Read to Know Basis: Brea Baker
The author of Rooted promotes embodied reflecting.
Read to Know Basis is a weekly interview series with authors. It features debut authors and established writers talking about reading, writing, and of course snacks. This series is free to all. If you like what you read considering subscribing to support the work of Unstacked, and of course go out and buy the book!
Brea Baker is a freedom fighter and writer (in that order) who has been working on the frontlines for over a decade, first as a student activist and now as a writer and national strategist. Brea contributes op-eds and personal essays to ELLE, Harper’s BAZAAR, and Refinery 29 Unbothered. As a sought-after speaker and anti-racism consultant with a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University, Brea believes deeply in political imagination and the need for nuanced storytelling. Her book, Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft & The Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership, is about the need for reparations as an economic, racial, and environmental justice policy. (One World, June 2024).
What are five words to describe your book?
Unapologetic testimony; relearning / reclaiming collectivism
What is the strangest thing you googled while researching/writing this book?
Ku Klux Klan prosecution transcripts might’ve been one of the most unexpected for me just because I never knew there was a period when the federal government attempted to break up the KKK. The court transcripts were wild because you see all the elected officials and wealthy people who came to the Klansmen’s defense including sitting governors and senators who paid for legal representation and testified on the record.
What are three books that are in conversation with your book?
1. I’ve Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land by Alaina E. Roberts
2. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
3. How The Word Is Passed by Clint Smith
How has writing your book changed you as a person?
Writing has invited me to be kinder to different opinions and perspectives. There is no one narrative that is untainted by bias. We choose what to omit, what to center, what to balance, and what to stand on unapologetically. It’s a lot of power and writing forced me to be more thoughtful about how I speak to those who don’t already agree with me, recognizing that I need them at the figurative table as well.
Describe your ideal reader?
Someone willing to be proven wrong and also able to push back and critique my work as well. Reading and writing should be a conversation and dance with each party just as engaged and passionate about the outcome. And my ideal reader is never impartial and open to doing something with what they've learned, especially if that means asking more questions.
What is a piece of writing advice that you’ve received that you think is really bad? What is a piece of writing advice that you think is really good?
Bad writing advice: no matter what, write every day. That’s not realistic for me as a young mom juggling lots of projects and it has left me with a lot of guilt when I couldn’t do it.
Best writing advice: everything counts as writing. My brilliant editor, Nicole Counts, once sent an email ahead of the winter holidays with a list of everything that counts as writing including wandering, dancing, watching TV, reading, stretching, and calling a friend. I’ve found that to be very true for me. Ideas come to me as I’m living and going about my day. I sit down to write, when I’ve done enough of that embodied reflecting.
What are you reading right now? And what book are you desperate to read next?
Currently reading Children of Anguish and Anarchy. Desperate to read Magic Enuff next.
What book are you an evangelist for?
Definitely Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped and South to America by Imani Perry
What is the book everyone else hates that you’re obsessed with?
Hmmm… I’m kind of boring and typically don’t disagree with general consensus lol.
Who is your literary crush?
Morgan Jerkins! She’s so smart and funny and multifaceted which I love. Like the woman speaks Russian. What?!
If you could not be a writer what would you do?
Continue organizing around the issues I care about like ending mass incarceration and police brutality, achieving reparations in my lifetime, and leaving a safer world behind for Black people of all ages and genders.
You’re invited to a literary potluck, what are you bringing?
Weed, always :)
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I loved this book! 💕🙏🏼🖤
I have a brother who goes to Yale University just like Brea Baker.