Can Our Bookshelves Reveal Anything About Us?

The simple answer is YES, if we really want to know more about ourselves and others. Of course, the other answer is NO, if we think that what we read (or don’t read) reveals something about our psyches is just a load of manure.

So, if your answer is yes, read on…

During this time of Covid 19 I have been allowed to see people’s bookshelves on TV as well as various forms of social media. I can’t help but look closely at the titles of their books. I don’t know what it is that draws me to the titles, maybe an inherent curiosity to know if I read the same books as Stacey Abrams, Cate Blanchett, Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

But does this say more about my curiosity or theirs? What inspired my thinking about this is two-fold: 1) the brutal murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and 2) looking at different book lists folks have been posting on social media. What do these two things have in common? Maybe nothing, maybe everything.

It dawned on me that on the lists of Anglos, a preponderance of the authors were male Anglos. This was surprising to me, even though maybe it shouldn’t have been. I know if you’re reading this and you’re a male Anglo, you are probably thinking, ‘Not me, I have a Toni Morrison on shelves!’ Remember, I said preponderance and if you have a Toni Morrison, a Ta-Nehisi Coates, or a book of poetry by Langston Hughes on your bookshelves, or in your list of top 100 books you have read, it puts you in a minority.

Interestingly enough, even women and minorities tend to have a preponderance of male Anglo Authors on their bookshelves. They also have a significant number of female and minorities on their bookshelves, which leads me to believe that their reading is much more inclusive than white males.

While I admire President Obama, I admire his reading lists even more (Eat your heart out, Oprah!). They tend to both fiction and non-fiction, history and biographies as well as the conservative view of world events. George Bush on the other hand tended more toward history and biographies in his reading lists. While Barack’s lists tended to be much more inclusive, authors from around the world both male and female, George’s tended to be much more Anglocentric.

So, what does all this have to do with the murder of George Floyd? I’m not really sure, I’m just throwing a lot of random thoughts out there at one time. Scattershooting, a friend would say. More for reflection and to just think about, than for debate. One thing I hear a lot when something like this happens, ‘All policemen aren’t racists.’ Yeah? Who said they were? The fact is a white police officer killed a black man. It’s just a distraction and I do not know who the master of distraction really is, the President of the United States or the Media. Let’s talk about riots, not about a white policeman killing a black man. Let’s talk about who is really doing the looting, not about a white policeman killing a black man. Let’s debate ‘Black Lives Matter,’ and not talk about a white policeman killing a black man.

Let’s face the ugly truth about America, we are a racist nation. If we were not, we would not need criminal justice reform and we would not need to reform our police departments. How do I know this? I’ve seen your bookshelves, America.