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Reviews tagging 'Racism'
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
47 reviews
maeverose's review against another edition
4.0
This is a collection of essays about Indigenous peoples’ relationship to plants and what we can learn from it to have a better relationship to the earth, and help heal the damage that’s been done to it. As well as some cool plant science sprinkled throughout.
I think this book should be required reading for every non-Indigenous American. I’ve always loved nature, but this book really helped me appreciate elements of nature that I took for granted or never really thought about. Who knew cattails were so cool? This book shows how amazing and intelligent plants are. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s writing is very vivid and beautiful, and the plant science is written in an easy to understand way.
I did have two small issues with it:
Some of the language she uses when talking about women made me a bit uncomfortable. She talks a lot about motherhood in relation to womanhood, which is always a bit of a terfy red flag for me. Not to mention it’s also just regressive even when talking strictly about women. This isn’t about the parts where she writes about her own experience as a mother, of course, she’s more than allowed to do that in her own memoir lol. I understand that this could also be a matter of cultural difference, as I’m a white, so I’ll leave it at that.
Because this is a collection of essays, a lot of them are a bit repetitive. I ended up putting myself into a reading slump by reading too much of this in a short span of time, as I’m really sensitive to repetition and it started to feel tedious to read. I really should’ve read an essay a week and just gone through the book really slowly. That likely would’ve worked better for me.
Those things aside, I still think this book is really good and would strongly recommend it.
My favorite essays:
•The Counsel of Pecans
•An Offering
•Learning the Grammar of Animacy
•Maple Sugar Moon
•Witch Hazel
•Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass
•Sitting in a Circle
•Defeating Windigo
Some of my favorite quotes:
“Listening in wild places, we are audience to conversations in a language not our own.”
“When we tell them that a tree is not a who, but an it, we make that maple an object; we put a barrier between us, absolving ourselves of moral responsibility and opening the door to exploitation. Saying it makes a living land into “natural resources.” If a maple is an it, we can take up a chainsaw. If a maple is a her, we think twice.”
“In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition. Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires.”
“What would it be like, I wondered, to live with that heightened sensitivity to the lives given for ours? To consider the tree in the kleenex, the algae in the toothpaste, the oaks in the floor, the grapes in the wine; to follow back the thread of life in everything and pay it respect?”
“Experiments are not about discovery but about listening and translating the knowledge of other beings.”
“It is an odd dichotomy we have set for ourselves, between loving people and loving land. We know that loving a person has agency and power—we know it can change everything. Yet we act as if loving the land is an internal affair that has no energy outside the confines of our head and heart.”
“If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.”
I think this book should be required reading for every non-Indigenous American. I’ve always loved nature, but this book really helped me appreciate elements of nature that I took for granted or never really thought about. Who knew cattails were so cool? This book shows how amazing and intelligent plants are. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s writing is very vivid and beautiful, and the plant science is written in an easy to understand way.
I did have two small issues with it:
Some of the language she uses when talking about women made me a bit uncomfortable. She talks a lot about motherhood in relation to womanhood, which is always a bit of a terfy red flag for me. Not to mention it’s also just regressive even when talking strictly about women. This isn’t about the parts where she writes about her own experience as a mother, of course, she’s more than allowed to do that in her own memoir lol. I understand that this could also be a matter of cultural difference, as I’m a white, so I’ll leave it at that.
Because this is a collection of essays, a lot of them are a bit repetitive. I ended up putting myself into a reading slump by reading too much of this in a short span of time, as I’m really sensitive to repetition and it started to feel tedious to read. I really should’ve read an essay a week and just gone through the book really slowly. That likely would’ve worked better for me.
Those things aside, I still think this book is really good and would strongly recommend it.
My favorite essays:
•The Counsel of Pecans
•An Offering
•Learning the Grammar of Animacy
•Maple Sugar Moon
•Witch Hazel
•Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass
•Sitting in a Circle
•Defeating Windigo
Some of my favorite quotes:
“Listening in wild places, we are audience to conversations in a language not our own.”
“When we tell them that a tree is not a who, but an it, we make that maple an object; we put a barrier between us, absolving ourselves of moral responsibility and opening the door to exploitation. Saying it makes a living land into “natural resources.” If a maple is an it, we can take up a chainsaw. If a maple is a her, we think twice.”
“In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition. Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires.”
“What would it be like, I wondered, to live with that heightened sensitivity to the lives given for ours? To consider the tree in the kleenex, the algae in the toothpaste, the oaks in the floor, the grapes in the wine; to follow back the thread of life in everything and pay it respect?”
“Experiments are not about discovery but about listening and translating the knowledge of other beings.”
“It is an odd dichotomy we have set for ourselves, between loving people and loving land. We know that loving a person has agency and power—we know it can change everything. Yet we act as if loving the land is an internal affair that has no energy outside the confines of our head and heart.”
“If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death
Moderate: Colonisation, Excrement, Racism, Animal cruelty, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Vomit, and Gore
Minor: Cannibalism and Ableism
Graphic: destruction of ecosystems and nature, climate change Moderate: baby/motherhood talk, animal gorebookshelfmystic's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Braiding Sweetgrass held the reverence of a holy text, the wisdom of generations, and the seeds of a new worldview. It's an incredible book that lends itself to slow reading, deep thinking, and long walks while listening.
This book both fits into and expands my spiritual world. Robin Wall Kimmerer's cultural and scientific knowledge was new to me but is taught by a loving teacher (and Kimmerer's own voice in the audiobook added warmth to the lesson). I cried, I smiled, I thought of the Lorax, and I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who walks on this earth.
This book both fits into and expands my spiritual world. Robin Wall Kimmerer's cultural and scientific knowledge was new to me but is taught by a loving teacher (and Kimmerer's own voice in the audiobook added warmth to the lesson). I cried, I smiled, I thought of the Lorax, and I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who walks on this earth.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation
Moderate: Racism
parasolcrafter's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
5.0
this really is one of those books someone like me cant really add anything to; all i can say is that its an INCREDIBLE book that i think almost everyone should read.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cultural appropriation, Genocide, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Colonisation, Grief, Death, and Racism
ashwaar's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.5
Braiding Sweetgrass is a hefty book packed with stories, anecdotes and emotions. Throughout its pages, Kimmerer takes us along as she surveys mountainsides, harvests roots, saves reptiles from becoming roadkill, and watches her girls grow up and leave home. She discusses the delicate intersection of loving the planet whilst studying it and concludes that you cannot understand the environment if you don't feel for it.
The book has its basis in science, but Kimmerer explains ecological processes so deftly and poetically that it's easy to take in. Even if you don't understand everything, the language and writing style clearly shows her love and respect for the topic. The chapters range in length and topic, but a few of my favourites include the erasure of indigenous languages, stories of tapping maple syrup trees, and rituals performed in thanks for the land.
The book acknowledges and discusses the role of indigenous knowledge in scientific understanding of the Earth and how to live in balance with our land. After reading this, I felt more compelled to pause when hiking to accept the landscapes around me and feel gratitude for them. Braiding Sweetgrass is a non-fiction book I'd recommend to almost everyone as essential reading.
Rating: 4.5/5
Read more on Wordpress at Bookmarked by Ash: https://book990337086.wordpress.com/
The book has its basis in science, but Kimmerer explains ecological processes so deftly and poetically that it's easy to take in. Even if you don't understand everything, the language and writing style clearly shows her love and respect for the topic. The chapters range in length and topic, but a few of my favourites include the erasure of indigenous languages, stories of tapping maple syrup trees, and rituals performed in thanks for the land.
The book acknowledges and discusses the role of indigenous knowledge in scientific understanding of the Earth and how to live in balance with our land. After reading this, I felt more compelled to pause when hiking to accept the landscapes around me and feel gratitude for them. Braiding Sweetgrass is a non-fiction book I'd recommend to almost everyone as essential reading.
Rating: 4.5/5
Read more on Wordpress at Bookmarked by Ash: https://book990337086.wordpress.com/
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Genocide, Forced institutionalization, and Animal death
Moderate: Death and Racism
displacedcactus's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
This book is a modern classic, so I don't really know what I can say in a review that hasn't already been said! I really enjoyed how Kimmerer combines her knowledge as a biologist/conservationist and her knowledge as an Indigenous woman. There were a lot of highs and lows in this book, and like any book about the environment, I swung between hope and despair.
I could have done without the whiff of gender essentialism, with men as fire keepers and women as water bearers, and motherhood as one of the essential stages of a woman's life. But other than that one small complaint, this book was awesome.
I could have done without the whiff of gender essentialism, with men as fire keepers and women as water bearers, and motherhood as one of the essential stages of a woman's life. But other than that one small complaint, this book was awesome.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Animal death, and Death
The racism is all in discussions of the history of how America has treated our Indigenous people, especially with regards to residential schools, reservations, the Trail of Tears, etc.madzie's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
A very insightful and significant book. Kimmerer offers a lot of insights into plants, cultures, and our modern world, helping readers to examine the world they live in every day. Kimmerer has such a profound voice in her writing that is wonderful to read. She has wonderful, emotion-provoking descriptions throughout the novel that makes you truly feel these lessons. Toward the middle of the book, I felt like there was a lag in the flow of information where parts seemed not to fit together as well as in the beginning and end. Fundamentally, this is a well-written and important book that I would highly suggest to others.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Xenophobia, Animal death, Vomit, and Colonisation
Moderate: Cultural appropriation, Genocide, and Death
Minor: Cannibalism
This book goes into graphic depth about climate change and the death of nature and our planet.lizziaha's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
5.0
This book made me deeply reflect on my own life and the ways that I interact with nature. I hope it changed me for the better. I also was pleasantly surprised to see how narrative-based this book was. It made the read faster and more interesting. And Kimmerer’s language is so beautiful, while maintaining a simplicity that kept everything easy to understand. Especially to hear it in her own voice, I felt like I was floating along these words.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Forced institutionalization and Genocide
Moderate: Colonisation, Grief, Racism, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Fire/Fire injury
kirsto's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Genocide, Racism, and Colonisation
occasionally graphic descriptions of native american boarding schools, forced removal of native tribes from their ancestral lands, etcpurplepenning's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Colonisation, Forced institutionalization, Racism, Religious bigotry, and Sexism
Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death
dhiyanah's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
There's a profound heaviness we feel about our collective wounds and responsibilities in how the planet is changing, suffering, and asking for help during these times. I'm grateful this book doesn't shy away from that, giving language to the overwhelm we're navigating, tracing it back to our ruptured connection with land and the patterns upheld to keep us in constant states of struggle, survival, and forgetfulness.
By sharing her lived experiences in reclaiming, remembering, and honoring practices kept alive by her own and other indigenous lineages (US-based), the author invites us to reflect on our own capacities and efforts of being in right relationship with the living world. In this book, I found reflections of how my own struggles of unbelonging and loneliness are linked to a sense of feeling orphaned from land, from wider community. I found deep queries and burning desires within me - not having much framework for being local to anywhere - to embody a more reciprocal and grounded approach to the natural world, to this planet who still feeds and tends to us through all this chaos.
For this and so much more, I feel this is a crucial read to help situate and cultivate hope, courage, and determination within as we journey through these giant waves of grief and renewal with our Mother Earth.
By sharing her lived experiences in reclaiming, remembering, and honoring practices kept alive by her own and other indigenous lineages (US-based), the author invites us to reflect on our own capacities and efforts of being in right relationship with the living world. In this book, I found reflections of how my own struggles of unbelonging and loneliness are linked to a sense of feeling orphaned from land, from wider community. I found deep queries and burning desires within me - not having much framework for being local to anywhere - to embody a more reciprocal and grounded approach to the natural world, to this planet who still feeds and tends to us through all this chaos.
For this and so much more, I feel this is a crucial read to help situate and cultivate hope, courage, and determination within as we journey through these giant waves of grief and renewal with our Mother Earth.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Forced institutionalization, and Genocide
Moderate: Racism and Grief
Minor: Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Suicide, and Violence