57. Long Bright River, Liz Moore
Really enjoyed this. A serial killer is targeting prostitutes. A maverick cop with a past is on the case, fighting corruption and apathy in the police force. None of this is new but Moore's choice of setting and characters transforms this into something contemporary and original.
Long Bright River is set in Kensington, Philadelphia, a real neighbourhood with a notorious drug problem (the NYT reported in 2018: Philadelphia County has the highest overdose rate of any of the 10 most populous counties in America. The city’s Department of Health estimates that 75,000 residents are addicted to heroin and other opioids, and each day, many of them commute to Kensington to buy drugs. The neighbourhood is part of the largest cluster of overdose deaths in the city. In 2017, 236 people fatally overdosed there. ). Moore hasn't just picked up this setting - she has worked in the area as a journalist and as a volunteer. The maverick cop in her story is Mickey, a single mother, who has remained on the beat around Kensington, despite being talented enough to have been promoted to detective, because she's keeping an eye on her beloved but recently estranged sister Kacey, who is an addict and a prostitute. At the beginning of the book, Kacey has disappeared from the streets and Mickey, worried, is trying to track her down.
The book opens with a list of names, its significance becoming clear when you get to the entry "Chris Carter and John Marks (one day apart, victims of the same bad batch, someone said)". The list concludes "Our cousin Tracy. Our cousin Shannon. Our father. Our mother". Moore takes us back to the women's childhood, the poverty and loneliness, the family tensions, Kacey's descent into drug addiction and her failed attempts to get clean. This is an unflinching but sympathetic portrayal which, to my uneducated ears at least, seems to ring true.
58. White Fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism, Robin DiAngelo
I liked the premise of this book: racism is not an undesirable personal attribute, it is an insidious social problem, and one that involves white people as much as people of colour. Because we see white as the default, we don't tend to think of the role that white people - that is everyday, well-meaning white people rather than nasty fascist thugs - play in a society that is still effected deeply by racism. As white people (DiAngelo is white and so am I), we find it hard to be told that our actions are racist, because it implies that we are nasty people, that we dislike black people. DiAngelo argues that it is inevitable that our actions will sometimes be racist, because of our social context, and that if someone points out that something that we've said or done is racist, we should be grateful (if perhaps embarrassed).
DiAngelo is a sociologist with many years of experience providing diversity training for businesses. I liked her approach - she is inclusive but unafraid to point out blame where appropriate. She makes the very important point that conversations about race can be difficult and uncomfortable for white people, but that the status quo is difficult, uncomfortable and much worse for people of colour, so we can't back away from these issues just because they take us outside our comfort zone. She's also good at showing how important it is to view our own individual experience within the context of social group experience - "I grew up with black friends and have experienced prejudice myself because I am Irish/gay/disabled etc - how does this affect my viewpoint and experiences within the context of my being white?"
I agreed with the majority of what she said although not everything. It was certainly thought provoking and an important read.