{"id":103993,"date":"2015-08-21T08:01:55","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T12:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=103993"},"modified":"2015-09-23T12:16:11","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T16:16:11","slug":"uconn-reads-short-list-race-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2015\/08\/uconn-reads-short-list-race-in-america\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Reads Short List: Race in America"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"UConn<\/a>
UConn Reads 2015 – the short list. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On August 15, 2015, Julian Bond \u2013 aged seventy-five \u2013 passed away. Bond was a tireless equality activist and inspiring civil rights figure whose work encompassed five decades and multiple causes.<\/p>\n

A founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), former chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the first president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and a founding leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Bond devoted his life to dismantling discrimination. He was most recently a vocal proponent for marriage equality and an ardent environmental justice advocate.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, Bond reflected on the fiftieth anniversary of the \u201cMarch on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.\u201d More than 250,000 Americans \u2013 including Bond — participated in the march, which took place on August 28, 1963 and is remembered by most as the backdrop for Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s oft-quoted \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech. As Bond noted:<\/p>\n

“Then, we could not have imagined we\u2019d be here 50 years later with a black president and <\/em>a black attorney general. But that\u2019s a measure of how far we have come\u2026 But still we <\/em>march. We march because Trayvon Martin has joined Emmett Till in the pantheon of <\/em>young black martyrs. We march because the United States Supreme Court has eviscerated <\/em>the Voting Rights Act for which we fought and died. We march because every economic <\/em>indicator shows gaping white-black disparities. We march for freedom from white <\/em>supremacy. But still we have work to do\u2026.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Bond\u2019s Janus-faced reflection \u2013 which considers \u201chow far we have come\u201d while acknowledging we continue to \u201chave work to do\u201d \u2013 presciently encapsulates the ever-relevant stakes of this year\u2019s UConn Reads theme, \u201cRace in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

As recent events have made painfully clear and dramatically urgent, race and racism remain at the forefront of U.S. politics and American life. In considering the work that persists on this front, one must necessarily acknowledge the legacies of the Civil Rights movement while critically assessing \u2013 like Bond \u2013 measures of national progress and declarations of colorblindness.<\/p>\n

The finalists<\/strong><\/p>\n

Such contemporary appraisals \u2013 which take into account civil rights history alongside current events \u2013 serve as a consistent through-line for this year\u2019s UConn Reads short list, which is comprised of three acclaimed works, including:<\/p>\n

Michelle Alexander\u2019s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness<\/em> (2010); Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie\u2019s Americanah<\/em> (2013);Paul Beatty\u2019s The Sellout<\/em> (2015).<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The recipient of much acclaim and praise, Alexander\u2019s The New Jim Crow<\/em> provides, as former NAACP president Benjamin Jealous characterizes, \u201ca timely and original framework for understanding mass incarceration, its roots to Jim Crow, our modern caste system, and what must be done to eliminate it. This book is a call to action.\u201d The work spent 35 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list in 2012 and reached the top spot on the Washington Post best seller list that same year.<\/p>\n

\"Americanah<\/a>
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Equally praiseworthy is Adichie\u2019s Americanah<\/em>, a novel focused on the experiences of a young Nigerian woman (Ifemelu) who originally comes to the United States for schooling and remains in the country for work. As Mike Peed noted in his New York Times review, Americanah \u201cexamines blackness in America, Nigeria, and Britain, but it\u2019s also a steady-handed dissection of the universal human experience\u2026\u201d Americanah<\/em> won the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction), was shortlisted for the 2014 Baileys Women\u2019s Prize for Fiction (in the United Kingdom), and was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013 by the editors of the New York Times Book Review.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Sellout by Paul Beatty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last, but certainly not least, is Beatty\u2019s novel, The Sellout<\/em>, which reviewer Dwight Garner asserted reads \u201clike the most concussive monologues and interviews of Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, and Dave Chappelle wrapped in a satirical yet surprisingly delicate literary and historical sensibility.\u201d The novel\u2019s African American protagonist \u2013 the son of a social scientist father \u2013 eventually ends up in the United States Supreme Court because he wants to reinstate slavery and segregate the local middle school.<\/p>\n

In the upcoming weeks, the UConn Reads Steering Committee will deliberate and discuss these works, which were nominated by UConn alumni, students, faculty, and staff. Notwithstanding the strengths of each work, the committee is charged with the task of selecting ONE work, which will be announced in early September.<\/p>\n

The UConn Reads program was created to bring together the University community \u2013 from students, faculty, and staff to alumni and friends of UConn, as well as citizens of Connecticut \u2013 for a far-reaching and engaging dialogue centered on a book suggested by the community.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three striking works have been chosen as finalists to represent the theme of ‘Race in America.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":104003,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[56],"class_list":["post-103993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-01 23:48:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103993"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104547,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103993\/revisions\/104547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/104003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103993"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=103993"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=103993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}