Book Club Reflections: Reading for Race

The world is in a state of disrepair, between Covid-19, various wars and disruptions and the hot mess of racism that has bubbled over so noticeably to us in the US adding to the swirling maelstrom. In the midst of this I have seen a number of friends who have either grown up as a minority, are in a bi-racial family or have otherwise felt challenged by the systems around us speaking up and sharing their stories. It was time to delve deeper.

As I thought this, the smart Anh Nguyen was fresh off masterminding the GMID effort to set a Guinness World Record started by a small tweetstorm (and finished with 50 folks and an uber busy Slack channel) when another tweet of hers caught my eye, this time an effort to bring about honest conversations about race with a Reading for Race Book Club. I immediately signed up, received my book and got reading. It was insightful, refreshingly honest, recent (2019) and sadly the experiences reflect what is happening still in the news, in classrooms, and on the streets today.

I found the Book Club discussion facilitated by Keneisha Williams to be a very interesting group who came from a range of backgrounds, some Canadian born, some immigrants, with various abilities and challenges, and all open to sharing their experiences and how they had found themselves reflective, mirrored, and facing perceptions and misperceptions through the author’s stories. It was two hours the flew by. For me, it made me think about what ‘white privilege’ means to me and to my family; reflecting on my upbringing and how we have raised our young adults; how we design events to be inclusive and what that really means; and to take time to really listen to how others faced everything from being deaf and leaving the ‘special’ school to having immigrant parents erase their language and culture to immerse themselves into a new home country, and so much more. We ALL have our own stories and we must be kind and open and learn from each other if we are going to live together on one planet, in one city or one neighborhood successfully and with support for all that the world will throw at us when we least expect it.

For three years we designed a large technology conference where we worked hard to bring many perspectives together in the programming and through the experiences. We worked to understand how to bridge cultures to design better organizations, products and services, to e ducate more completely, and to bridge the long last mile to bring digital access to remote indigenous communities while also considering maintenance of cultural norms that have stood whole societies in good stead for millenia. There are no easy answers. For me, this is part of a journey and not an end, one book and one conversation in what will be many.

ACTION request: If you want to have an open, facilitated conversation about what is happening around us now with others who are also curious about what we can do better when it comes to respect, understanding, inclusion and education, let me know and join us over the next six weeks as we read, reflect and ultimately share, growing a network of care.