Coleman, James W., Blackness and Modernism, University Press of Mississippi, 1989.

While this book was written long before Wideman wrote “What We Cannot Speak About We Must Pass Over in Silence” and many of his other stories and novels, it remains a major critical source on his work.

Davis, Angela Y., Are Prisons Obsolete? Open Media, 2003.

In this book, African American activist and prison abolitionist Angela Y. Davis questions why two million Americans are behind bars and looks for her answer at the corporations that profit from prisons. Davis explores the question of racial bias in the criminal justice system, which has the effect of politically disenfranchising large numbers of ethnic minority voters.

Dyer, Joel, The Perpetual Prison Machine: How America Profits from Crime, Westview Press, 2001.

Dyer argues that the growing practice of turning over the running of prisons to private enterprise has led to cost-cutting...