Patrisse Khan-Cullors

Asha Bandele

Following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, three women - Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Khan-Cullors - came together to form an active response to the systemic racism causing the deaths of so many African-Americans. They simply said: Black Lives Matter; and for that, they were labelled terrorists.In this empowering account of survival, strength and resilience, Patrisse Khan-Cullors and award-winning author and journalist asha bandele recount the personal story that led Patrisse to become a founder of Black Lives Matter, seeking to end the culture that declares Black life expendable. Like the era-defining movement she helped create, this rallying cry demands you do not look away.With foreword by Angela Davis.

A Black Lives Matter Memoir

When They Call You a Terrorist

asha bandele

Patrisse Cullors

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. New York Times Editor’s Pick. Library Journal Best Books of 2019. TIME Magazine's "Best Memoirs of 2018 So Far." O, Oprah’s Magazine’s “10 Titles to Pick Up Now.” Politics & Current Events 2018 O.W.L. Book Awards Winner The Root Best of 2018 "This remarkable book reveals what inspired Patrisse's visionary and courageous activism and forces us to face the consequence of the choices our nation made when we criminalized a generation. This book is a must-read for all of us." - Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow A poetic and powerful memoir about what it means to be a Black woman in America—and the co-founding of a movement that demands justice for all in the land of the free. Raised by a single mother in an impoverished neighborhood in Los Angeles, Patrisse Khan-Cullors experienced firsthand the prejudice and persecution Black Americans endure at the hands of law enforcement. For Patrisse, the most vulnerable people in the country are Black people. Deliberately and ruthlessly targeted by a criminal justice system serving a white privilege agenda, Black people are subjected to unjustifiable racial profiling and police brutality. In 2013, when Trayvon Martin’s killer went free, Patrisse’s outrage led her to co-found Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. Condemned as terrorists and as a threat to America, these loving women founded a hashtag that birthed the movement to demand accountability from the authorities who continually turn a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon people of Black and Brown skin. Championing human rights in the face of violent racism, Patrisse is a survivor. She transformed her personal pain into political power, giving voice to a people suffering inequality and a movement fueled by her strength and love to tell the country—and the world—that Black Lives Matter. When They Call You a Terrorist is Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele’s reflection on humanity. It is an empowering account of survival, strength and resilience and a call to action to change the culture that declares innocent Black life expendable.

Lindy

When I went into reading this book, I was hoping to learn about the nitty gritty details of activism: successes, failures, conflicts within the movement, that sort of thing. That is not what When They Call You a Terrorist ended up being about. That's fine. It's fine that Khan-Cullors has chosen to write primarily on her radicalization through interpersonal relationships in her family and community with the actual organizing retreating into the background for the most part. The text illustrates how the War on Drugs (for example) continues to inform every aspect of some people's existence; this has never been abstract to the author, and I think she chose to write this way to de-abstractify it to those more privileged. 

I'm kind of reminded of Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger, as neither author has a great grasp of what kinds of details I, a stranger, might find to be pertinent. For example, it's hard to get a read on the personalities of any of the major figures. 

Khan-Cullor's prose reads like transcripts of sermons. I imagine this would be a good one as an audiobook, if you're into that.

I want to reiterate: there is nothing really  wrong with this book. I just didn't get what I was hoping to out of reading it, but as the reviews on here attest, many other people did.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Also: New York Times Editor’s Pick, O, Oprah’s Magazine’s “10 Titles to Pick Up Now,” Entertainment Weekly’s “13 Books to Read in January,” Cassius’ “Black Books to Add to Your Reading List,” Vogue’s “The Most Anticipated Books of January 2018,” Paste’s “10 of the Best Books of January 2018,” Bitch Magazine’s “Bitch Reads: 13 Books Feminists Should Read in January,” ELLE’s “19 of the Best Books to Read This Winter.” "This remarkable book reveals what inspired Patrisse's visionary and courageous activism and forces us to face the consequence of the choices our nation made when we criminalized a generation. This book is a must-read for all of us." - Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow A poetic and powerful memoir about what it means to be a Black woman in America—and the co-founding of a movement that demands justice for all in the land of the free. Raised by a single mother in an impoverished neighborhood in Los Angeles, Patrisse Khan-Cullors experienced firsthand the prejudice and persecution Black Americans endure at the hands of law enforcement. For Patrisse, the most vulnerable people in the country are Black people. Deliberately and ruthlessly targeted by a criminal justice system serving a white privilege agenda, Black people are subjected to unjustifiable racial profiling and police brutality. In 2013, when Trayvon Martin’s killer went free, Patrisse’s outrage led her to co-found Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. Condemned as terrorists and as a threat to America, these loving women founded a hashtag that birthed the movement to demand accountability from the authorities who continually turn a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon people of Black and Brown skin. Championing human rights in the face of violent racism, Patrisse is a survivor. She transformed her personal pain into political power, giving voice to a people suffering inequality and a movement fueled by her strength and love to tell the country—and the world—that Black Lives Matter. When They Call You a Terrorist is Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele’s reflection on humanity. It is an empowering account of survival, strength and resilience and a call to action to change the culture that declares innocent Black life expendable.

Baylie Madison

Surely nothing I say about this book will be original, and any glowing compliment I give to Patrisse and her writing will most definitely have been said before. Patrisse covers nearly every aspect of oppression and seemlessly ties them together while tell her dark yet inspiring past in the most beautifully vulnerable ways. Just some of the themes she covers includes racism, mass incarceration, addiction, the school to prison pipeline, spirituality and religion, the queer experience, gender identity, intersectionality, and the power of community.

Nearly every quote from this book is near perfection, but I’ll include just one for now. It reads: 

“with no one else on our side, we sided with ourselves. for better, or for motherfucking worse”

Fraser Simons

Intense, tightly structured and edited, a good and necessary addition to reading about BLM and inclusion. Especially with what’s going on right now and the misinformation surrounding the movement. It’s a heavy read, as you can imagine.

Caitlin Snyder

Kayla 

A look at how the hashtag and movement was born.
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This powerful and enlightening biography of the founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. This really shines a light on how Black people are specifically targeted in the US and treated completely differently than their white counterparts. .
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Patrisse uses her own experiences, the ones she saw around her and the ones she learned about while involved in other organizations to present the case that if you’re Black in America life will be different for you. .
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She opened my eyes to the prison system in America and how it is basically another form of slavery. Incarcerating Black and Latinx men, women, and children, and forcing them into labour to make things like American flags and license plates. .
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This book does bring up a lot of the cases that were prominent on the media and provides appalling details on how the killers were essentially let off. .
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I think this is a great place to start if you are looking to educate yourself and really become aware of the deeply embedded issues. .

Katie

I will be the first to admit I have allowed myself to be complacent, saying that fictional stories are enough when it comes to reading diversely and uplifting Black voices. Recent events have caused me to do some self-examination, and I have realized I need to be reading the TRUE stories of Black people if I truly want to be an ally. This memoir of Patrisse Khan-Cullors, the Black queer woman who created the Black Lives Matter hashtag and has been organizing rallies and protests for years, was an excellent place to start.

Patrisse has family members who have struggled with addiction and mental illness, and hearing how they were treated compared to white people who committed the same "crimes" was eye-opening. She tells their stories, and her own, with raw power. She is eloquent and shares both her personal and political lives, and how the two intersect. She never, ever minimizes her queerness or her Blackness, but she acknowledges with frustration how both of those aspects of her life make it more difficult simply to exist, through no fault of her own. Her story is powerful, and deeply heartbreaking, and deserves to be shouted from the rooftops.

Neva Davies

A difficult but necessary read

When They Call You a Terrorist is a difficult book. The subject matter is difficult, because it is a societal issue that is still ignored. Because we don't want to think about the number of African Americans in this country who are shot and killed on a daily basis simply because they are black. Because we don't want to do the work necessary to change society. Because we don't think it's important enough to deal with.

But we need to be. We need to be reminded daily that white people aren't the only ones who live in America and that they aren't the only ones who deserve human dignity. We need to be better. Everyone should read this book, and reflect on what they are doing for the good of the whole country, not just those who look and act like us.

Sabrina D. 

Words cannot even do justice to the power and emotion that come forth from this book. It is a history of @osopepatrisse’s experiences that lead to the development of the Black Lives Matter movement. She is hope, she is a force, she is love, and she is the future. I hope she runs for president. Thank you, Patrisse, for sharing this story—the story of your family, friends, peers—in order to bring about change. I am changed and I want to change the country we live in, for you, for Black Lives, for all of those who have been oppressed. Please read or listen to this amazing book; it’s hard and brutal and honest and love.

Definitely a must read. I always have issues trying to comment on memoirs because it is that author's life, and how can I say anything on a life that I haven't lived? But this is one that I would encourage anyone to read to better understand the BLM stance, and why it isn't a terrorist organization.

Mariana Afonso

Eye-opening, raw, brutal and heartbreaking - not the writing, not the book itself, but the reality the author shows us. The reality of being Black in America, of being Black in a world that stills sees white as superior.

On one of my updates of this reading, I said: "This is such a raw depiction of the awful reality of racism and of the American prison system. I’m both amazed by the author’s voice and resilience, and shaken by all the injustice and prejudice." I finished the book and I highlight this statement even more.

Another note I would like to make is that reading/listening to this book made me so angry about Donald Trump and the rise of populists like him in world politics. Even though he is going away now, after all the madness he installed in the USA (and even the world), listening to how it impacted the most oppressed people in their country, how incredibly hard it must have been, how the suffering he induced marked so many lives - it still makes me ache for those people and become completely blindsided on the stupidity of humanity that does not vote or participate in politics, or, even more, of the part of humanity that supports bigots, white supremacists and fully dumb people like Trump.



   “we live in a world where hatred is so deep that adults are fine ensuring death sentences for us young people who have done nothing but be in the world who we were born to be.”

"They rewrote the laws, but they didn't rewrite white supremacy." 


Please, read this. Read this and become aware of the reality that surrounds you, especially if you, like me, also have white privilege. Read this, understand the reality, and start deconstructing your own white privileged attitudes. Be an ally to this fight.


Trigger warnings: police brutality, racism, hate speech towards immigrants, mental health patients and black people, addiction, mental health, lgbtq+ discrimination, prison conditions 
 (I didn't use to think much about TW, but I have been more awake to this important topic lately, and I tried to compile the ones in this book, but keep in mind that I might have forgotten something)

*I read the book while listening to the audiobook and I highly reccomend the audio version.

Daryl Houston

Powerfully written, personal, sobering, and inspiring.

Chelsea Breher

#BLM
#blacklivesmatter

A powerful book elevating black voices -- very educational and a very important read!

Caitlin Berger

You. Must. Read. This. Book.
It is the most soul/heart/gut-wrenching book I’ve ever read, because it reveals the truth of America, of North America, of white supremacy gone unchecked. Please, please read this book and others like it. Reckon with your inevitable complicity in white supremacy and terrorism. And make sure to stand with the Black Lives Matter movement.

When They Call You a Terrorist A Black Lives Matter Memoir

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