Don't Label Me

February 1, 2019
Labels are good things if one is searching for spices in a kitchen cabinet or looking for a T-shirt that fits. When it comes to people, however, labels can often provoke a journey that veers way off course from any original intentions. Manji is no stranger to labels. Born in Uganda, residing in Canada, Manji brings a fresh voice to the interpretation of Islam. She's an educator and philosopher, author and advocate, a Muslim and a lesbian. Pick one label, she might say, or, better yet, pick them all. In an era when all politics are both personal and global, labels are too quickly affixed to both include and exclude along religious, gender, political, and economic lines. Although Manji ponders such deeply divisive subjects as Black Lives Matter and homophobia through the slightly precious construct of talking to her deceased dog, Lily, it is nonetheless an apt device for the larger conversations she champions in the hope that society can evolve to bridge its divides and abandon its labels.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

September 15, 2018

A Muslim immigrant from Africa, author of the New York Times best-selling The Trouble with Islam Today, founder of the award-winning Moral Courage Project at the University of Southern California, and the first Chutzpah Award winner selected by Oprah Winfrey, Manji has the credentials to speak persuasively about how to launch a conversation with the "other" with whom one might disagree. Her imagined "other" in this book is an old dog named Lily, as she comes from a culture that demonizes the canines among us.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.