Rise Up!: How You Can Join the Fight Against White Supremacy

by Crystal Marie Fleming

Overview

This urgent book explores the roots of racism and its legacy in modern day, all while empowering young people with actionable ways they can help foster a better world and become antiracists.

Why are white supremacists still openly marching in the United States? Why are undocumented children of color separated from their families and housed in cages? Where did racism come from? Why hasn’t it already disappeared? And what can young people do about it?

Rise Up! breaks down the origins of racial injustice and its continued impact today, connecting dots between the past and present. By including contemporary examples ripped from headlines and actionable ways young people can help create a more inclusive world, sociologist Crystal Marie Fleming shares the knowledge and values that unite all antiracists: compassion, solidarity, respect, and courage in the face of adversity. Perfect for fans of Stamped: Remix, This Book is Antiracist, Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy, and The Black Friend.

Praise for Rise Up!

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2021
A School Library Journal Best Book of 2021
A Booklist Editors' Choice Winner for 2021

* "A clear and damning appraisal of the United States’ long-standing relationship with White supremacy—with actionable advice for readers to do better." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

* "A standout . . . sure to inspire young people to act." —Booklist, starred review

"Rise Up! is the invigorating, thought-provoking, eye-opening, and essential book about fighting white supremacy that I wish I had when I was a teen. Crystal M. Fleming writes about tough subjects with authority and compassion, and inspires with a roadmap for how we can change the world for the better." —Malinda Lo, author of Last Night at the Telegraph Club

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250226389
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	10/19/2021
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	700,954
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	1260L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Dr. Crystal M. Fleming is an award-winning sociologist and writer. She is Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Stony Brook University. Crystal completed her Ph.D. at Harvard University and publishes scholarly research on racial oppression and anti-racism. She is the author of an academic book on race and white supremacy in France, as well as the critically acclaimed How to Be Less Stupid about Race: On Racism, White Supremacy and the Racial Divide. Her work appears in Newsweek, The Root, Huffington Post, and more.

Table of Contents

A Note on Language v

Introduction vii

1 (Un)Learning Racism 1

2 What the Heck is White Supremacy? 13

3 Stealing America 32

4 Why Slavery Still Matters 46

5 Second-Class Citizens 65

6 Crime and Punishment 81

7 The Images We See 98

8 Racism and Antiracism in Sports 122

9 How You Can Chance the Racial Future 152

Acknowledgments 177

Notes 179

Index 223

Editorial Reviews

Praise for How to Be Less Stupid About Race

* “A crash course in what will be a radically new perspective.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“[A]n insightful and irreverent text . . . her work is truly accessible; she breaks down complex concepts and constructs arguments effectively in jocular, witty prose.” —Publishers Weekly

“Exceptionally well written, organized and presented.” —Midwest Book Review

“Fleming’s strength is her expertise as a sociologist . . . she wields her data like a sword, shredding racist nonsense.” —The Christian Century

From the Publisher

★ 10/02/2021

Gr 6 Up—In her YA debut, Fleming brings readers through the history of resistance to white supremacy, inspiring and educating young activists on how to take up the fight along the way. Each chapter's topic—policing, immigration, pop culture, and sports—is explored with a lens toward examining the roots of racism and how it manifests. Throughout, Fleming highlights exemplars of antiracist activism, both around the word and in the United States, though with a focus on the latter. The final chapter centers the book's main aim: empowering readers to actively join in dismantling the oppressive systems, and offering directives on and examples of how to begin. The author's voice is engaging and the narrative is deeply informative; her choice of subjects makes for a notably intersectional set of represented experiences. Extensive end notes and an index make this a valuable research and classroom text. VERDICT A first purchase that will build up and inspire young activists.—Darla Salva Cruz, Suffolk Cooperative Lib. Syst., Bellport, NY

School Library Journal

★ 2021-07-08
A clear and damning appraisal of the United States’ long-standing relationship with White supremacy—with actionable advice for readers to do better.

Educator, researcher, and sociologist Fleming draws from pop culture, data science, global history, and cultural studies, among an impressively wide range of disciplines and sources. This broad foundation represents well how ambitious this project truly is, accessibly delivering, as it does, a mountain of information to an audience of teen readers while utilizing a vocabulary and understanding of racial injustice that is inclusive of the distinct yet overlapping experiences of Black, Indigenous, Asian, Latinx, and other people. From the racialization of Jews in Europe to the displacement and genocide of Indigenous peoples in the Americas, the text details the genealogy of racism and White supremacy while resisting a tradition of Whitewashing and omission. In this way, connections are easily drawn between past and present by way of close examination of the criminal justice system, media representation, contemporary sports, and racial biases in developing technologies. The author is a bisexual, cisgender, African American woman, and she explicitly calls upon her experiences to inform intersectional, lived interpretations of racism and how to best oppose it. Through anecdotes and thorough research, Fleming leaves readers not just with a detailed account of the problems, but concludes with five things they can do to work toward justice.

A smart guide to understanding and living anti-racism. (note on language, notes, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews