With the Black Lives Matter movement being such a focus of the past year, I made a personal commitment to properly educating myself on topics that matter, and having uncomfortable conversations that help me grow as an individual and a community member. As part of my Alternative Break experience this year, advisory board decided that we wanted to create a “book club” for the fall semester. We chose to read So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo.
Here are some of my favorite topics this book touched on:
- Socioeconomic problems are not an issue solely due to race, but moving forward wee can not solve any of these issues if we do not take race into consideration.
- One of the biggest signs that there is a problem with racism in America is that we cannot put a definition to was “racism” even is.
- You do NOT have to be racist to be a part of the system of racism.
- Checking your privilege
- Intersectionality
- Racial bias in every. single. sector. of. the. economy.
Overall, my favorite part about the experience is that it was shared with other individuals from different backgrounds. We had males, females, people of color and people who identified with a variety of various social identities and could bring different life experiences into conversation. This made conversations surrounding race that much more beneficial and meaningful. This was a very positive experience and challenged me to change my thinking and open my mind about a variety of topics.
Kristen Satkowiak 