Updated Virtual Book Club: So You Want to Talk About Race (Part 1) (Seattle/WA State Chapter)

As women who are here to advance women in the workplace, we recognize the need to take a stand against racial injustice in our workplaces, our hometowns, and across the country.

As an inclusive community of women supporting each other, we hope to provide a forum where everybody has a platform to engage in courageous conversations, share resources, respect individual’s intersectional experience, and work with one another to be a true ally and advocate for equality.

The book, So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo, was recommended by several active members of our chapter book club. Our chapter had planned to use it for our Sept/Oct Book Club. However, given the recent developments, we’re going to move up the conversation to now, using some the questions posed by our team at Ellevate HQ.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBEFHgOjHzH/

We know folks may not have time to read the book ahead of time, so we suggest the following short (~30 min or less) videos:

Stacy Brooks: Mixed Feelings

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CA8RUC9prM8/

Ivirlei Brookes: White Women who Truly Want to Help: Here’s how

https://www.instagram.com/p/CA6uC66gF_q/

The Stranger’s synopsis of the book:

“So You Want to Talk About Race—the breakout book by Seattle-based writer, speaker, and emerging social media icon, Ijeoma Oluo—offers a fresh, compassionate, often witty approach to helping us have productive conversations about race and navigate these turbulent times. Drawing from a well of personal experience as a black woman with deep and intimate ties to the white world, Oluo distinguishes herself as a relatable yet nuanced commentator on a subject that so many others have tried less successfully to take on. It’s evident that she knows her theory, but she doesn’t get mired in the academic debates, instead offering vivid anecdotes from life on the front lines as well as practical advice that both longtime students of race in America as well as newcomers to the field will find useful. Because in an era when the public sphere can so quickly explode into anger, even violence, the way we talk matters. People’s life chances hang in the balance of our political discourse, and Oluo’s book shows us how we might swing that balance toward justice—one conversation at a time.”