Week 7: Valentine Sugar Cookies and "Uprooting Racism"

WHY THIS BOOK:

This book addresses everything from what is whiteness to fighting institutional racism. The language is easy and clear to read and provides really great questions on what you should be thinking about to work on being anti-racist.

This book is from an American perspective and I look forward to reading more about racism in Canada. However as Canadians we tend not to discuss racism and if you ignore it then you can't deal with it can you? (My view: The longer we don't discuss it the worse it will be)

The book is broken down into 6 parts however I will share insights from Part 1, 3 and 5.

Part 1: The section on entitlement is interesting because I don't often read about this. He shares examples of how entitlement for white folx shows up:

1. (white) People taking up more time and space in conversations at schools and at work.

2. (white) People speaking for others

3. (white) People feeling ok to pay less than a living wage for childcare workers, gardeners, etc.

It makes sense as privilege can sometimes bring about entitlement.

Part 3: Paul discusses allyship and provides tips on how to talk with white people about racism. He tells the readers to listen more and to frame issues using shared values. He covers what an ally is and how it is an action not a noun as well it is important to keep working towards being anti-racist even if you make mistakes.

Part 5: In the section on Fighting institutional racism the author explores the usual topics around work and the police but the one topic that was really interesting was on environmental justice. He talks about environmental racism that refers to any policy, or practice that differentially affects or disadvantages individuals, groups or communities based on race or ethnicity. We see this in Canada with reserves not having clean drinking water. Read more here: Too many First Nations lack clean drinking water and it's Ottawa's fault, says auditor general | CBC News. I will continue to learn about environmental racism and I am curious if anyone can share some good book recommendations? Thanks