Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD

Expressing [...] deep frustration in response to [George] Zimmerman's acquittal, Alicia Garza, a community organizer based in Oakland, California, posted this message on Facebook: "I continue to be surprised at how little black lives matter . . . Black people, I love you. I love us. Our lives matter." Garza's friend, Patrisse Cullors, a Los Angeles-based activist, shared the Facebook post and added the hashtag, powerful in its simplicity, #BlackLivesMatter. Opal Tometi, a social-justice activist living in New York City, reached out to Garza and offered to help build a digital platform that could mobilize action for meaningful change. [...] The #BlackLivesMatter message resonated with many across the social media platforms of Facebook and Twitter, and with that amplification a rallying cry for the millennial generation was born. 

~p. 27

I chose this quote because I watched a video, a few days ago, in which a White man held a sign saying "Black Lives Matter" and people yelled abuse at him, calling him a traitor to his race, flipping him off, asking him, "What about White lives?" Maybe those people will never get it but it's always been clear to me what the protesters in the BLM movement are saying has never meant Black Lives Matter More Than Others. If they did, I'm sure that's what the hashtag would say. No, it's always been about the fact that Blacks are treated with less value and dignity, killed by police and incarcerated at a higher rate, discriminated against quietly through societal structure. Black people in this movement —a peaceful movement started by women— have done their best to explain, although it shouldn't be necessary. But, the anger amongst certain groups who choose to take offense persists. And, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? makes it crystal clear why such a movement is necessary, why it's particularly necessary for young people of any color to find their people, at least for a time.

The author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? is a psychologist who was charged with teaching about racism at university level, way back in the 80s or 90s (I didn't mark the date mentioned), who has been researching, talking about, and living racism as a light-skinned Black woman, for decades. She knows her stuff. The book I read is the updated 2017 version; the original was published in 1997. And, it is not exclusively about Blacks. It's about the psychology of why Black kids cluster together (the short answer: because they need to, at least for a time, to understand who they are) but the book is also about dominant groups and how those who are dominant convince the people they consider beneath them that they are, in fact, lesser. That includes women and other minorities.

The relationship of the dominants to the subordinates is often one in which the targeted group is labeled as defective or substandard in significant ways. For example, Blacks have historically been characterized as less intelligent than Whites, and women have been viewed as less emotionally stable than men. The dominant group assigns roles to the subordinates that reflect the latter's devalued status, reserving the most highly valued roles in the society for themselves. Subordinates are usually said to be innately incapable of being able to perform the preferred roles. To the extent that the targeted group internalizes the images that the dominant group reflects back to them, they may find it difficult to believe in their own ability. 

~p. 104

The comment about the targeted group internalizing images reflected back by the dominant group explains the women who claimed Hillary Clinton should not be president because women are weak.  If you've never seen the video in which a woman said Hillary shouldn't be president because she might have a hormone swing and start a war to Jordan Klepper, and then he asks, "But, haven't all wars been started by men?" you should. It's both hilarious and a good object lesson.

I'm getting off-track. There is so much depth to this book that I feel like I can't adequately describe it but it's a 5-star read that talks not only about the importance of developing identity for Blacks but about the concept of redlining that's kept blacks in less affluent neighborhoods, Affirmative Action (how it started and what it does and not do; the false concept of "ratios" as a legal imperative, for example), the ideology of "color blindness", White identity, multi-racial identity, and also that of Latinx, Native, Asian and Pacific Islanders, Middle Eastern/North African . . . everyone has some need to band together with other people who bear some similarity to them as their identities are developing. Tatum also goes into the importance of making sure children of other races and ethnic backgrounds adopted by White parents are exposed to people like them and how damaging it can be to not do so.

Highly recommended - I wish every adult would read this. An incredibly detailed and easily digestible book about race that goes far, far beyond what you expect from the title of the book but also explains the reasoning for banding together as one is developing his or her identity in a way that has completely clarified it, at least for this reader. In my case, I felt like I learned a lot about myself, as well. For example, while my friends were not entirely homogeneous, I mostly hung out with Christians because my identity was so thoroughly wrapped up in church, as a child. And, it was the Native Americans clustered together on the steps at lunchtime that I always wondered about, not Blacks. There were not many Blacks or other minorities in my hometown, in fact. It was White Bread City, probably 98% White. I'm fortunate that I grew up with a father who made it clear to us that racism was wrong. Most of my friends from home didn't learn that lesson.


Link to review of another book I recommend highly:

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrice Kahn-Cullors and Asha Bandele


©2020 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Unspeakable Mind by Shaili Jain, M.D.

UPDATED: I pre-posted my review of The Unspeakable Mind last night and when I reread my review, this morning, I didn't like it. So, I've updated my review to try to clarify a couple things I think I muddled in the original description. 


PTSD rates skyrocket in children who endure traumatic events that ravage their communities. How parents respond to the trauma and how close (geographically) the child is to the epicenter play a crucial role in determining outcome. Parents and caregivers who are able to be emotionally supportive and are not traumatized themselves exert a protective effect that reduces the odds that a child will develop PTSD. 

~fr. p. 114 of The Unspeakable Mind, Advance Reader Copy (some changes may have been made to the final print version)


When a woman has a traumatic birth, there was something subjective about the birth that was distressing. This does not have to be life-threatening or medically traumatic. We are thinking of the psychological impact of that birth experience on the mother. 

Birth Trauma definitions include "a negative and disempowering physiological and emotional response to a birth." Common themes include feeling unheard or not listened to, a lack of compassion from medical professionals, and feeling out of control or helpless. 

~fr. p. 168 of The Unspeakable Mind, ARC


I'm going to mention the things that bothered me about The Unspeakable Mind, up front, and then work my way into why I highly recommend the book, anyway. First, something I've mentioned in previous posts is that I often have difficulty with psychology books because they don't give you the full story. They'll describe a case but not tell you how it concluded. Did the patient improve? How is his illness being managed? Is it likely he'll relapse? Often, you'll only hear about what led up to the psychologist's involvement and some of the treatment without any form of resolution, whatsoever. In The Unspeakable Mind, there was an additional problem: one particular treatment method was referenced repeatedly but never fully described. There's a glossary, but even in the glossary it made little sense, at least to me. But, in general, the writing was clear enough that a few minor issues weren't enough to lessen its readability overall, nor its importance.

It wasn't till I'd set aside the book in frustration and given it time to sit before I was ready to deal with what I saw as its challenges. Then, after finishing The Unspeakable Mind I found out it's not even actual cases that are being described but composites — a made-up patient is described with a particular inciting incident that brought them in for treatment. For example, a former soldier who was traumatized during his deployment found that drinking helped him cope with social situations, which made him particularly uncomfortable. He showed up already drunk to a family barbecue and the smoke from grilling meat triggered his PTSD, making him think he was under attack. Without realizing what was happening, he flew into self-defense mode and started attacking his own family. The author describes these events as if they really happened and then what would have happened to him after he sat down with her. But, he's a composite of several patients, not a real person, and you don't ever find out whether he recovered because . . . well, you can't, since he's not real, although occasionally there may be a satisfactory conclusion to one of the stories. It's still false, but at least it gives you the sense of completion.

It wasn't till after I finished The Unspeakable Mind and had some time to let it roll around in my head that I really understood the need for the conceptual nature of the illustrations: to protect individuals — clearly, it's hard enough to keep anything private in today's electronic world. It's not necessary to describe actual cases in order to explain the concepts: how or why certain events can be traumatic, how people may react (burying the memory, having nightmares, becoming violent or depressed) and what the treatment options are, whether or not they've been shown to work, what new treatments are being tried, etc. In other words, The Unspeakable Mind gives you a well-rounded overview of trauma and its treatment. You really don't need to know about any actual individual's experience; it's only necessary to illustrate how trauma could have occurred and treatment may been handled. I'd prefer that the author mentioned that up front, though. I put the book down because of frustration with the lack of conclusions, not because of the writing, which is solid. Understanding the reason they might not have a conclusion might have helped a bit.

At the beginning of the book, PTSD is described as a trauma brought about by an experience that threatens either one's life or the life of one they care for. If you see your daughter being held at gunpoint, in other words, you're just as likely to get PTSD as the daughter with the gun pressed to her side. But, later on in the book, other traumas like the Birth Trauma that's mentioned above are described. So, you don't always have to have a near-death experience to be traumatized and, in fact, even unborn children can be damaged by the trauma experienced by a pregnant mother.

The contents include a description of how and why the author decided to study and treat traumatic stress, the history of how trauma has been described and treated, mistakes in diagnosis ("overdiagnosis and underrecognition"), what happens to a traumatized brain, how trauma can be passed on through generations, the meaning of dissociation, physical effects of PTSD (addiction, cardiac disease), danger to those around the traumatized, types of trauma experienced specifically by women, suicide prevention, treatments, and preventing trauma itself (by immediately treating those who have been through known traumatic incidents), and more.

Highly recommended - I learned a great deal from The Unspeakable Mind. Throughout the book, the author shares the story of her father's trauma, which occurred during the Partition of India in 1947. I particularly enjoyed that personal touch. I also appreciated the writing for the broad overview of different ways in which people can be traumatized, how they've been treated in the past and what new treatments are being used, what exactly is considered traumatic enough to fall under the category of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and what helps or hinders treatment that may actually lead to a cure.

The bottom line seemed to be that the most important factors in prevention and recovery are acceptance that a person has been traumatized (by friends, parents, and police in the case of rape, for example) and a good social support network to help them through the aftermath. I lead kind of a sheltered life but still know several people who could have been featured within the pages of this book, so that speaks to me of how easily one can be traumatized and the fact that all of us are probably related to or friends with at least one person who has PTSD. For that reason, I recommend it to everyone because it may help readers learn the importance of being in someone's support network.

A side note: I deliberately included the first excerpt because it describes the danger of separating children from their parents and then mistreating them. Not only does the separation enable the development of PTSD by removing the supportive network that anyone needs in a traumatic situation, the book also describes the physical damage done to a child's brain when traumatized. This seems an important and timely subject in America.

I received a copy of The Unspeakable Mind from HarperCollins in exchange for an unbiased review. Many thanks!

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don't Do by Amy Morin

13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don't Do by Amy Morin is the kind of book I don't usually read. I decided a long time ago that most self-help books just don't work for me. Either the advice doesn't quite fit my needs or it doesn't stick. I've got a few favorites that I reread on occasion (mostly from the "positive thinking" end of the spectrum) but I stopped buying self-help years ago. So, it's kind of surprising that I decided to read 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don't Do. Maybe the backwards nature of the title appealed to me -- instead of 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Should Do, its opposite? I can't say. All I can tell you is that I was seeing the book everywhere and it had already piqued my interest when I got an offer to review the book.

I started reading 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don't Do the day it arrived. I really was that excited about it. Subtitled "Own Your Power, Channel Your Confidence, and Find Your Authentic Voice for a Life of Meaning and Joy," this is actually the third in a series of books about things people who are mentally strong avoid and the first directed specifically at women and their unique challenges. I have not read the others and, in fact, had not heard of them.

A brief note on the challenges that are unique to women: Morin talks about how we're treated as children -- the origin of those challenges that are very specific to women -- impact us. She talks, for example, about research into how teachers respond to boys vs. girls:

[. . . ] teachers were more likely to give boys effort-based feedback when they fail and ability-based feedback when they succeed. So if a boy fails, a teacher may be more likely to say, "You need to study harder next time." But when a boy succeeds, the teacher is more likely to say, "You are smart."

Girls, however, are more likely to receive feedback that their failures stem from their lack of ability while their successes are due to good behavior. So a teacher is more likely to tell a girl, "Math comes hard to you," when she fails and is more likely to say, "You do well on tests because you pay attention in class," when she succeeds.

[p. 62]

The first few chapters of the book went quickly. 13 Things is an easy, breezy read with plenty of examples from the author's work as a clinical psychologist (a talk therapist). She describes each particular thing women don't do if they're mentally healthy, for example: Chapter 1: They Don't Compare Themselves to Other People. In Chapter 1, Morin describes how many women compare their looks to models and wonder, "Why can't I look like Christie Brinkley?" or whoever, and make themselves miserable by feeling too short, too fat, too un-blonde, etc. Morin then will talk about a specific patient and how she was comparing herself to someone else, why it was causing her problems, what the doctor suggested, and how she applied those suggestions or came up with something similar (sometimes, patients do come up with their own ideas after hearing that of the psychologist) to stop the mentally unhealthy behavior.

One thing that's great about this book: You won't just learn what you're doing wrong but what you're doing right. I don't compare myself to anyone else, for example. Instead, if I'm feeling fat or ugly or whatever, I tend to ponder what I can do to change myself to be the best me instead of longing to be something that is, in fact, physically impossible. So, you could say Chapter 1 doesn't apply to me at all. But I still found it an enjoyable and helpful read because it's encouraging to discover and ponder those areas in which you're mentally strong, rather than just reading about the weak areas. And, if you don't feel like you want or need to read about what you're doing right, you can always skim the chapters that don't apply to your needs. Only 2 of the chapters seemed to apply to my specific needs.

But, wow, those two chapters hit me hard. One was about something that I've known to be a challenge my entire adult life. Thinking about how it applied to me was painful. And, I think I'll probably need to reread those two chapters repeatedly in order to really work on not doing those particular things that are harmful to myself. But, I'm definitely glad I own a copy of the book so I can read those two chapters repeatedly.

Highly recommended - While only a couple of the chapters in this book applied to me personally, I found 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don't Do both fascinating and helpful, and it's such an easy read that you can't possibly feel like you're wasting the time reading (or skimming) the chapters that don't apply. That's because those that do really make you evaluate your challenges and how to conquer them while the rest make you feel good about yourself.

I received a copy of 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don't Do from HarperCollins in exchange for an unbiased review. My thanks to HarperCollins!


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Church of Facebook by Jesse Rice

The Church of Facebook: How the Hyperconnected are Redefining Community by Jesse Rice

Copyright 2009

David C. Cook - Nonfiction/Psychology/Religion

231 pages, including references

I don't know if I can do justice to this book, which I loved so much I plan to reread it and share with my husband, but I'll do my darndest.

"The world is shrinking, one profile at a time," it says in bold lettering on the back of The Church of Facebook. Don't worry, though. Like $20 Per Gallon (so nice of me to provide a link to keep you from paging down a whopping 6 inches, isn't it?), The Church of Facebook isn't depressing. It's a little scary, however, the way Rice describes our shift in social lives, how our worlds have been, yes, shrinking down to little social communities on the Internet.

The Church of Facebook opens with the story of the opening of the Millenium Bridge in London, England -- by all accounts a disaster of engineering that, fortunately, did no harm to those who walked across it on opening day. The author talks about how the people walking across the wobbling bridge altered their steps into a synchronized rhythm and then describes how this story fits into the physics concept of spontaneous order, which oddly can be applied to psychology, as well.

I don't know that I can explain the concept, unfortunately, but the story of how we fall into sync with each other is one heck of a grabber opening. I had to restrain myself to keep from reading because I'm in a discussion group (the quietest discussion group on the planet - only two of us have said a thing) and wanted to hold back. Eventually, I figured nobody was talking, might as well read on.

The first chapter of The Church of Facebook describes our need for connection with other humans and the second describes why we have need to feel a sense of control over our own lives. Facebook and other social networking sites, he says, are not enough. The author describes the history of Facebook, how it and other such networks have changed the way we interact with each other, why we need connection with real-life people and a bit of debate about whether or not such social networks can be a substitute for in-person relationships. He doesn't downplay the usefulness of internet connections; he simply clarifies how they've caused us to become more isolated and indicates that social networking should supplement our interaction with other people, not supplant it.

The author concludes by doling out some advice on how to use Facebook in a positive way, "mindfully" rather than just in "look at me" sound bites.

The word "church" in the title gives you an idea that The Church of Facebook is a book that dips into religion. Yes, there's a bit of a religious aspect and it's Christian. But, Jesse Rice is both a psychologist and a minister and the book veers heavily toward psychology. In order to get his points across, Rice drags you around the world to show specific examples. He is apparently a natural raconteur. I was absolutely engrossed and, in particular, enamored with his sense of humor.

4.5/5 - While the church aspect lost me a bit, for a while, I thought this book was just fabulous - beautifully written, fascinating, revealing, thought-provoking, entertaining. Do yourself a favor -- don't skip this book because of the word "Christian". I'd hate for you to miss out.

In case you found yourself blinking repeatedly, wondering whether a massive number of book reviews (sans chatter) showed up on my blog overnight, you're right. I was going to skip right on over the reason, which I mentioned in the first of the five reviews. But, nah. I'll just tell you. I couldn't sleep because the neighbor's driveway spotlight shines directly through our blinds and into the master bedroom. Nine times out of ten, the neighbors remember to turn that darned light off, but on the rare occasions that they don't . . . no sleep. None. I gave up at around 2:15 and I've been hammering out quickie reviews, ever since. I cannot see straight, but at least I was productive, right?

Many thanks to Audra of B & B Media for the review copy of this book.