Toufah: The woman who inspired an African #MeToo movement By Toufah Jallow with Kim Pittaway, 2022, 320 pages, hardcover, paperback, e-book and audiobook, Random House Canada.

 

This story is an inspiring memoir from a courageous young African woman.  She was forced to flee her home country in The Gambia after being raped at the age of eighteen by the country’s dictator.  She became the first woman to publicly call the country’s dictator to account for sexual assault and in the process, launched a protest movement in West Africa.

In 2015, Toufah Jallow won the presidential competition designed to identify and support the country’s smart young women with a scholarship to study wherever they wanted.  However, winning the competition brought her to the attention of Yahya Jammeh, the country’s dictator.  He pretended to be fatherly and gave gifts to her and her family.  Then he proposed marriage.  Toufah refused so he drugged and raped her. 

She couldn’t tell anyone what happened.  She felt guilty.  So she planned a nerve-wracking escape to Sénégal and with help, hid in Dakar waiting for a country to accept her.  She wasn’t safe in Sénégal.  Jammeh was looking for her.  The situation was tense.  Then the International Organisation of Migration found a country willing to accept her.  She was going to Canada where she would be safe.  The Immigration Officer unrolled a map of Canada and asked her where she wanted to go.  She knew nothing about Canada.  The tension broke and I laughed and cried at the same time.  Compare the size of Canada to The Gambia and you will understand.

Interestingly, there is no word for rape in Wolof, Fulani and Mandinka, three indigenous languages spoken in The Gambia.  “When you do not have a word to describe a thing, to make it a crime, a reality,” speaking out makes a difference even in the absence of precise words.  And that’s what Toufah did.

A few years later, she contacted Human Rights Watch and was helped to go public giving press conferences.  She organised a women’s rights march, the first march of its kind in The Gambia.  Women could make themselves heard; they could teach women and girls about women’s rights and autonomy, in other words, the right to control their own bodies.  They marched wearing white T-shirts with “#IamToufah” on the front and carried signs declaring “No Means No”, “Our silence is their protection. Speak Up”, “No to Sexual Violence”, “Rape Destroys Human Dignity”, “No Woman Deserves Rape”.

And she established the Toufah Foundation to help victims of VAW and IPV.

Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller, written in 2019

 

While Chanel tells the details of her experiences after learning she had been assaulted outside of a fraternity party at Stanford, we learn about the strength of a survivor who is trying to find her "normal" while awaiting trial. While this book is both heart-wrenching and courageous, Miller articulates the complexity of being an assault survivor with wit and charm. Both a writer and artist, Chanel pulls in the reader with her descriptions and details. She brings us with her as she recalls heartbreaking moments along her journey as "Emily Doe," and what life was like for her as she decided to share her identity with the country.

Her strength is awe-inspiring, and the way she articulates her perspectives is almost philosophical. While her assailant was only sentenced to 6 months in county jail (and only actually served 3), Miller struggles with shame and isolation. Throughout the book, readers are forced to reckon with our ideas of privilege, sexual predators, and the criminal justice system. Chanel is a leading writer of our time who will not only change the way you see our world, but also the way you may see yourself.

Submitted by Karen Archibee, Zonta Club of Oswego

The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimist's Guide to the Climate Crisis by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac

 

A cautionary but optimistic book about the world’s changing climate and the fate of humanity, from Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac—who led negotiations for the United Nations during the historic Paris Agreement of 2015.

The authors outline two possible scenarios for our planet. In one, they describe what life on Earth will be like by 2050 if we fail to meet the Paris Agreement’s climate targets. In the other, they lay out what it will be like to live in a regenerative world that has net-zero emissions. They argue for confronting the climate crisis head-on, with determination and optimism. The Future We Choose presents our options and tells us what governments, corporations, and each of us can, and must, do to fend off disaster. This book is available in both written and audio formats.

Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation

 

by Linda Villarosa, 2022, 269 pages, hardback, e-book, and audiobook.

In this powerful, carefully researched book, journalist Linda Villarosa builds on her 2018 articles on mortality among Black mothers and infants to describe the significant health challenges faced by Black American simply because they are Black. She effectively combines articles from medical journals with personal accounts to paint  a convincing picture of how Black Americans “live sicker and die quicker” than their white counterparts, no matter their income or education.

She outlines three different reasons for the much poorer health outcomes among Black people:

·       Bias in the health care system leading to different treatment of Black and White patients

·       Environmental injustice which disproportionately exposes Black communities to pollution from highways, toxic waste dumps, and lead pipes and so on

·       “Weathering”—the chronic stress resulting from constantly coping with racism that can result in premature aging and poor health outcomes. 

She also asks the important question: “What if Black people are simply the canaries in the coal mine?” Does sustained discrimination cause harm to anyone, no matter their race? To help answer this question, she visits West Virginia, one of the whitest (93% white) and poorest states, with the lowest life expectancy in the nation.  She found that West Virginia is plagued by some of the same diseases that shorten the lives of Black Americans with poor physical and mental health.

Villarosa documents unending examples of social racism, inbred bias, and general neglect, but somehow remains hopeful for change, introducing individuals and programs that are making positive differences. Her compelling account clearly reveals that the American medical system must be reformed. A convincing must-read.

 

Roll Red Roll: Rape, Power, and Football in the American Heartland

 

by Nancy Schwartzman with Nora Zelevansky, 2022, 283 pages, hardback, e-book, and audiobook.  A documentary version was released in 2018.

In this compelling account, filmmaker Schwartzman focuses on an August 2012 high school party where several members of the Steubenville football team sexually assaulted an unconscious (drunk and possibly drugged) teenage girl, filmed the assault on their phones and live-tweeted about it.

Schwartzman spent three years in the town documenting the case and its consequences. She interviewed everyone involved, read police reports and trial transcripts, and viewed social media posts. She explored the role high school football played in this struggling rust belt town.

She clearly shows that rape culture (“boys will be boys), victim blaming, and institutional complicity are the rule rather than the exception in too many places. She believes that there has been progress in the ten years since the assault, but we still have far to go. “We have a chance to learn from our mistakes, call in a diversity of voices, and protect future generations. But first we have to be willing to take a hard look at the unconscious, entrenched behaviors that allow this type of culture to flourish.” A well-documented account of a crime without punishment as violence against women continues.

A related, excellent book is She Said by Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey.

City of Refugees: The Story of Three Newcomers Who Breathed Life into a Dying American Town

 by Susan Hartman, 2022, 256 pages, hardback, e-book, and audiobook

In this engaging book, journalist Susan Hartman followed three refugee families living in Utica, New York for eight years.  She shows how the influx of refugees into Utica has helped revive this struggling upstate old manufacturing city.

In the 1970’s, the factories in Utica downsized then closed. Thousands of people lost their jobs. Utica’s population, which was 100,000 in 1960, dropped to 60,000 in 2000. The city’s economic decline led to gang violence, drug dealing, and frequent arson, but left behind plentiful and inexpensive housing.

 

The inexpensive housing provided homes for the refugee families, including the three Hartman profiled in this book:

·         Mersiha Omeragic, a refugee from Bosnia, runs a bakery business from her home, teaches English at the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, and recently opened a café/bakery downtown.

·         Sadia, a Somali Bantu teen, arrived with her family from a Kenyan refugee camp. She struggles with her mother about Americanizing too fast and  tries to cope with the demands of an American high school.

·         Ali, an Iraqi with traumatic war experiences, returns to Iraq as a translator for the American army to provide for his family in Utica.

 

As their lives changed, so did the city of Utica. The population of the city is now 65,000 people, a quarter of which are refugees and their families. Downtown has been revitalized, including construction of a big new hospital and new apartment buildings. People are moving into the city, instead of moving out.

 

In this immersive study, Hartman illuminates the humanity of these outsiders, while demonstrating the crucial role immigrants play in the economy and society of America.

 

Last Summer on State Street

 by Toya Wolfe, 2022, 212 pages, hardback, e-book, audiobook.

In this moving autobiographical novel, Toya Wolfe tells the story of 12-year-old Fe Fe (Felicia) and her friends Precious, Stacia, and Tonya during the summer of 1999. The Chicago Housing Authority is tearing down  the Robert Taylor Homes, the enormous public housing project where she lives with her mother and her older brother Meechie. Everyone will have to find a new place to live.

At the beginning of the novel, Fe Fe and her friends are still able to be children, double-dutching  (jumping rope) and spending time together. As destruction of their building approaches, tensions, and violence rise. It becomes impossible to ignore the poverty, drugs, police brutality, and gang warfare. Fe Fe must deal with  harsh realities around her--Meechie's unsuccessful struggle to resist gang life, Stacia's gang loyalty, and Tonya's mother's crack addiction. This is the story of how the children who live in these housing projects are forced to become adults too soon. As Fe Fe puts it, “Black kids don’t get the luxury of appearing childlike and innocent, that from the moment we are born, some people start a clock on how long it’ll take the boys to commit a crime, the girls to seduce.”

While Wolfe, who grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes, depicts the sadness of the characters’ lives, she also shows the power of love, faith, and close relationships to help some of them escape their grim world and build better lives.