Audiobook4 hours
We Speak for Ourselves: A Word from Forgotten Black America
Written by D. Watkins
Narrated by D. Watkins
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
()
About this audiobook
From the row houses of Baltimore to the stoops of Brooklyn, the New York Times bestselling author of The Cook Up lays bare the voices of the most vulnerable and allows their stories to uncover the systematic injustice threaded within our society. Honest and eye-opening, the pages of We Speak for Ourselves “are abundant with wisdom and wit; integrity and love, not to mention enough laughs for a stand-up comedy routine” (Mitchell S. Jackson, author of Survival Math).
Watkins introduces you to Down Bottom, the storied community of East Baltimore that holds a mirror to America’s poor black neighborhoods—“hoods” that could just as easily be in Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, or Atlanta. As Watkins sees it, the perspective of people who live in economically disadvantaged black communities is largely absent from the commentary of many top intellectuals who speak and write about race.
Unapologetic and sharp-witted, D. Watkins is here to tell the truth as he has seen it. We Speak for Ourselves offers an in-depth analysis of inner-city hurdles and honors the stories therein. We sit in underfunded schools, walk the blocks burdened with police corruption, stand within an audience of Make America Great Again hats, journey from trap house to university lecture, and rally in neglected streets. And we listen.
“Watkins has come to remind us, everyone deserves the opportunity to speak for themselves” (Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestselling author) and serves hope to fellow Americans who are too often ignored and calling on others to examine what it means to be a model activist in today’s world. We Speak for Ourselves is a must-read for all who are committed to social change.
Watkins introduces you to Down Bottom, the storied community of East Baltimore that holds a mirror to America’s poor black neighborhoods—“hoods” that could just as easily be in Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, or Atlanta. As Watkins sees it, the perspective of people who live in economically disadvantaged black communities is largely absent from the commentary of many top intellectuals who speak and write about race.
Unapologetic and sharp-witted, D. Watkins is here to tell the truth as he has seen it. We Speak for Ourselves offers an in-depth analysis of inner-city hurdles and honors the stories therein. We sit in underfunded schools, walk the blocks burdened with police corruption, stand within an audience of Make America Great Again hats, journey from trap house to university lecture, and rally in neglected streets. And we listen.
“Watkins has come to remind us, everyone deserves the opportunity to speak for themselves” (Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestselling author) and serves hope to fellow Americans who are too often ignored and calling on others to examine what it means to be a model activist in today’s world. We Speak for Ourselves is a must-read for all who are committed to social change.
Related to We Speak for Ourselves
Related audiobooks
Invisible Man Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man's Education Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Mother. Barack Obama. Donald Trump. And the Last Stand of the Angry White Man. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Play in the Sun: One Woman's Journey Through the Color Complex Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Greyboy: Finding Blackness in a White World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5State of Emergency: How We Win in the Country We Built Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Surrender, White People!: Our Unconditional Terms for Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear of Black Consciousness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girl Gurl Grrrl: On Womanhood and Belonging in the Age of Black Girl Magic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How We Can Win: Race, History and Changing the Money Game That's Rigged Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good White Racist?: Confronting Your Role in Racial Injustice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man's Blues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black in White Space: The Enduring Impact of Color in Everyday Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Antiracist: How to Start the Conversation about Race and Take Action Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSaid I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of a Black Theologian Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lifting as We Climb: Black Women's Battle for the Ballot Box Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We Can't Breathe: On Black Lives, White Lies, and the Art of Survival Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5America, Goddam: Violence, Black Women, and the Struggle for Justice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Seen and Unseen: Technology, Social Media, and the Fight for Racial Justice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Standing Our Ground: The Triumph of Faith Over Gun Violence: A Mother's Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My People: Five Decades of Writing About Black Lives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues: Education for the Liberation of Black and Brown Girls Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Be Black Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Ethnic Studies For You
All About Love: New Visions Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals About Human Desire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After Life: My Journey from Incarceration to Freedom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism within US Slave Culture Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We Carry Their Bones: The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life Sentence: The Brief and Tragic Career of Baltimore’s Deadliest Gang Leader Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino” Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cross and the Lynching Tree Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The FBI War on Tupac Shakur: The State Repression of Black Leaders from the Civil Rights Era to the 1990s Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ceremony Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism 2nd Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Searching for Savanna: The Murder of One Native American Woman and the Violence Against the Many Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Heavy: An American Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Imagination: Black Voices on Black Futures Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for We Speak for Ourselves
Rating: 4.769230769230769 out of 5 stars
5/5
13 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Smart. Well written. Crucial perspective. Will use in class. Wish it was required reading for all h.s. Classes.