Let's Go To Mexicooo!

The Summer 2024 Book Edition

*A reminder that the Funds for Palestine guide of verified fundraisers and grassroots mutual aid organizations can be downloaded here.

“What to the American slave is your 4th of July? It’s a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim to him. Your celebration is a sham. Your boasted liberty and unholy license, your national greatness, swelling, vanity, your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless. Your denunciations of tyrants, brass, affronted, impedance, your shouts of liberty, inequality, hollow mockery, your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings with all your religious parade and solemnity are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety and hypocrisy. 

A thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States.”

A keynote speech by Frederick Douglass at an Independence Day celebration

(July 5th, 1852)

As the educator Sunny Dae Jones said in her recent video, I just thought I’d share thAT for no reason at all…

This woman is one of my many brilliant Black history teachers.

I invite you to follow, learn from and tangibly support her content.

And while I’m at it, this feels like a top tier day to run back my White People Don’t Think About This post.

Anyway, that’s not why I’m here.

Let’s talk about dope Summer books!

I’m an only child who grew up in a chaotic, unstable environment.

Books kept me grounded - they saved me.

Fast forward to the present day and words continue to be my best friends.

However, the problem is that I live in financial poverty and time poverty.

I don’t have time to read.

Often I’ll have an audiobook play in the background as I stress out about how to keep my head above water for another damn month.

But to sit on the sofa, put up my feet and curl up with book?

It’s been years since I had real free time.

The picture above?

It’s from the 21 Days to Mexico Campaign I started on Linkedin because chile, why not? And more importantly, our words have power.

Each day I share a post about the vision I want for my life in Mexico.

As you can see, I want time to read all the damn books.

Here are a handful that stay at the top of my (re-read) TBR pile.

“In Poverty, By America sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor.”

*wall slides in poor person who has known this my entire life*

“Hood Wellness: Tales of Communal Care from People Who Drowned on Dry Land by Tamela Gordon is a deep exploration of people forced to overcome harrowing circumstances with little more than communal support and the will to get well.”

This book had me shooketh at how much I could relate to in my own life.

“Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) by Dean Spade discusses why mutual aid is so important, what it looks like, and how to do it.”

10/10. No notes. Immaculate description.

“Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler opens in 2024 in the form of a journal entry by Lauren Oya Olamina (a Black teenager) as society in the United States has grown unstable due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed.”

Wait. Why does this sound familiar? Nah, that won’t ever happen…

“In All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks, this renowned scholar, cultural critic and feminist author offers a proactive new ethic for a society bereft with lovelessness - not the lack of romance, but the lack of care, compassion, and unity.”

Please read this beautiful body of work, I don’t have the words to do it justice.

And since we ride for Black owned businesses here on Poverty Sucks, please purchase these titles from Bookshop.org to support the Black owned bookstore of your choice. These links support my personal favorite Harriet’s Bookshop.

I’m not an affiliate, I’m just committed to supporting my community.

Prefer audiobooks but still want to shop at an independent bookstore?

You know I got you.

Head over to libro.fm and get two FREE audiobooks when you switch to a first time indie account.

Code: SWITCH

Want to invest in my wellness and help me move to Mexico where I can afford to exist, reset my traumatized nervous system and have a quality of life with real free time?

Click here or the image to contribute to my campaign. Thank you for the generous community support you’ve already shared.

When it comes to Black creators don’t just consume our content, contribute to our care.

It’s me - I’m Black creators.

Let’s go to Mexico, friends. Robin has books to read.