Book Spotlight - Let This Radicalize You
Today I'm taking the time to write about a book that is a personal favourite and one of the most important I've read, especially in the last few years!
Let This Radicalize You (2023) by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba is a book of hard-earned wisdom, practical advice, and necessary affirmations from across the landscape of organizing throughout various social movements for liberation. As organizers and educators in movements including but not limited to prison abolition, anti-violence, transformative justice, and more, Hayes and Kaba draw upon their abundance of knowledge to generously share insights from their years of experience in organizing. They are also joined throughout the book by interviewed friends and comrades from many other varied organizing spaces and movements, who offer additional layers of nuance, guidance, and reflections. Taken altogether, this results in such a wide variety of experiences from movements working towards liberation across all intersections of social justice, with an embedded understanding of solidarity and its importance. A deeply compassionate commitment to collective care and authentic community-building can be felt in every choice, experience, approach and reflection shared in the book. It is an absolute treasure trove for anyone who has an involvement or interest in organizing.
I have a lot of things I love about this book, but here's a few. I love how practical and inviting it is, including for anyone who doesn't have any experience with organizing. I think the book is an especially insightful read for anyone even if they aren't necessarily an organizer, in fact (though perhaps after reading it, could be)! The writing itself is very approachable, and it is always very apparent that it is grounded in the lived experiences of organizers who are directly connected to the communities and movements they discuss. Knowing that these insights come from such a wide breadth and depth of experiences, including all the messiness, vulnerability, and difficulties that come with the tough but crucial work of organizing, the book is a welcome encouragement to not feel alone in these challenges, and to know that there are many ways to navigate them. It is steadfastly hopeful and life-affirming while also firmly rooted in the honest realities of the situation, and that balance feels reassuring and so very needed in the current moment.
I really appreciated how the book was able to share helpful articulations for very specific ideas, including for concepts that I might have had a vague but intuitive understanding of, but were then able to grasp with even clearer focus. For example, I found the distinction they offer between "activism" (as something that can encompass both the individual and collective actions one takes towards justice) and "organizing" (which involves more specific skills and practices that focus on the broader strategic mobilization of people towards shared goals), to be really useful. And their chapter on the necessary understanding of how hope and grief co-exist feels foundational as I often return to its insights, with others and for myself, when the world feels like it's crumbling.
I have bought the Let This Radicalize You book like 5 separate times, including for myself and to gift to other friends, in between enthusiastically recommending it to everyone in general. Some of us even began an informal book club to read and discuss it together, which fits well with one of the intended purposes of the book. Others have mentioned checking it out on their own after listening to me mention it. It is, without exaggeration, one of the most transformative works that I've ever been so moved and inspired by. I highly recommend it for anyone else interested in delving deeper into practices of hope, liberation, and learning about the work of how to actually make it happen, the work of organizing!
Bonus recommendations! I also really appreciate the newsletters by each of the main authors. I find them both really insightful and full of such useful recommendations and resources every time. Organizing My Thoughts by Kelly Hayes is a newsletter that includes a weekly round-up of the latest must-reads in news and critical analysis, along with always-thoughtful and relevant reflections. Prisons, Prose & Protest by Mariame Kaba is a mainly monthly newsletter on topics related to Kaba's various organizing interests and work, including more detailed features on prison abolition, Black history, libraries and archives, and more. I've really enjoyed being subscribed to both newsletters, and would highly recommend, as well.