Recommended Reads for Equity: Popular Non-Fiction

Recommended by: Hallie Clawson, Student UW Seattle, Information School

"This book is an examination of how technology can be invested with unconscious societal bias, and has particular relevance in our tech-obsessed culture. Speaking as part of the Information School, we need to make sure we self-examine and act critically with our use, promotion, and creation of technologies. This book is quite the eye-opener in that regard."

Recommended by: Alexis M., Student UW Seattle, Slavic Department

"This book is a great introduction to how biases can function in search engines. "

Recommended by: Anonymous

"So much of our cultural pain and trauma manifests in our personal relationships, and our social understandings of "love" are filled with internalized baggage (from racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc.). All About Love inspires us to think of love as a transformative power, for us as individuals and for our communities. It also challenges us to imagine what equity looks like in our own homes and relationships. It asks us: what would love look like without power and domination?

Finally, I read this book when I was an undergraduate student and it (quite literally) changed my life. I think it would be great to promote it in Odegaard. So many of us enter college hoping to find love and relationships without unpacking how we came to define what love even means or looks like."

Recommended by: Lauren Collins, Student UW Seattle, Social Work

"One area of diversity that we often overlook is size/weight/body, and how we are overtly instructed from a young age what kind of bodies are "normative," lovable, and worthy of inclusion. Sonya Renee Taylor takes the concept of radical body love and directly links it to the struggles of various intersecting identities and sites of oppression. She's doing incredible work in this area."

Recommended by: Nicole Gustavsen, UW Staff, UWB/Cascadia College Library

"Explores the culinary history of Southern food through the author's genealogical research of his ancestors, who were brought from Africa as slaves and whose African culinary traditions profoundly influenced what is thought of today as a very "American" (and often a "white") style of cooking."

Recommended by: Caitlan Maxwell, Staff UW Bothell

Recommended by: Anonymous

"Most Americans don't understand how inaccessible housing is for lower-income people, and how crippling an eviction typically is for people's economic prospects, future housing opportunities and future employment. This highly readable journalistic account depicts the lives of lower-income Americans from several communities around the US and their often-desperate quest to keep a roof over their heads."

Recommended by: Theresa Hwee, Student UW Seattle, School of Public Health

" One of the best books I’ve ever read. It helped me understand not only the policies that cause housing insecurity and generational poverty, but also the lived experiences of real families impacted by those policies. It’s set in Milwaukee, which I learned has historically been the most segregated city in America, thanks to redlining. While it’s not focused on the history per se, Desmond provides the right amount of this historical context for the reader so we understand the why and how."

Recommended by: Sumyat Thu, Student UW Seattle, English

"Accessible interviews with a legend who provides so much insights into recent events such as Black Lives Matter and BDS movement for Palestine."

Recommended by: Anonymous

"A smart history of how race and class have effected marginalized peoples as they mobilize to vote and how institutional forces have come down in order to stop them. Especially poignant as the mid-term elections start up, understanding how gerrymandering, voter ID, and restrictions on voter registration are damaging to our democracy today and throughout history is important as we continue to strive for equality and representation."

Recommended by: Caitlan Maxwell, Staff UW Bothell

Recommended by: Stephen Bezruchka, Faculty UW Seattle, Health Services & Global

"This book follows on to The Spirit Level which is all about equity and health. Their latest book won't be released in the U.S. until January but is now available in the U.K. Like the Spirit Level, Inner Level promises to have a profound impact on thinking around the glove."

Recommended by: Kara Schoonmaker, Staff UW Seattle, Jackson School of International Studies

"This book sets the record straight about the myriad of extremely inaccurate, stereotype-perpetuating ideas that common history textbooks continue to offer to students. It's shocking to discover how seriously history has been distorted - typically in ways that uphold American myths about Caucasian/European superiority - by state-selected curricula."

Recommended by: Anusha Nasrulai, Student UW Seattle, Law, Societies, and Justice

There are two irrefutable facts about American history books: they are white-washed, and they are BORING. Race equity work begins with education. It cannot be done without a foundation of knowledge on histories of racial oppression that inform the systematic racism equity work strives to dismantle. It is crucial to confront the realities of the history of racial minorities in this country because it has shaped the socio-economic conditions and the barriers to social progress these communities face to this day. Furthermore, the current state of American history curriculum is particularly alienating to students of color and they systematically perform lower in high school history coursework, perhaps a reflection of low morale. - history paints race oppression without the struggle for liberation. But where there has been oppression, there has always been struggle.

Recommended by: Chloe Horning, Staff UW Bothell, UWB Library

Recommended by: Devin Mack, Student and Staff UW Seattle, Jackson School

"These books gave me much greater perspective about equity in colonized and global Southern countries. Alice Walker's plea to speak up about injustices like genocide and mutilation is both heartbreaking and inspiring."

Anonymous, Faculty UW Seattle, UW Libraries and iSchool

"Goes through many periods of American history and focuses on fascinating individuals. Opened my mind about gender & sexual orientation history like few other books."

Recommended by: Gabriella Dahlin, Student UW Seattle, UW Libraries and iSchool

"This book is written by an incredible local activist. Her book is framed in an approachable way, and is welcoming for folks who are new, but open, to talking about race. I personally found it helpful for framing my own conversations with other people who might not be as deeply interested involved in social justice. It's honest and direct and really, really great."

Recommended by: Judith Wood, Staff UW Seattle, Continuum College

"Oluo is a brilliant and incisive observer, analyst, and writer around issues pertaining to race, equity, and intersectionality. She is local and would make for a lively author event."

Recommended by: Kate Orville, Staff UW Seattle, Center on Human Development and Disability- Clinical Training Unit

"The author's purpose with this book was to enable people to talk about race and to have the tools to be able to do so. The author starts each chapter with a personal story illustrating the topic she's going to talk about, then talks about why it's important, data and studies behind it and how and why it is important. As a person who's white and wants to more directly engage in learning about racial discrimination and what I can do about it, this book helped me feel better prepared to have conversations about race. I do not want to ask friends of color to give me the 101 version of things I should take the time to learn on my own first."

Recommended by: Anonymous

"As the title would suggest, a perfect introduction to diversity and inclusion that should be read by everyone. It is not written just for people who are still denying that racism exists in America today, but for people who know it does but don't necessarily know all the ways it manifests itself."

Recommended by Chloe Horning, Staff UW Bothell, UWB Library

Recommended by: Holly, Student UW Seattle, Speech & Hearing Science

"This book is so powerful. It discusses how culture, language, and national origin have an impact on health care (and vise-versa). It left me feeling outraged, contemplative, defeated, empowered, and ultimately grateful for the family that has shared their story so we may learn from it."

Recommended by: Anna Nakano-Baker, Student UW Seattle, iSchool
"This heartbreaking book has themes of war, immigration, assimilation and healthcare in the lives of Hmong Americans--it can be a great primer for Asian American Studies, and it is also beautifully written."

Recommended by: Dinah Aldrich, Staff UW Seattle, Family Medicine-Research

Recommended by: Amy Hagopian, Faculty UW Seattle, Health Services- School of Public Health

Recommended by: Anonymous

"This book seeks to reframe adult understanding of child 'misbehavior' and pushes adults to listen to what young rebels have to teach us."

Recommended by: David Fluharty, Faculty UW Seattle, School of Marine and Environmental Affairs

"I recommend this book to anyone who has not taken a course in Black History in America. Coates relates the long and mostly ignored history of race in American history and connects it to the present through the lens of his own development as a compelling writer and what the Obama Presidency means."

Recommended by: Susan Fitch, Staff UW Seattle, UW Libraries Special Collections

"It's a basic, non-judgmental introduction for white readers new to the concept of systemic racism."

Recommended by: Chloe Horning, Staff UW Bothell, Library