Hi everyone. I'm rincey and this is
rincey reads. Today i'm going to be doing
a book review on we gon' be alright:
notes on race and resegregation by
Jeff Chang. This is an essay collection
and I absolutely loved it. If you saw my
August wrap-up you would have seen that
I gave this book a 5 out of 5 stars.
It's the only five-star book I've read so far
this year. Yeah this book was everything
for me. So just know in advance this is
basically going to be a rave more than a
review. So yeah, like I said, this is an
essay collection, subtitle basically
gives it all away. This is a collection
of essays about race and resegregation in
here in the United States. It's not a
very long book by any means but Jeff
Chang is able to provide just so much
information and context to the way that
the United States is right now. It's so,
just so well done. He starts off talking
about, I think the title of the first
essay is like, "is diversity for white
people" and talks about how diversity is
a thing that generally people in
marginalized groups talk about
significantly. But he talks about how it
affects sort of everything and that even
if you don't fall into one of these
marginalized groups, it's also for your
benefit as well. And then he sort of goes
on to talk about things like student
protests and the rise of them. There was
sort of like the slow rising of tension
happening around various college
campuses. And then he talks about sort of
the resegregation of our cities and
suburbs. And, but also like how within
suburbs there are very clear racial
lines a lot of times and how that
affects our own points of view about the
world around us and how the resegregation
leads to things like Ferguson
happening. And so he makes direct links
between all these different events and
then he ties it in to Trayvon Martin, he
ties it in to Ferguson, he ties it in
to Mike Brown and he talks about how all
of these past events lead to these
current events and how those events have
led to future events. It's, it's fantastic.
It's so, so well done. I wasn't quite
prepared for that. Like what I really,
really loved about this book is that he
provides you with all of the connections.
um He also talked about things like
black lives matter movement obviously, he
talks about #oscarssowhite and
representation and media really
well and he ties all of it together. Like
none of these things are events
happening in silos, like they're all
affecting each other and they're all
leading to each other. Like all of these
are causes and effects for everything
else that's happening in the world. The
final chapter in here is specifically
talking to Asians Americans, which is so, so
good. Because Asian Americans oftentimes
are what he describes as being like
Inbetweeners. Like we're not white but
we're also not black. And so we try to
align ourselves with white people. I say
we because I'm Indian American. But you
know he talks about how there is a sort
of like rejection happening in the
asian-american community where we try
to distance ourselves from that sort of
racism. But we need to stand up and speak
out as well and recognize the things
that are happening in this world and
have a say in all of it. And to also not
only have a say in it, but also recognize
our part in it and how we are making the
situation worse sometimes. Oh, it's, it's
so good. It does help if you are slightly
aware, I think, of at least like the
basics of the movements like Oscars so
white or black lives matter because
you'll be able to put that stuff in
context yourself. But I don't think
that's required at all. If you follow me
on Instagram and you watch my Instagram
stories while I was reading this book, you
may have seen me like taking pictures of
a bunch of quotes. There's so much in
here that I've underlined and
highlighted and just marked for myself
to remind myself and convict myself of
the actions that I need to be taking.
This book, while it recognizes all of the
problems that are occurring here in the
United States, it's also an extremely
hopeful book and says that just because
things are this way now and these events
have occurred. It's basically here's our
history we need to learn from our
history and you know not make the same
mistakes again. Jeff Chang doesn't
pretend like it's gonna be easy either
but I think that he does a really great
job of just talking about what has
happened so far and how we need to take
steps in the future to help the
situations that we're currently in.
There's two quotes in here that I wanted
to read. The first one says, ending
resegregation is about understanding the
ways we allow ourselves to stop seeing
humanity in others. It is about learning again to
look and never stopping." So in that quote
he's basically summing up how
resegregation has happened and we need to
work to break down the barriers that we
put between ourselves and the people
different than us. And different can mean
anything. Different can mean gender lines,
racial lines, income lines, class lines.
You know, all of those things. We as
humans tend to gravitate towards
like-minded people. People from similar
backgrounds and whatnot and Jeff Chang
basically talks about how that leads to
all of these problems and recognizing
that a lot of these problems come
because we all have these prejudices in
our heads. And it's with surrounding
ourselves with people who are different
than us then we recognize that our
prejudices are incorrect basically and
that everyone is just a human being who
deserves life and liberty and love and
whatnot. And then the final quote I
wanted to read comes from the end of the
conclusion of this book and it says, "the
horizon towards which we move always
recedes before us. The revolution is
never complete. What we see now as solid
and eternal may be disintegrating inward 
from our blind spots. All that
signifies progress may in time be turned
against us. But redemption is out there
for us if we are always in the process
of finding love and grace." So yeah that's
why I say that this book is hopeful. Like
I feel like a lot of times reading about
what's happening in the world and
reading about the news that's occurring
can be really disheartening and be
really difficult and it just feels like
you know the world is falling apart
completely and you know there's nothing
we can do about it. But I think that Jeff
Chang does a really good job in here of
finishing up this essay collection by
recognizing that yeah, there are problems
in the world and yeah, it's not going to
be easy to fix, but you can fix it.
We need to make moves in the right
direction and that's what is going to
help in the end. Like it's not going to
be an overnight thing.
And there are going to be times where it
feels like we're falling backwards but
we have made so much progress.
So back in April or May I had the
privilege of seeing John Lewis speak. And
one of the things that he always talks
about is, he's always so hopeful about
world and about our country. And one of
the reasons why is because he grew up in a
world where he wasn't allowed to like
even go to his local library to check
out library books and now he's able to
get awards from libraries. And so he has
seen the progress that has been made and
even though it feels like right now
we're regressing as a country, he
recognizes that we've already made leaps
and bounds from just like the period
that he's been alive, you know, like the
sixty or so years that he's been alive.
So just imagine like the progress that
could potentially be made as long as we
continue fighting and pushing and loving
others and whatnot. So I think that
that's like the similar sentiment that
Jeff Chang has in the end of his
conclusion is, you know, it's work. And
it's gonna be hard but we got to keep
pushing and we will make progress even
though sometimes we will stumble and
sometimes we'll mess up and sometimes it
may feel like we're just punching a
brick wall. But progress can be made if
we all just continue to fight in this
direction. So yeah, I obviously highly
recommend this book. I think that even if
you are extremely aware of the different
modern like black lives matter movement
and oscarssowhite movement, Jeff Chang
does a really great job of pulling in
ties from a whole bunch of different
area, so that way he'll make connection--
he makes connections in here that even I
didn't make even though I'm very much
try to like stay aware of all these
different things. So I think that even if
you are aware of the different movements
you'll still get a lot from this book.
I think that if you aren't aware of any of
these movements or you don't have a lot
of background or history, this is a great
one to pick up. This is just a book that
I feel like should be required reading
for everyone in the world forever. So
I don't know if that, is that actually helpful?
I don't know. Pick up this book. That's all
it comes down to, pick up this book.
So yeah, that's everything that I have
for you guys this week.
Feel free to leave a comment down below
if you've read this book or if you have
any questions about the book or if you
have similar book recommendations like
sort of along these lines. I have a
couple more that sort of fit into the
same theme that I want to pick up
relatively soon. I feel like these books
are really, really helpful for me
especially right now when again it seems
like the world is falling apart, these
books are providing me with a lot of
hope and guidance and just sort of
reminding me of where my focus should be.
You know when I'm feeling extremely
disheartened about
the world, these books are helping
provide me with the energy I need to
keep going. So yeah that's all I have for
now and thanks for watching.
