Scan barcode
A review by funnellegant
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker
5.0
This book being a collection of essays, I found it best to read it slowly, one bite at a time, with plenty of opportunity to consider each revelation. Before picking up this book, I had experienced Alice Walker as a novelist, but not yet as a poet, historian, or teacher - and she is the best of all of these. I was lead to In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens by a footnote rabbit trail from another book, which revealed that Walker coined the term "Womanist" herself as a more affirming, inclusive alternative to the narrow feminism of the 20th Century.
Walker is reflective, honest, political, affectionate, and revolutionary. She embraces her title as an activist, and her call to activism is equally strong in the public sphere, the interpersonal world of friendships, and the life of the mind. I found her immensely quotable, incisively funny, and deeply touching.
I grew up in a setting where I rarely saw, let alone knew, any people of color. Now I live in a quilted city where my nearest neighbors are Black Americans, African immigrants, gay, Hindu, and a good dose of white Catholics. I am required to confront my privilege in new ways and place myself in the position of student (as I should have done long before). This year of slowly reading through Alice Walker's book was a serious crash course on oppression, privilege and inclusivity with a teacher that I found surprising maternal, celebrational, and poetic.
Walker is reflective, honest, political, affectionate, and revolutionary. She embraces her title as an activist, and her call to activism is equally strong in the public sphere, the interpersonal world of friendships, and the life of the mind. I found her immensely quotable, incisively funny, and deeply touching.
I grew up in a setting where I rarely saw, let alone knew, any people of color. Now I live in a quilted city where my nearest neighbors are Black Americans, African immigrants, gay, Hindu, and a good dose of white Catholics. I am required to confront my privilege in new ways and place myself in the position of student (as I should have done long before). This year of slowly reading through Alice Walker's book was a serious crash course on oppression, privilege and inclusivity with a teacher that I found surprising maternal, celebrational, and poetic.