Top 5 books that will change your life, Vol. 2

By Aswad Walker

As stated in Vol. 1 of this series, we all know there are way more than five books with the power to absolutely change your life. Hence, we are doing this ongoing series style, with this article serving as Vol. 2.

The five books below certainly possess the potential to open you/me/us to untold new knowledge and insights. Still, along with reading them, I’m encouraging you to share any books you believe should be included in future volumes by sending those titles and authors to me at aswad@defendernetwork.com.

Until then, enjoy.

Parable of the Sower  by Octavia Butler

Some view Butler as the Queen Mother of Afrofuturism (of Black Speculative Art). But whatever label you affix to Butler, upon reading this book and the next one in the series (Parable of the Talents), you’ll know she’s a bonafide genius, seer and prophet. Published in 1993, you’d think the events laid out in the book were written by someone living in 2023. The book is just that relevant to our current reality. In fact, in 2021, it was picked by readers of the New York Times as the top science fiction nomination for the best book of the last 125 years. And if that’s not enough to convince you to pick up this classic, maybe the synopsis will:

“When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others’ emotions. Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith… and a startling vision of human destiny.”

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White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Dr. Carol Anderson

Here’s the long version of why you must read Anderson’s book: “Since 1865 and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, every time African Americans have made advances towards full participation in our democracy, white reaction has fueled a deliberate and relentless rollback of their gains. The end of the Civil War and Reconstruction was greeted with the Black Codes and Jim Crow; the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was met with the shutting down of public schools throughout the South while taxpayer dollars financed segregated white private schools; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 triggered a coded but powerful response, the so-called Southern Strategy and the War on Drugs that disenfranchised millions of African Americans while propelling presidents Nixon and Reagan into the White House.”

The short version: every time whites thought Blacks enjoyed gains in society (whether we did or not), whites reacted with violence (physical or policy-wise) to “put us back in our place” and block us from those gains since we were deemed by them to be undeserving. This book is critically important right now because this “white rage” is literally on steroids as we speak, and promises to offer more violence to come.

African Origins of Civilization: Myth or Reality by Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop

There are countless books that more than counter the BS madness of those who fight tooth and nail to distort, destroy and discount Black/Pan-African history. But why not start off (or continue your African history journey) with a book written by one of the world’s greatest scholars of all time—the brother who the knowledge and know-how of five Ph.D.s (in physics, African history, Egyptology, linguistics and anthropology) to prove emphatically that the ancient Egyptians (folk from Kemet) were Black.

The idea argued by DeSantis & nem in Florida that slavery was a jobs training program that benefitted Black people is one of the most egregious and insulting concepts ever pushed. But what’s just as bad is our children (and parents) walking around oblivious to the history that shows that position to be a lie.

Black Christian Nationalism: New Directions for the Black Church by Rev. Albert. B. Cleage Jr.

Cleage, considered the “Father of Black Liberation Theology,” argues that as Black people we believe wrong about God, humanity, salvation and the role of religion—indoctrinated by a “slave theology,” a theology given to us by those who enslaved and brutalized us. The purpose of this “slave theology:” to convince Black people to go along with our oppression and second-class status; to accept our suffering on this side of the grave as the price to pay for earning our reward in heaven after death; to convince us that the power to change our reality exists outside of us and not within us; and to move us from our communal/group (I am because we are) connection to a focus only upon our individual selves, the well-being of our sisters and brothers be damned.

Cleage argues that this “slave theology” survived long past the “Emancipation Proclamation” and exists to this day, as Black preachers have rarely strayed from the foundational message preached on the plantation. Cleage offers “New Directions for the Black Church” via a liberating theology (a new/ancient way of believing about God, humanity, salvation and the role of religion). He contends this new/ancient way of believing is critical because as many ancient spiritualists have taught for eons, our thoughts/beliefs/worldview dictate our actions. Hence, a “slave theology” produces from us actions that perpetuate our enslavement, while a theology of liberation will help Blackfolk break free from the “slave theology” matrix and boldly walk in new and liberating directions that demand we tear down any structures or beliefs that seek to deny our full Black humanity.

The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health by Dr. Rheeda Walker

This book, by the internationally-acclaimed University of Houston professor Dr. Rheeda Walker, is described as “an unapologetic exploration of the Black mental health crisis—and a comprehensive road map to getting the care you deserve in an unequal system.” And we sho-nuff are in the midst of a Black mental health crisis, with suicides rising at an alarming rate (especially among Black youth). And too often we either seek no help at all or go looking for help/love in all the wrong places, i.e. with mental health professionals who discount our unique experiences as Black people existing in an anti-Black society. Walker is speaking directly to, for and about us!