From Ally to Accomplice: Talking Race, Anti-Racism, and Intersectionality: Books & Reading Lists

The phrase "decolonize your bookshelf" means taking a good look at the books you own and the authors you read. It means taking what we consider and teach as classics and noticing the lack of Black, brown, and indigenous authors. Are they all (or primarily) white authors? What stories are you missing, what voices are absent? Do they follow colonialist narratives or structures? (Juan Vidal). 

According to writer and speaker Ally Henny, here are four things that you can do to decolonize your bookshelf this year:

• Add books written by black, brown, and indigenous people. Try to add at least one book from an author of color for every book written by a white person that you buy (or borrow) this year.
• Purge books that are racist or written by problematic authors. The goal isn’t to run away from alternative viewpoints or ideas with which we disagree, but these should not be the dominant voices in your library.
• Don’t pigeonhole authors of color. Black, brown, and indigenous people can do more than talk about race...pick books from your favorite genre written by authors of color.
• Don’t hold authors of color to a higher standard. Not every book written by a black, brown, or indigenous author will automatically be great and that’s 100% okay. 

Below you will find a list of booklists filled with Black, brown, and indigenous authors and voices. If you're looking to borrow books that we have in our collections, our BKLYN BookMatch* lists will help you find titles you can borrow digitally or borrow in person when we reopen. Writers, activists, librarians, book sellers, and reading aficionados have put time and effort into sharing books by authors of color for kids, teens, and adults.

*For your own custom BookMatch booklist, click here.