Vivid profiles in activism. Oluo, author of So You Want To Talk About Race, makes race central to an inspiring look at those fighting against the "deep, systemic issues." The author considers punishment and incarceration, gender justice and bodily autonomy, labor and business, disability, the environment, education, and the arts, highlighting men and women who are enacting creative solutions to achieve change. Readers will meet Richie Reseda, who invented Success Stories, a 13-week workshop "that aims to help incarcerated men heal from violent patriarchy and learn how to handle fear, pain, and conflict in healthier ways." The program also connects its alumni with support to find jobs. There's Alice Wong, who has muscular dystrophy and created the Disability Visibility Project, an online resource that offers blog posts, essays, and reports "about ableism, intersectionality, culture, media, and politics from the perspective of disabled people." Oluo, who identifies as Black, queer, and disabled (ADHD, anxiety, and chronic illness), stresses the importance of connecting disability justice work to anti-racist work. "Systemic racism and ableism," she writes, "serve the same core purpose in society: to justify the oppression, exclusion, and exploitation of people based on a manufactured hierarchy of value." For readers aspiring to contribute to societal change, the author ends each chapter with suggestions for interventions in one's own life and community, and she appends the book with a long list of people and organizations that can serve as resources. "So much of the work that happens on the ground is really small things," writes Wong. "Sometimes it's just small, intermittent things. It doesn't have to be a website. It doesn't have to be fully formed." Transformative justice, Oluo writes, "holds people accountable for the harm they cause, and it also holds communities accountable for how they contribute to harm, in order to prevent future harm." An urgent plea for individual and collective action. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Bestseller Oluo (So You Want to Talk About Race) affirms that "everyone has different roles in this revolution" in these enlightening profiles of people who've put their anti-racist values into action. Each chapter highlights the tie between racial justice and some other topic--such as gender, disability, policing, education, and the arts--through detailed life stories of activists that center their changing understanding of the world and how they managed challenges. For example, a chapter on Richie Reseda relates how his encounters with Black feminist theory in prison led him to found Success Story, a workshop to help incarcerated men think about how internalized patriarchal ideas have shaped and harmed them. Throughout, Oluo showcases a variety of ways to promote anti-racism, many of them intended to be of use to people for whom anti-racist organizing is not necessarily a central focus of their activism. She also admirably demonstrates how she continues to grow through self-education and reflection, at one point frankly addressing earlier shortcomings in her thinking about disability. Readers will find inspiration and clarity. (Jan.)