogue makes the whole story a lol riot.
Charm and Strange by Stephanie Kuehn. A haunting novel about a teenage boy struggling to integrate a trauma so frightening that he can’t entirely remember it.
Poetry:
Suitcase by Roger Robinson. A beautiful and heartfelt collection about family, betrayal and legacy. Roger taught me to write for the people I love, rather than the page, and this book seems to do just that. Though they work wonderfully on the page too. He also did a great poetry workshop in the Guardian, which translates to fiction of scriptwritng easily. Try it and see.
Not Worth Shaving Your Arsehole For (a poem) by Vanessa Kisuule. This always gets a good reaction in a seminar. It's comic, but talks about serious things too, like heteronormative notions of sexuality and gender inequality. Also very quotable: "Don't shave your arsehole for arseholes." Vanessa has two collections.
After the Formalities by Anthony Anaxagourou. Sometimes cerebral, sometimes tender, this collection of poetry explores race, family and masculinity in a style that seems to flit between academia and the streets. Beautiful reflections on fatherhood here, too.
Memoir:
Natives by Akala. About what it's like to be a young Scottish-Jamaican boy growing up in the UK, this book shows how the personal is political. By mapping his own struggle to avoid becoming a racist stereotype, Akala makes a powerful case for the continuing structural racism in the UK, and through rigorous research traces its roots too.
Critical:
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard For White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo This book, written by a white anti-racist educator, describes the phenomenon of white people, on being called out for racism - particularly accidental/implicit bias-based - deflecting attention back and thus avoiding meaningful cross-racial conversation.
Jennifer Young’s recommendations
Non-fiction:
Camille T Dungy’s A Shade North of Ordinary. I recommend all her writing, but I love the blend of history and her lived experience in this essay. I taught this on the MA in Professional Writing this year.
Fiction:
Nalo Hopkinson’s Skin Folk. This is a beautiful collection of short stories by the Jamaican Canadian author. I taught ‘Greedy Choke Puppy’ at another university, and it was incredibly moving to hear a Afro-Caribbean student talking about how the braiding scene reflected her own life experience.
Randall Kenan’s Let the Dead Bury Their Dead. Randall Kenan is a professor at my undergraduate alma mater (UNC Chapel Hill). I heard him speak about this collection when it came out. The stories address being poor, black and gay in the southern US. I highly recommend all his work.
Leone Ross’s Orange Laughter. Leone writes incredible, sensual prose. This novel has a character with roots in North Carolina, where I'm from. It was fascinating to read a British author's take on NC! I highly recommend any of her work, but this one and her collection of short stories Come Let Us Sing Anyway.
We won’t stop with a list
This list of resources is just an example of our commitment to equality and to an anti-racism community. There is a lot more we will need to do. If you are a student or graduate and would like to participate, please get in touch with us via twitter or by reaching out to our staff.
by FalWriting