Sign Up Reminder & Questions for Book Club!
Dear community,
We are so eager to see your wonderful faces in this week’s meetings! This week is the last week of reading for So you want to talk about race. We are excited to hear your thoughts on our July learnings, and eager to dive in to our August book, How to Be an Antiracist.
We wanted to remind you that our final book clubs for So you want to talk about race, and our 1/3 check in point for the Me and White Supremacy journaling will be held THIS WEEK! If you haven’t already, please sign up for one of the three offered meeting times available and to provide the questions we will be using for this round.
First things first, sign-ups:
Wednesday, August 5th from 7-8:30pm ET (4pm PT, 5pm MT, 6pm CT)
Thursday, August 6th from 7-8:30pm PT (8pm MT, 9pm CT, 10pm ET)
Sunday, August 9th from 10-11:30am PT (11am MT, 12pm CT, 1pm ET)
Our conversations this week will cover the second half of So you want to talk about race and the journaling prompts from Me and White Supremacy through day 11. As always, if you are unable to finish this reading beforehand, you are still more than welcome to join us, but know that the whole book will be the foundation of our conversation.
How did the chapters on police brutality and the school to prison pipeline, along with national and international discussions that have been happening as of late impact your perception of safety, policing, and incarceration?
In what ways has tone-policing shown up overtly or subtly in your life? How do we police BIPOC beyond just tone? When have you stayed silent? How are you working to combat your own silence and tone-policing?
How do appropriation and stereotypes (including that of the model minority) go hand in hand and why are both of them harmful? Have you ever appropriated or stereotyped (knowingly or unknowingly) appropriated another culture? How did you come to understand that and did you do anything about it?
How are respectability politics connected to white superiority and exceptionalism? How have you seen it show up in your own life and more broadly? How do we challenge this monster?
We are especially thinking about this quote as we answer this question: “Our attempts at respectability have been turned into barriers to recognizing our humanity. Our focus on exceptionalism has been used to justify the murder of the less exceptional. Our focus on allowing “good” people of color to join the ranks of “good” whites has allowed a criminal justice system to swallow up an entire generation deemed “bad.”
So You Want to Talk About Race focuses its ending on *how* to actually talk about race, and perhaps even more importantly, how to handle it when you’ve done or said something racist. Did anything you have read in this book, or discussed in this group, change how you think about racist harm you have caused?
How will you respond — both externally with others and internally with yourself — if/when you cause racist harm in the future?
What are some of your biggest challenges in this that you will need to work on in the months and years ahead? What personal/ego blocks to being a truly anti-racist ally are you now more aware of?
What changes in your behavior, thought patterns, conversations, or commitments have emerged as a result of the readings and journaling of this group so far?
Does anything feel like it is missing from our facilitation and discussions? Is there something you’ve been thinking about, and want to make sure is discussed in the next two groups?
We are really looking forward to this discussion, and hope to see you soon! Please remember to sign up above if you’re interested in joining.
With love and in solidarity,
Lori and Jess