Read Until You Understand

Like Farah Jasmine Griffin does in Read Until You Understand, if you were to undertake a survey of the works that have shaped you, what writers, artists, and musicians would feature prominently? How did these works influence your understanding of yourself and your place in the world?

Did you like the structure Griffin uses in the book, exploring universal themes and the Black experience in America through a blend of literary analysis, cultural history, and “autobiographical meditation” (p. xii)?

Griffin writes: “As a form, the novel can raise questions about the possibilities and goals of justice. It allows us to imagine what a society governed by an ethic of care, a society devoted to restoring and repairing those who have been harmed, giving them the space for transformation, might look like” (p. 91). Do you agree? Do you think an increased emphasis on the reading of literature could improve empathy and encourage greater participation in the collective work of creating a society that honors all human beings?

Have you read many of the books referenced here? Were there any excerpts or works that particularly moved you?

“Each year a multiracial group of students take my class, and each semester they encounter ideas that challenge their understanding of themselves, their relationships to each other, and what they thought they knew about the nation’s history. They are forced to rethink their notion of what the United States is and their place within it and within the world” (p. xi). In your own education, were the works of Black Americans featured prominently? If so, what lessons or perspectives most impacted you? If not, what does that absence, that silencing, reveal to you?

“Everyone dies. But Black death in America is too often premature, violent, spectacular. The particular nature of Black death haunts Black writing, as it haunts the nation. It haunts this book, born as it is from my own mourning of my father’s premature death” (pp. 131–32). Reading Griffin’s account of her father’s death is harrowing and heart-wrenching. Did her family’s experience resonate with your own or a loved one’s experiences or did it challenge an assumption that authority figures will act for the well-being of all in times of crisis? Do you think your perspective of this moment was at all influenced by the recent Black Lives Matter movement?

“Black Americans’ understanding of America is too realistic, too cautious, too conscious of the lessons of history to possess an unbridled patriotism. We know that at best, our country is a work in progress and that the battle to perfect it is an uphill climb” (p. 67). Do you feel a sense of patriotism? Have your feelings changed over time?

How do you see “the struggle over the idea(l) of America” (p. 68) at play in your own community? Did this book move you to take action? How?