UC Berkeley’s summer reading list recommends books on George Floyd, racism, and ‘whiteness’

The University of California, Berkeley has released its 2024 summer reading list, which is centered around the theme “defining moments.”

The topics covered in the books include America’s supposed “systemic racism,” “whiteness,” and the life of George Floyd. The books were chosen by Berkeley faculty, staff, and students.

“The list is intended as a welcome to incoming students who will be arriving on campus for the fall semester,” Berkeley’s website reads.

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One of the books, “His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice,” is a biography of George Floyd that alleges that “systemic racism impacted every aspect of Floyd’s life.”

“[T]he authors draw on over 400 interviews with those who knew George Floyd. We, too, enjoy the chance to get to know him,” the recommendation advertised. 

The authors claim to place Floyd’s life “within the larger context of America’s deeply troubled history of institutional racism,” and to examine “the Floyd family’s roots in slavery and sharecropping, the segregation of his Houston schools, the overpolicing of his communities, the devastating snares of the prison system, and his attempts to break free from drug dependence.”

Another book, “Heathen: Religion and Race in American History,” reportedly “traces the trajectory of the concept of ‘heathen’ against the backdrop of whiteness, Protestantism, and American triumphalism, and captures its pervasive and pernicious effects: how it underlies so many dehumanizing impulses and rationalizes too many injustices — but all under the guise of patronization.”

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Berkeley also attached an archive of its summer reading lists since 1985. “Perhaps a relative or friend of yours who spent some time here at Cal found a defining moment on one of those earlier lists as well,” the website read. 

Harvard University has also released a 2024 summer reading list that featured, among other works, a book arguing that educators “must teach students about racial violence, oppression, and how to make sustainable change in their communities through radical civic initiatives and movements.”

Campus Reform has contacted the University of California, Berkeley for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.