When They Call You a Terrorist

This was a fantastic memoir from one of the founders/organizers of the Black Lives Matter movement, though it's about much more than that. For most of the book, Khan-Cullors focuses on how policing and prison structures fail black families, and function to protect and benefit only a small subset of the U.S. population. Her frustration and anger with these systems is palpable, as she watched her brother and father struggle through the cycle of the system repeatedly, when mental health care and addiction services could have mitigated and prevented so much pain and trauma. Listening to the chapter about the torture inflicted upon inmates in California at the time Khan-Cullors' brother was incarcerated was particularly brutal - I don't handle violence very well, and thought about skipping ahead, but it felt important to be a witness to the pain of these men. No one deserves the treatment the prison guards inflicted upon them.

The audiobook was read by the author. Truly excellent.

CW: police violence against Black bodies, torture (including sexual assault), descriptions of untreated schizo-effective disorder, pregnancy (mostly uneventful, concluding with C-section).