As author Lisa Ko tweeted on March 19, “white supremacy is not going to be dismantled through diverse reading lists.” The last year, particularly following the summer’s widespread Black Lives Matter protests, prompted a rush to compile lists of books written by Black authors and authors of color, intended to service white audiences in the name of antiracism. The merits, pitfalls and purposes of the “ anti-racist reading list”-and whom such lists are written by and for-have been hotly debated.
How can the written word even start to convey the pain caused by decades of racism and discrimination, a pain that has felt more acute as attacks targeting Asian people increased over the past year? The shootings in Atlanta on March 16, in which a white gunman killed eight people, six of whom were Asian women, has sent waves of grief through the Asian American community and through global East and South East Asian communities. It might seem trite to say that in times of despair, we can look to the written word for solace.
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