"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." -Malcolm X
And if you’re not careful, you’ll miss out when Lattes and Lit returns on Wednesday, January 29 with our newest book: The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Meeting biweekly at the new time of 6:30 and featuring commentary from Imam Abdul Malik Merchant, discuss with fellow readers the themes of truth, power, control, and racism pulled from the lessons of history as we “explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities.”
Registration is free but donations are encouraged to help fund future events! Participants should bring their own copies of the book and read Chapters I and II by the first meeting. See you there inshallah! Open to participants 18+
Schedule:
January 29 - Chapters I and II
February 12 - Chapter III
February 26 - Chapter IV
About the Book:
In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city—a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground.
Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.