Workers Reading Book Club

@govkathyhochul.bsky.social Jarett Gandolfo & Alexis Weik: restore visits, basic rights, end brutality, protect HALT & pass urgent reforms NOW! (2/2)

NY prisons are in crisis. Visits canceled, people denied food, meds & heat- ALL due to rogue COs resisting accountability for rampant brutality, sexual violence, & abuse. (1/2)

Quote from Sabrina Strings’ book, Fearing the Black Body, which reads “Racial scientific rhetoric about slavery linked fatness to greedy Africans. And religious discourse suggested that overeating was ungodly”

Quote from Sabrina Strings’ book, Fearing the Black Body, which reads “In the United States, fatness became stigmatized as both black and sinful”

Quote from Sabrina Strings’ book, Fearing the Black Body, which reads “This is an aesthetic value system crafted by elites that places qualities symbolizing refinement (and a remove from the vulgar, the common, and the low) atop the aesthetic heirarchy.”

quote dump part 2 from our January 2025 book

📚Fearing the Black Body: the Racial Origins of Fatphobia by Sabrina Strings

In solidarity, WR Book Club.

quote dump part 1 from our January 2025 book

📚Fearing the Black Body: the Racial Origins of Fatphobia by Sabrina Strings

In solidarity, WR Book Club.

FEB 2025 BOOK PICK

Hello literary laborers & happy February! We are so excited to read this for the first time along side yall ☺️📚

📖Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

In solidarity, Workers Reading Book Club
#wrbc #ParableOfTheSower #OctaviaButler#WorkersReadingBookClub #LaborUnionBookClub

Hello #booksky! Looking for a labor union book club, reading fiction & nonfiction about union history, employment in literature, & related topics? That’s us :)

Let us know what you think! Open to suggestions :)

In solidarity, Workers Reading Book Club.

Photo of a hand holding The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada

📚The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada
3 industrial factory employees focus on their specific & sort of strange jobs while the factory slowly expands, blurring the lines between factory & outside world. Told in alternating 1st person narratives. Strange creatures appear! (I haven’t read this yet)

(8/9)

📚The Employees by Olga Ravn

Set in the near future, this book follows the human and humanoid crew of a space ship that took on strange objects from another planet through witness statements compiled by a workplace commission. (I haven’t read this yet)

(7/9)

Cover of Zom 100 volume 1 by Haro Aso on a pavement background

📚Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead volume 1 by Haro Aso
Akira had a soul crushing job, but his life turns around when the zombie apocalypse begins, and he no longer has to go into the office. (This would be our first manga! I read this right after leaving my corporate job so l’m a fan)
(6/?)

Cover of Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

When Gerard’s consciousness gets uploaded to his company’s Slack chat, his coworkers assume he just wants to work from home. His productivity has skyrocketed so his boss doesn’t mind, despite Gerard’s attempts to find help. Written entirely in the format of slack chats!

(5/?)

📚Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

(I’ve read this and enjoyed it!!)

(4/?)

Cover of the book Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

In one of the last safe neighborhoods of LA in the future, hyperempathetic Lauren loses her family and home to a fire and must head out into the dangerous world and venture north in search of safety with a group of survivors, thinking of revolutionary ways to save mankind.

(3/?)

📚Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

I haven’t read this yet, but l’ve read a different book by this author and liked the writing style!

(2/?)

Looking toward February 2025... I think it’s time for another fiction book! I’d like to pitch a few, and am open to suggestions for more! Please check out these books below/read some reviews/ let me know what you think! Also feel free to comment others you’d like to read :)

(1/?)

“[…] slenderness served as a marker of moral, racial, and national superiority”

📚Fearing the Black Body: the Racial Origins of Fatphobia by Sabrina Strings

In solidarity, WR Book Club.

(2/2)

Quote from Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings written on an orange background that reads “[…] slenderness served as a marker of moral, racial, and national superiority”

A quote from the Introduction of this month’s book selection! Lots of interesting exploration of cultural standards, and how they are influenced by racism, sexism, religion, wealth, and power. How has your reading been going?

(1/2)

“[…] rather than uniting to challenge unjust political and economic systems.” (2/2)

“As the first chapter of this book describes, the political strategy of divide, demonize, and conquer has worked for centuries in the United States—since the days of slavery—to keep poor and working people angry at (and fearful of) one another […]” (1/2)

“Every system of injustice depends on the silence, paralysis, confusion, and cooperation of those it seeks to eliminate or control.”

📚Fearing the Black Body: the Racial Origins of Fatphobia by Sabrina Strings

In solidarity, Workers Reading Book Club.

DSA-LA members are constantly updating our resource document with new resources and opportunities to help!

If there’s something missing, shoot us a DM!

We encourage you to think about the ways each shift in societal ideals alters power dynamics, who decides/ sets the trend, and who benefits each time. (3/3)

We’ll be reading about the dynamic and shifting politicalization of bodies, eventually creating a frenzied hatred of fatness as a means to disenfranchise Black people and women while securing the power of white men. (2/3)

Screenshot from the Fable app, reading that Workers Reading changed the book for their club from The New Jim Crow to Fearing the Black Body

JANUARY 2025🎉 new year, new book club selection!

📚Fearing the Black Body: the Racial Origins of Fatphobia by Sabrina Strings

In solidarity, Workers Reading Book Club. (1/3)