Book cover of All Our Kin: Strategies For Survival In A Black Community

Book description

All Our Kin is the chronicle of a young white woman's sojourn into The Flats, an African-American ghetto community, to study the support system family and friends form when coping with poverty. Eschewing the traditional method of entry into the community used by anthropologists -- through authority figures and community…

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Why read it?

1 author picked All Our Kin as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I’m pretty sure this book changed my life. I read it as a freshman in college, and I saw the world differently. I’d never been comfortable with all the judgment heaped on those living in poverty, especially the demonization of black women that was a cultural staple of the 1980s in Ronald Reagan’s America, but until this book, I didn’t have enough knowledge to counter those stereotypes.

Women are the heroes in this book–building strong and caring families and communities in nearly impossible situations. I encountered generosity and loyalty in their stories that I’d never seen in my own middle-class…

From Georgina's list on The best books about women in the city.

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On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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