In January we will be starting Ijeoma Oluo's So You Want To Talk About Race. 

Oluo offers a guide to recognizing how barriers may be different for people of color and how to learn from and participate in complex—and often uncomfortable—discussions about race.  

So You Want to Talk About Race helps people have conversations that deepen understanding of race and racial oppression and encourages them to actively dismantle systems built on holding people back.  

Oluo walks readers through concepts such as power, privilege, intersectionality, cultural appropriation, microaggressions, tone policing and more to provide a starting point for productive conversations.  

Racism and racial oppression are more than just individual acts of oppression: They’re a system that blocks people of color from opportunities – educational, economic, social, and more—and progress that would allow everyone to live to their full potential. And it’s a system that not only keeps Black people and many people of color down but is hostile and deadly towards them.  

As the book addresses issues of police brutality, affirmative action, the school-to-prison pipeline and White supremacy, it acknowledges the discomfort that comes from recognizing one’s role within racist systems. It encourages people to embrace that discomfort and interrogate it to move the conversation and humanity forward.  

If you need a copy of the book, please consider purchasing from Semicolon Books in Chicago: https://bookshop.org/books/so-you-want-to-talk-about-race/9781580058827 or any other Black owned bookstores you know of.