Black Lives Matter: Boosting Black Voices in Our Community

Black Lives Matter. If you don’t agree with that truth then you can kindly leave our blog. We’ve seen many people on Twitter and all over the blogosphere wondering what they can do to support Black people in our communities right now, and from what we’ve seen the best thing for us to do right now is to promote Black voices. We think it should go without saying that you should be supporting these Black bloggers, authors, instagrammers etc always.

However, here have been several bad takes recently in regards to seeking out books by diverse authors, Black authors in specific, and though we think it should be obvious, here’s a very basic explanation of why it’s important to deliberately seek out diverse authors.

Saying that you don’t “see color” in regards to your consumption of media is wrong primarily because of the fact that publishers tend to promote books by white authors more than they do those of Black authors. If someone reads books without taking into account the race of the author writing it they will be more likely to read books by white authors. Books by AOC more likely have to be sought out, or promoted by individual bloggers.

We realized that we are no less guilty of this when taking stock of what we read as we write this post. Everyone can do better at being anti-racist. There are no exceptions. If you’ve read all the books we’ve listed, hopefully you have additional books to recommend to us. 

Outside of reading, promoting, and supporting Black creators here are a few other ways you can help. Below we’ve provided links to several petitions and sites that you can donate to if you have the ability to do so. 

This website links to loads of petitions you can sign and many places that you are able to donate to.

ADHOC has a list of resources such as petitions, donate links, as well as a bunch of literature to help educate oneself on anti-racism.

This Slam Online compiled more links of where you can donate.

Zoe Amira created this YouTube video where all the ad funds are donated to various #blacklivesmatter resources, so if you want to contribute but don’t have the funds to do so, you can help by watching the video on repeat without skipping ads.

A few of the links in these resource posts may be repetitive, but these were just a few of the great resources we found online!

As mentioned above we’ve compiled a list of books by Black authors that we really enjoyed, or we really want to read! A few of these books are on our TBRs, and some are upcoming books by Black authors that we’ve included as well. We’ve linked all the covers to Goodreads where you can find out more about the books.

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Our list was not comprehensive and we are not Black bloggers, so here are some even better resources from those that know the representation the best. We’ve found some Black content creators from a variety of platforms, recommending a variety of books to share with you. Since we didn’t want this post to go on forever we were limited in how much we could share, so we encourage you to find even more recommendations and resources on your own. This is just a starting point.

Black Owned Bookstores to Support:

Black Bookstagrammer Book Recommendations:

View this post on Instagram

BLACK LIVES MATTER BOOK STACK: . I’m going to be really honest. This post was originally a very angry post. It had a completely different tone. It was full of fury. It even had a different photo. I was going to post it on Friday, but I sat on it. Then on Saturday. I don’t like to post things without really thinking about what I’m doing, and believe me, my head was not in the right place, so I continued to wait. I read it over this morning, and decided to shift gears. Am I less angry about George Lloyd’s murder? No. Am I less angry about All Lives Matter being shoved into my face, as if that hashtag means anything, as if it isn’t just a petty and hollow way of trying to undermine the Black Lives Matter movement? No. But for reasons that are my own, I’ve decided to halt my original post. . Instead, I’m posting a book stack that thematically sums up this entire week. Each book here explores the themes we’ve seen playing out in the news. But not only that, each book evokes some element of what I’ve been struggling with lately. I don’t feel like getting into my thoughts and feelings right now. Or explaining why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling. Or working on trying to say something profound. I’ll just let the stack do the talking for me. . #books #bookstagram #bookrecommendation #bookstagrammer #whatiread #blm #blacklivesmatter #justiceforgeorgefloyd #bookstack #bookpile #fiction #contemporaryfiction #bookphoto #blackwriters #readersofig #bibliophile #igbooks #ilovebooks

A post shared by Darryl Suite (@dsweet_library) on May 31, 2020 at 11:43am PDT

View this post on Instagram

Good Wednesday everyone! Here’s some book recommendations written by black authors. Diversify your reading. Educate yourself. #BlackReadstoo #blackbooksmatter #blackstoriesmatter

A post shared by Glenda Nelms (@glendaofalltime) on Jun 3, 2020 at 7:22am PDT

Black Booktuber Book Recommendations:

Jourdan @ Booking Jourdan lists her favorite books by Black authors from both 2018 and 2019.

Olivia @ Olivia’s Catastrophe recommends 20 books in various genres written by Black authors and featuring Black characters

Black Blogger Book Recommendations:

If you’re looking for Black Young Adult Novels To Add To Your TBR, Afoma gave 45 recommendations.

If you’re looking to support Debut Black Releases Coming Out in 2020, Em @ Em’s Bookish Musings compiled a list for you.

We hope the resources and links we’ve included in this post help, and if you have any more links, book recommendations, or Black creators to share, please let us know!

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