Prairie State Wire

A number of anti-white titles stick out amongst the scores of books lawmakers are suggesting should be mandatory reading for the state’s children.

That is the concept behind a list of books lawmakers are pushing on the state’s children through HB1011.

The bill is sponsored by State Rep. Mary E. Flowers (D-Chicago).

Nonfiction books children will be required to read include the below: 

•” Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism" by Bell Hooks

• ” Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates

•” Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do" by Jennifer L. Eberhardt, Ph.D. 

• ” The Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America's Law Enforcement" by Matthew Horace and Ron Harris

• ” Brown Girl Dreaming" by Jacqueline Woodson

• ”The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin 

• ” From Slavery To Freedom: A History of African Americans" by John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr.

• "Hood Feminism: Notes From The Women That The Movement Forgot" by Mikki Kendall

• ”How to Be an Antiracist" by Ibram X. Kendi

• ”Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption" by Bryan Stevenson

• ” Me and White Supremacy" by Layla F. Saad

• ” The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander

• ” Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People" by Ben Crump

• ”Raising White Kids" by Jennifer Harvey

• ”So You Want to Talk About Race" by Lieoma Oluo

• ” Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You" by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

• ” They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, And A New Era In America's Racial Justice Movement" by Wesley Lowery

• ” This Book Is Anti-Racist" by Tiffany Jewell and Aurelia Durand

• ” White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism" by Robin DiAngelo 

• "Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race" by Reni Eddo-Lodge

Fiction books include the list below: 

•” An American Marriage" by Tayari Jones

• "The Bluest Eve" by Toni Morrison

• ” The Color Purple" by Alice Walker

• ” Dear White People" by Justin Simien

• ”For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf" by Ntozake Shange

• ” Harbor Me" by Jacqueline Woodson

• "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas

• ”The Mothers" by Brit Bennett

• ”Passing" by Nella Larsen

• ”Their Eyes Were Watching God' by Zora Neale Hurston

• ”Things Fall Apart" by China Achebe

• ”The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead

• ”White Teeth" by Zadie Smith

Mandatory children's books to be read are listed below: 

• ”The Colors of Us" by Karen Katz

• ” Happy in Our Skin" by Fran Manushkin 

• "I Am Enough" by Grace Byers

• "Let's Talk About Race" by Julius Lester

• ”The Skin I'm In: A First Look at Racism" by Pat Thomas

• ”Something Happened in Our Town" by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard 

• ”A Terrible Thing Happened" by Margaret M. Holmes 

• ”Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement" by Carole Boston Weatherford and Ekua Holmes 

• ”We're Different, We're the Same (and We're Wonderful)" by Bobbi Jane Kates.

Despite its place atop the New York Times list of best-selling books “White Fragility” was slammed by reviewer Carlos Lozada in the Washington Post for presenting a flawed view of race relations in the United States.

“The book flattens people of any ancestry into two-dimensional beings fitting predetermined narratives,” Lozada wrote.

In Lozada’s view, the book appears to be a continuation of the spirit of racism rather than conciliatory in nature.

“White people should be regarded not as individuals but as an undifferentiated racist collective, socialized to ‘fundamentally hate blackness’ and to institutionalize that prejudice in politics and culture. People of color, by contrast, are almost entirely powerless, and the few with influence do not wield it in the service of racial justice,” Lozada wrote of the book’s conceit.

Other titles on the list have garnered similar reactions.

A similar bill was introduced in the previous General Assembly but failed to gain any traction.

In the last go-round critics excoriated lawmakers for placing themselves in the classroom, bypassing teachers and the individual learning goals of children.

The sheer volume of reading mandated by the bill would be problematic in that it would edge out other non-biased reading already ingrained in learning plans.

“(The list) outlines a highly skewed 42-book list of mandatory reading for every public elementary, middle and high school student, and includes titles such as 'Hood Feminism,' 'How to Be an Antiracist' and 'White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism,'" Beth Feeley wrote in a 2021 column for the Chicago Tribune.

“Not every book on this list reflects the critical race theory-inspired ideologies like those of included authors Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. But 42 books — almost 10,000 pages — on race? The reading list will dominate the curriculum.”

Similarly, opponents point to the “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading” standards lawmakers enacted in 2021 as a flashpoint for pushing leftist narratives in classrooms.

Critics say the original language included in that bill suggested teachers indoctrinate students to “embrace and encourage progressive viewpoints and perspectives that leverage asset thinking toward traditionally marginalized populations.”