Princeton Students Circulate ‘Anti-Racist’ Books and Reading List

Lauren Johnson ’21, left, and Ashley Hodges ’21 created the “Anti-Racist Reading List.”

Courtesy of Lauren Johnson ’21 and Ashley Hodges ’21

By Jimin Kang ’21

Published July 6, 2020

2 min read

Four days after George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis, Lauren Johnson ’21, an African American Studies (AAS) major from Maplewood, New Jersey, asked friend and fellow concentrator Ashley Hodges ’21 if she wanted to collaborate on a book list as a resource for their friends and families.

The result, compiled over one weekend, was a Google sheet entitled the “Anti-Racist Reading List,” outlining 73 books, articles, and essays spanning genres and topics from critical race studies to prison abolition. (Browse the list at bit.ly/anti-racist-reading.)

“It went way bigger than we expected,” said Hodges, who is from Fredericksburg, Virginia. Days after its first appearance on Instagram May 31, the list began spreading rapidly through the University community, becoming a resource in solidarity messages distributed by student groups, campus organizations, and Princeton deans in response to the protests across the nation. The list, which also spread on Facebook and Twitter, reached unexpected audiences; high schoolers from as far away as London contacted Johnson and Hodges, asking to share the list with their peers.

The book list also was one inspiration for the Undergraduate Student Government’s (USG) Anti-Racism Book Initiative, said Kavya Chaturvedi ’21, who is the treasurer of her class. Through the initiative, the USG and the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students will purchase digital copies of Professor Imani Perry’s Breathe and Professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr. *97’s Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own to distribute to interested students, in the hope that important discussions based on Black scholarship will be a process “that extends beyond the summer, and can continue on into the school year,” Chaturvedi said.

The list idea was not unique — anti-racist book and movie lists have gained popularity in recent months, as people seek to understand the longstanding social, political, historical, and economic foundations upon which Black lives have been targeted by violence in the United States.

While creating the resource, Johnson and Hodges asked themselves whom the list was benefitting, recognizing that some individuals — such as essential workers — might not have the time or resources to “sit back and enjoy the reading list,” said Hodges. Yet she also recognized that “the act of reading is probably the beginning step for a lot of people.”

Creating a reading list “is an aspect of activism, but it certainly isn’t the last step,” added Johnson. She advocates for requiring AAS courses for all Princeton students as a way for the University to continue a much-needed dialogue on race. “It’s important to push people now,” she said.

Published in the September 2020 Issue

2021

2 Responses

Richard M. Waugaman ’70

4 Years Ago

Reading Recommendation

I learned about Albert Murray’s book The Omni-Americans only two weeks ago, thanks to an article in The Economist. Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote the foreword to the 2020 edition. Murray is a treasure! He challenges much conventional thinking about race, racism, and solutions. He’s gotten some flack for the originality and provocativeness of his writings.

Eric Geller ’83

4 Years Ago

Improving Diversity

Two suggestions for improving diversity at the University and beyond. These cost no money and can be implemented immediately.

Discourage faculty from attending academic meetings that only feature white men on the program or panel. There is no academic field exclusively made up of white men, and there is no reason that professional activities should be either. Speakers are often chosen out of convenience by organizers from the pool of their acquaintances; they should be forced to seek out other voices. If faculty don’t attend, they should let the organizers know why. Changing demand will change supply.

Eliminate legacy admission preference. Children of Princeton alumni are already preferentially advantaged with highly educated parents who are more likely to have the resources to help their children succeed in high school and on standardized testing. Although legacy admission odds are higher than general population (about 15 percent vs. 5 percent), they are still low odds, and most legacies are rejected anyway. In my experience of alumni interviewing amazing candidates over a decade, including areas of both inner city and rural New Jersey that are underrepresented at Princeton, the only two accepted were legacies, one of whom I reported was the worst candidate I had ever interviewed. There is little justification for legacies; the most common excuse is that it increases donations. One could imagine that a first-generation alumni of color who becomes financially successful might have greater gratitude than a fifth-generation admission. As Beni Snow wrote in The Daily Princetonian in 2017: “Princeton should accept students based on what they have accomplished, not based on the accomplishments of their families.”