White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. By Robin Diangelo I grew up outside of Detroit Michigan and was 11 years old when the riots happened and I have worked hard to question my view on race over the years. Living in Maine where 95% of the people identify as white, I seldom find my beliefs, attitudes, and values on race challenged. This book challenged me. Most of our American culture is run by whites. (from page 31) 10 richest Americans - 100% … [Read more...]

Very provocative book. At times it was hard to come to grips with the savagery of slavery. The cruelty. The idea that people were property. I had a hard time with moving from the truth of the slavery story and the fiction of his underground railroad as being real. I had a hard time getting past that. Unfortunately, I also started this book before I hiked the PCT in early August and then stopped reading it for about 3 weeks, and only now finishing weeks after I started. I feel like I lost … [Read more...]

Yes, I just read Uncle Tom's Cabin, published in 1852. I had never read it before and while reading David McCullough's book The Pioneers, he referenced that as Ohio was being developed (then called the Northwest Territories), they wrote their constitution to include that they would be slave-free state and he mentioned that Uncle Tom's Cabin was a hugely influencing book on that topic. This book was written at a time in our country when the discussions about slavery were rampant. Harriet … [Read more...]

Never saw the movie but I want to now. Wow! What an adventure Mark Whitney had being left on Mars after an accidentwith the rest of his crew who had to bolt thinking Mark was dead...he should have been but somehow survived.  Now what do you do when you realize that the next spaceship to Mars is coming in over a year...about 1500 kilometers away from where you are?  Well this botanist was very creative and would have made a great settler in the 1700's. I could not put this book down and … [Read more...]