{"product_id":"blindsided-essays-from-the-only-black-woman-in-the-room-9780996324076","title":"Blindsided: Essays from the Only Black Woman in the Room","description":"\u003cp\u003eWe strive for authenticity, but expediency often demands we suppress our true feelings.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDawn Downey struggles to find her genuine self, as she navigates her white surroundings. She wages an internal war, her intuition recognizing bigotry and her intellect wanting-needing-to deny it. At the end of any given day, she is angry. She is weary. She despairs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"You get to hopeless by sinking,\" she tells us.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"I sank through dreamlike images of shackles, chains, branding irons, whips, ropes, nightsticks, burning crosses, and fire hoses. Bloodhounds on my trail, police dogs at my throat. I crashed through all the places that are supposed to be safe: school yards, lunch counters, courthouses, and church basements. From nigger to nigra to colored to negro to black to african-american and back again. Strange fruit. Centuries-old images absorbed from textbooks. Civil rights marches flickering across the family television. Labels, passed down from one generation to the next, labels meant to hold me apart, the other.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen a family member transforms a racist artifact, the act of redemption explodes her self-concept. She re-examines old beliefs, and on the other side of hopeless, discovers her Black power.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDowney prompts us to consider how we find our authentic selves in the heart of our discomfort.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Pathless Land Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50444314706194,"sku":"9780996324076","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_ecf35e89-796e-4cf7-9b41-f4bc0756eaab.jpg?v=1729679811","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/blindsided-essays-from-the-only-black-woman-in-the-room-9780996324076","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}