Sister Citizen: Exploring Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America - Powerful Social Commentary for Book Clubs & Academic Studies" （注：原书名"Sister Citizen"保留不变，因可能是专有书名。若确认需要修改为"Sister"，请告知）

Melissa Harris-Perry pulls no punches with her insightful and scathing indictment of the institutions and the damaging myths about black womanhood that keep them from fully realizing their citizenship and their identity. She explores the genesis of such stereotypes as the promiscuous Jezebel, the self-sacrificing Mammy (once again made popular with the inexplicable success of The Help) and the emasculating Sapphire. The book is filled with anecdotes, but it's also backed with meticulous research and she also uses powerful novels like 'The Color Purple', 'The Bluest Eye', 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' and 'for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf' to link black women's varied experiences to the struggle for recognition and personhood. She uses the metaphor of the "crooked room" to describe how black women do their best to live within the perimeters of a world that often defines them through the lens of hatred and fear.Parts of this book were hard for me to read because many of her observations are true in my own life and while I identify myself as a feminist, I find the movement's lack of diverse voices and understanding of the dual burdens of race and gender (and in many cases sexual orientation) that black women face highly troublesome. One of the chapters I was delighted to read had to do with how black women view god, and I have the feeling a lot of black pastors are going to hear Perry's criticism of them and she may end up shunned because she exposed a lot of truths about how the church fails to bring black women's issues and needs to the front. There are also chapters on the railroading of Shirley Sherrod (an incident I wrote about on my LJ blog and the 'rebranding' of Michelle Obama in order to make her "safe" for Americans who aren't comfortable with a black woman stepping out of the box and/or claiming her power to personhood.There are a lot of people who should read this book, mainly consisting of:1) Gloria Steinem. I will never forgive or forget her insensitive op-ed article in the New York Times when she tried to force black women to place gender before race when it came to support for then candidate Barack Obama, in spite of the fact that black women have to deal with both. I'm inclined to mail her my personal copy so that she will finally understand how hurtful her comments were and maybe a real and lasting apology will come from her lips.2) Black men who need to understand the intersectionality of race and gender on black women's lives.3) White women who swear up and down that 'The Help' "opened their eyes" to racial injustice and who defend author Kathryn Stockett from black women readers who were rightfully offended by her mis-treatment and mis-representation of what it meant to be a maid in the segregated South;4) Black women who refused to side with Prophetess Juanita Bynum when she went public with her husband's abuse and who told her that she shouldn't have aired "her dirty laundry" for the world to see. These are thge same black women who sided with Clarence Thomas against Anita Hill;5) Black men like Tyler Perry, Steve Harvey, misogynist rappers and others who profit on black women's insecurities when it comes to relationships and/or maintain stereotyped images of black women in the media;6) Everyone on Fox News, providing that they are capable of reading something that doesn't come directly from Roger Ailes;Perry's book isn't a comfortable read, but thoughtful social criticism shouldn't be. It is, however, a book that I think may shape the next wave of black feminists to start taking their own issues more seriously rather than being a part of other people's agendas.