Spring 2013 Book Group Selection
Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It - by Shelly Tochluk
Monday's Spring 2013
February 11, 25; March 11, 25; April 8
12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
President's Conference Room, SC382
Free books will be given to the first 10 to register. For more info contact Michelle Loyd-Paige.
Witnessing Whiteness invites readers to consider what it means to be white, describes and critiques strategies used to avoid race issues, and identifies the detrimental effect of avoiding race on cross-race collaborations. The author illustrates how racial discomfort leads white people toward poor relationships with people of color. Questioning the implications our history has for personal lives and social institutions, the book considers political, economic, socio-cultural, and legal histories that shaped the meanings associated with whiteness. Drawing on dialogue with well-known figures within education, race, and multicultural work, the book offers intimate, personal stories of cross-race friendships that address both how a deep understanding of whiteness supports cross-race collaboration and the long-term nature of the work of excising racism from the deep psyche. Concluding chapters offer practical information on building knowledge, skills, capacities, and communities that support anti-racism practices, a hopeful look at our collective future, and a discussion of how to create a culture of witnesses who support allies for social and racial justice. (Amazon.com)
Past Reading Selections
Becoming an Anti-Racist Church: Journeying Toward Wholeness by Joseph Bardnt
The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists in America by Dr. Joseph Graves
Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Priviledged Son by Tim Wise
Teachable Moments: Short Stories to Spark Diversity Dialogue by Steve Robbins
Building a House for Diversity: How a Fable about a Giraffe & an Elephant Offers New Strategies for Today's Workforce by R. Roosevelt Thomas Jr.
Silent Racism: How Well-Meaning White People Perpetuate the Racial Divide by Dr. Barbara Trepagnier
The One in the Many: Christian Identity in a Multicultural World edited by Thomas R. Thompson
Racism and God-Talk : A Latino/a Perspective by Rubén Rosario Rodriguez
Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical's Inside View of White Christianity
by Edward Gilbreath
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Mobilizing Hope: Faith-Inspired Activism for a Post-Civil Rights Generation by Adam Taylor
Neither Jew Nor Gentile by George Yancey
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
