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Rainbowgardener

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Rainbowgardener’s environmental shelf

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Bringing it to the Table by Wendell Berry

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg

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Rainbowgardener is Currently Reading

Rainbowgardener is currently reading

What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance

by Carolyn Forché (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading, biography-memoir, non-fiction, history, social-problems-political

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Rainbowgardener said: " I'm currently about half way through this book. It îs amazing, powerful, difficult to read. I have to keep reminding myself over and over that this is is non-fiction, it is real. That is not so much because of the horrors she reports but because of t I'm currently about half way through this book. It îs amazing, powerful, difficult to read. I have to keep reminding myself over and over that this is is non-fiction, it is real. That is not so much because of the horrors she reports but because of the dream like way she tells her story. She is a twenty something young woman and one day a strange man comes to her door, accompanied by his two young daughters. He invites himself in and proceeds to spend the next three days talking intensely to her. He tells her the history of his country, El Salvador, from before the white men came, up to now. He describes the political situation, the economy, the oppression of the people, the role of the US in perpetuating this, the war he foresees coming.

Then he tells her she needs to come to El Salvador with him and be a witness/ observer to what is happening. So on the basis of three days acquaintance, she spends the next few months getting ready. Then in January she leaves on her own with an airline ticket he has sent to meet him in El Salvador, bringing only a backpack with her. He proceeds to show her his country as the poor people know it. But everything is shrouded in mystery and a sense of danger. Some of the time they travel in his open Jeep with a weapon or two tucked into a magazine between them. He never tells her who he is or what his role is. He never tells her ahead of time where they are going, he just tells her go there, stay here. He say he will be gone a few hours and doesn't reappear for days. He drops her off with various people: you are going to stay with Fina ( and her husband and six children and a donkey) in a one room but with no electricity or running water), you are going to say with Margrita, you are going to talk to this group of poets/ militants/ businessmen/ generals. You are going to visit this prison. Through it all, she just follows along. It's not that she never asks any questions; she is constantly asking questions. But she never gets any answers, just mirá (look), listen, pay attention, observe details.

The story has the dream like quality of Dante and Virgil or Scrooge travelling with the ghosts and observing the bits of life they show him, without being part of it. ...more "

Oct 02, 2026 11:53AM · see review

Rainbowgardener is currently reading

Good Dirt

by Charmaine Wilkerson

bookshelves: currently-reading, book-club, fiction, multi-cultural, anti-racist

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Jul 25, 2026 02:05PM

Rainbowgardener is currently reading

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide

by Carol Anderson

bookshelves: currently-reading, anti-racist, history, social-problems-political, non-fiction

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Rainbowgardener said: " Wow! 7 or 8 stars out of five. This is one of those books that opens your eyes, makes you see things in a whole new way, understand our country better, maybe even life changing. Like The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, it explodes a whole bunch Wow! 7 or 8 stars out of five. This is one of those books that opens your eyes, makes you see things in a whole new way, understand our country better, maybe even life changing. Like The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, it explodes a whole bunch of myths.

Before I read New Jim Crow, I naively believed that Jim Crow laws and official segregation were part of the bad old days of the 40's and 50's. Then we had the Civil Rights movement and took care of it. Jim Crow was always a Southern thing. The South had de jure segregation and the North had only de facto segregation, which was somehow better. Every word of that is a lie. Jim Crow never went away, it just changed its name and superficial appearance.

Before I read (still reading) White Rage, I naively believed that slavery was a pre-Civil war phenomenon. Then we had the Civil War, led by Abraham Lincoln one of the greatest presidents, the Great Emancipator. The North won and slavery disappeared. Pretty much every word of that is also a lie. In fact, the South actually won the civil war. Obviously they did not win the military war. Lee surrendered at Appamatox. But in the aftermath, with a corrupt and racist president [Andrew Johnson] , a spineless Congress, a Supreme Court in thrall to the president and willing to twist the law to make it do what they wanted (sound familiar?) the South manipulated the situation to get everything they wanted, everything they would have gotten if they had won the military war, including the continuation of slavery.

Her thesis is that all the terrible things that white people do to black people, the lynchings and whippings and burnings and all the violence inflicted by the systems, the laws and courts and redlining, arise out of white rage. And white rage is always triggered by black advancement. Every time black people make progress towards equality, white people react with fury. The biggest step towards equality was the Civil War, Abolition, and Reconstruction. So of course the white power had to trample it.

All those leaders of the Confederacy should have been tried for treason, insurrection, attempting to over throw the government. Instead they were pardoned and regained their previous hold on power. . One governor of MS was a former Confederate general. A number held positions in state and US Congresses. Their lands and property were not forfeited. [Note: there were several waves of pardons, then in 1868 Johnson issued a blanket pardon.]

As MS, GA and other deep South states drafted new constitutions, they reimposed white supremacy as if Civil War and abolition never happened. LA: we hold this to be a government of white people perpetuated for the exclusive benefit of the white race. Negroes cannot be considered citizens.

The confederate states enacted Black Code laws which were slavery under another name. All Black men and their families had to sign a yearlong labor contract with a plantation or mill owner. If they didn't, they could be auctioned off. The contract meant that they couldn't leave, had no control over how much or even if they were paid, had no recourse from whippings and other abuse.

The Radical Republican faction (not like today's R's) kept trying to pass laws protecting and siding the former slaves. Andrew Johnson vetoed them all, saying that these attempts to give African Americans some equality and protection were giving them special rights and favors . ...more "

Jun 27, 2025 06:56PM · see review

See all 5 books that Rainbowgardener is reading…

Rainbowgardener’s Quotes

“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

tags: books, humor, reading

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