When They Call You a Terrorist

At the beginning of Chapter 2, Cullors quotes Alvin Ailey who said, “One of the worst things about racism is what it does to young people” (18). According to Cullors, what are some of the specific grievous effects of racism on the young people in her book? What are some of the more general, systemic ways—like the school-to-prison pipeline—that racism hurts youths?

What are Cullors’s thoughts on 12-step programs like Gabriel’s? Is her attitude toward them negative, or is she more ambivalent? Do you think her characterization of 12-step programs is fair?

Do you find Cullors’s characterization of the War on Drugs as a system of racial oppression convincing? Do you think it was designed that way by its architects? Why, or why not?

How do systems of oppression engender shame and guilt in the hearts of the oppressed? What are some examples of this phenomenon? Include examples from the book and from other sources, either in history or in your personal experience.

What are some of the benefits of Black Lives Matter’s decentralized structure? What are the drawbacks? Do you think the movement would be more successful with a group of charismatic leaders at the forefront, not unlike the racial justice movements of the 1960s?

Why does Cullors reject counter-slogans like “All Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter”? Do you agree with her reasoning?

Was When They Call You a Terrorist what you expected? What surprised you about the book? What would you like to have seen more of in the book, in terms of Cullors’s life story or Black Lives Matter more broadly?

Amid the ongoing protests over the deaths of George Floyd and other unarmed Black men and women, Cullors has advocated for a major restructuring of the police in advance of eventual abolition. What parts of When They Call You a Terrorist offer the most convincing support for those reforms? Did the book change your opinion at all regarding proposals to defund, divest from, or abolish the police?