Program Recap: April Book Club Discussion - So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

Posted by commadmin on Apr. 29, 2021  /  Subscribe 0

A group of 11 SMPS-TC members and guests gathered by Zoom on April 21, 2021, to discuss Ijeoma Oluo’s book, So You Want to Talk About Race, facilitated by Danielle Hilmo of BWBR. Our group started with a ground-in exercise to provide focus. After brief introductions, we shared initial thoughts on the book, which participants found enlightening while anticipating some difficulty in implementing its suggestions. Then we dove into our discussion questions.

Question 1: While recent police killings of unarmed black boys and men have been shocking and generated a lot of attention, police brutality of this nature has been occurring throughout our country’s history. Did reading this book influence or change your understanding of these tragic events? If so, how? This question referenced Chapter 6, "Is Police Brutality Really about Race?"

The discussion focused on current events in the Twin Cities and the issues of police brutality during traffic stops. Our eyes have been opened by the information in this book and in local media showing the statistics for traffic stops for persons of color. We became more aware of our perspective of white privilege compared to a person of color’s more fearful perspective in confrontations with police. We discussed our responsibility as white people to see and witness if we see something happening that is wrong.

Two books were recommended by participants as follow-up on this topic:

• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Question 2: In chapter 1, “Is It Really About Race?,” the author states: 

• “It is about race if a person of color thinks it is about race. 
• It is about race if it disproportionately or differently affects people of color. 
• It is about race if it fits into a broader pattern of events that disproportionately or differently affect people of color.” 

After reading the author’s explanation of these points, can you think of social or political issues that many people currently believe are not about race, but actually may be? Which of the above guidelines for understanding when it is about race fit those issues?

Several issues were brought up in response to this question.

• Planning of highways and interstates can have a racial impact. Their location affects city planning, influences and can segregate communities near them, can affect districting, and many other issues. Urban planning as a whole is a racial issue.
• Food deserts and bank deserts – The unwillingness of businesses to locate in minority communities can create financial and economic difficulties for the people who live in those communities.
• Naming and terminology are often not thought of as racist by some, but can be. For example, home designers are getting away from the term “master suite” because of racist connotations. Also, “grandfathering” has its source as a racist practice.
• Some religious traditions can be offensive.
• The phrase “final solution” can be offensive to Jewish persons.
• Voter security was mentioned.
• Health care, especially for women of color. Discrepancies in health care have been made more evident by the effects of the pandemic. Schools have been affected as people of means moved to private schools, leaving even less funding available for those who remain in the public school systems.
• Redlining and its effect on the ability of people of color to attain home ownership.

Question 3: Have you ever been told or told others to “check your privilege?” Has this book helped you gain a deeper understanding of privilege and how it gives some in our society a huge advantage? If so, how? If not, what comments or questions do you have? This question referenced Chapter 4, “Why am I Always Being Told to Check My Privilege?”

• Suggested Activity: Write down a list of your privileges that have given you advantages in life. We are all also disadvantaged in some way, but for this exercise focus ONLY on privileges. 

The group expressed an increased awareness of what constitutes privilege as a result of reading this chapter, including health care, interactions with police, etc. It forces you to think about the sources of your well-being and sufficient income, peeling back the layers to your ability to get a college education, your upbringing and education, etc. – an understanding of everything that enabled you to get where you are. Also, the realization that privilege comes at the cost of others’ disadvantages.

Question 4: In chapter 12, “What Are Microaggressions?,” the author lists some of the racial microaggressions that her friends of color said that they often hear. What are some of the racial microaggressions that you have encountered or witnessed? What are some that you may have perpetrated on others?

The group mentioned times that they had reacted to encountering a person of color, or inadvertently said things that are offensive, and acknowledged the struggle to maintain awareness and sensitivity. It’s important not to expect people of color to be our experts or teach us.

Danielle outlined “skills for interrupting” when inappropriate behavior is observed. She warned to pick your battles and know when you can and should speak up.

1 – Stop what is happening. A recommended video on how to discuss race.
2 – Ask questions – seek facts instead of emotions – to create cognitive dissonance.
3 – “Felt – Found – Feel” That is, I used to think/feel this way, but then I found/learned, and now I know/feel …
4 – Be educated, provide facts.

There was a brief discussion of DEI efforts in our respective firms. A consultant that BWBR and other local firms use for their diversity training initiatives is Heather Hackman Consulting Group http://hackmanconsultinggroup.org/.

Join us for our next book club this summer (date TBD) - a business classic! Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

Resources for Understanding History, Issues, and Insights About Race in the U.S.

This list is a compilation of suggestions from friends, colleagues, a list created by BWBR’s Equity Taskforce, and selections from Leadership Saint Paul’s Justice Day Reference Materials. This is in no way a complete list. The selection of novels is especially random and only scratches the surface. There is also virtually nothing here about the Latinx experience for which I apologize. I also urge people to pace themselves and not get too emotionally overwhelmed as has happened to some members of the ETF. It’s fine to take some breaks and come back refreshed later.

• Danielle Hilmo, Marketing Manager, BWBR

Non-Fiction Books

• The New Jim Crow - Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness by Michelle Alexander
• How to be an Antiracist by Ibram Kendi
• So You Want to Talk About Race? by Ijeoma Oluo
• The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
• Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A Blackmon
• 1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy by James Horn
• Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond by Marc Lamont Hill
• White Privilege Anthology by Paula Rothenberg (costly-may wish to buy used)
• Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson

Novels

• American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
• Black Water Rising by Attica Locke
• Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
• Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
• Kindred by Octavia Butler
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (also a movie)
• The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
• The Street by Ann Petrie
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Anything by Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Sandra Cisneros, W.E.B. DuBois, Ralph Ellison, Louise Erdich, Alex Haley, Langston Hughes, James McBride, Toni Morrison, and Amy Tan

Documentaries

• The following and more about the black experience on PBS: https://www.pbs.org/articles/2021/02/celebrate-black-history-month-2021/
  • Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America by Ric Burns - How black people’s mobility has been controlled throughout American history
  • African Americans Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates Jr. - six-part series that explores the full trajectory of the African-American experience across two continents
  • The Black Church with Henry Louis Gates Jr.
  • Slavery by Another Name
• Netflix
  • 13th by Director Ava DuVernay - The road from slavery to mass incarceration of racial minorities
  • Coded Bias - MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini explores the way AI and algorithms are racially biased
  • The Force - Peter Nicks spends two years following the embattled Oakland Police Department as they try to reform
  • Immigration Nation - With unprecedented access to ICE operations, as well as moving portraits of immigrants, this docuseries takes a deep look at US immigration today
  • When They See Us by director Ava DuVernay - profiles the wrongful conviction of five black children in the case of the Central Park Jogger and the media’s influence on mass incarceration

Short Videos

• African American Women and the Struggle for Equality - breaks down the ABCs of intersectionality
• Colorblind: ReThinking Race
• “How to tell someone they sound racist.” - Jay Cool emphasizes the “behavior and not the person.
• How We Can Win - Kimberly Jones explains the difference between protesting, rioting, and looting in 2020; contains explicit content
• The '”Indian Problem"
• The Pause - reflections from LGBTQ people
• “The Talk” - black parents talk to their children about racial discrimination
• Thanksgiving | Native Americans | One Word | Cut

Other Online Resources

• Code Switch - NPR podcast hosted by journalists of color tackling the subject of race head-on
• In the Dark - Curtis Flowers is on death row and has won appeal after appeal, but the prosecutor keeps retrying him - what does this reveal about the evidence and our justice system?
• Intersectionality Matters! with Kimberlé Crenshaw - podcast that features political organizers, journalists, and writers talking with Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term “intersectionality”
• Scene on Radio - podcast produced by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, with hosts John Biewen and Chenjerai Kmanyika
• Mapping Prejudice, a University of Minnesota library resource about Racial Covenants in the Twin Cities
• Tool: Interrupting Microaggressions - two-page handout covers techniques for countering specific statements or beliefs
• The Invasion of America (animation)
• There’s Overwhelming Evidence that the Criminal Justice System is Racist. Here’s the Proof, THE WASHINGTON POST
• Why We Should Put an End to Grandfathering (article)
• PBS News Hour: What does it mean to “defund the police”?

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