Anonymous User asked: what's a good book you read recently?
Just one good book? That's hard, I've read so many good ones this year! I could easily talk about SNCC: The New Abolitionists, Workers Can Win: A Guide to Organising at Work, Beyond Money: A Postcapitalist Strategy, or A Psalm for the Wild-Built.
But if I have to choose one book, I'm going to talk about Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else) by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò.
The premise of the book is talking about identity politics and how it plays out in practice. Because marginalized individuals are often pushed to the margins in movements and conversations, there are many calls for people to center them instead. But what does that mean in practice? Should a Black billionaire be centered because they're Black and experience racism that white working class folks don't even though they're likely exploiting others in order to amass their wealth?
It's a complex topic when we're talking about unions, communities, and movement work and Táíwò talks through all the difficulties in this way of thinking and acting. He eventually proposes a different way - constructive politics. A way of working together towards a common goal, whatever that might be, across racial, disability, and gender lines.
It's a relatively short book at 178 pages, easy to read and grasp the concepts, and also incredibly important. I've thought about it quite a bit since reading it and I attribute a change in how I view movement work to his book. Highly recommended!