Welcome to your virtual book club.

Wednesday, August 26, 2020, 7-9pm ET

Meeting Norms

Ground rules for how we will collaborate.

Process Norms:

• We will respect everyone’s time by starting and ending on time.
• Only one conversation at one time. Refrain from side-talk.
• Be present with the people you are meeting with. Put away phones and other devices during the meeting.
• Take bio breaks as needed. (Good for long meetings.)
• Everyone is responsible for helping to stay on topic. Speak up if you feel like we’re getting off track.
• Address conflict head on.
• Everyone is responsible for upholding the norms. Acknowledge if you notice we are not doing so.

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Communication Norms:

• Ask questions for clarification to help avoid making assumptions.
• Make sure everyone's voice is heard.
• Balance your participation - speak and listen.
• Listen actively to teammates without interrupting others.
• Clarify when you are advocating vs offering an idea.
• Say it now, in the room. Avoid waiting till later to raise an issue.
• All voices count. All opinions are valid, but offer reasoning behind your thinking.

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Virtual Meeting Norms:

• Do not multitask (do other work) during the meeting.
• Use the mute button at your site to prevent the transmission of background noise.
• Speak up to get attention if you have something to say.
• Turn on your video whenever possible.
• Follow an organized line up to ensure each person has a chance to respond.

Agenda

If we were meeting in-person, I'd have a table of cookies and coffee. Grab a snack, a beverage of your choice and get comfortable.

6:45pm: Waiting Room Opens

7:00pm: Meeting begins, Brief Introduction

7:10pm: Small Group Breakout Rooms

7:50pm: 10 minute break (returning to large group)

8:00pm: Small Group Breakout Rooms

8:40pm: Large Group Discussion

8:55pm: Wrap-up

9:00pm: Meeting close

How does the breakout room work?

• Following the brief introduction, you will be assigned a breakout room/small group.
• This is your group for the small group discussions during the event.
• You will stay in your small group discussion until our intermission, 7:50pm 10 minute break
• At 8:00pm you’ll go back to your group until 8:40pm.
• At 8:40pm we will all come back into one large group and for an open discussion.
• We will close as a large group at 9:00pm.

Large Group

Intermission

Large Group

7:00pm

9:00pm

How do we get started?

• ASSUMPTIONS: Introduce one person in your group, based on the assumptions you make by seeing them. Where are they from? Do they have kids? A partner? What do they do professionally? Then, have that person actually introduce themselves. That person describes the next person.
• Establish a speaking order for your small group time.
• Use this speaking order to move through your discussion.
• Establish a time keeper.
• I will send broadcast messages to all small groups as we move through our agenda.
• Dig in. We’ve got a lot to cover.

Small Group

Discussion Questions

• In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi shares his own experience with racist thinking. How does his honesty help give us space to acknowledge and name our own racist behaviors and attitudes?
• Kendi writes, “The only way to undo racism is to constantly identify it and describe it—and then dismantle it.” Why does he believe we need to call out racism when we see it, even if it can be uncomfortable to identify?
• The book’s central message is that the opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” The true opposite of “racist” is antiracist. “The good news,” Kendi writes, “is that racist and antiracist are not fixed identities. We can be racist one minute and an antiracist the next.” What does it mean to have to constantly reaffirm your identity as an antiracist? Is there any benefit to the fact that you can’t just decide you are “not racist” or an antiracist and be done with it?
• What is the first step you, personally, will take in striving to be an antiracist? How will you check yourself and hold yourself accountable if you notice you, or someone else, is being racist?

7:10-7:50pm

40 minutes

Source: Book Club Kit "How to be an Antiracist"

Small Group

Discussion Questions

• Kendi thinks that we should assess candidates as being racist or antiracist based on what ideas they are expressing and what policies they are supporting—and not what they say is in their bones or their heart. Do you agree with him? Why or why not?
• Anyone who values immigrants from European countries and devalues immigrants from Latin America is guilty of racism. Have you ever been guilty of this type of racism? Discuss the unique resilience and resourcefulness people possess if they leave everything in their native country behind and immigrate to another, as Kendi examines in the chapter on Ethnicity.
• There’s a stronger and clearer correlation between levels of violent crime and unemployment levels than between violent crime and race, but that’s not the story policymakers have chosen to tell. Discuss why you think this is. How might our society and culture change if policymakers characterized dangerous Black neighborhoods as dangerous unemployed neighborhoods?
• Why do you think it is so hard for people to not assess other cultures from their own cultural standards? How does doing this trap people in racist ideas?

7:10-7:50pm

40 minutes

Source: Book Club Kit "How to be an Antiracist"

Small Group

Discussion Questions

• Inequities between Light and Dark African Americans can be as wide as inequities between Black and White Americans. How have you seen colorism play out in real life and/or in the media?
• Kendi writes, “White supremacist is code for anti-human, a nuclear ideology that poses an existential threat to human existence.” How are white supremacists and their ideology actually harmful to all of humanity—including white people?
• Kendi makes the case that to be antiracist, one must stand against all forms of bigotry. Why is standing against other bigotries so essential to standing against racism?
• Kendi closes the book comparing racism and cancer. What do you think of this comparison?
• Kendi believes we can defy the odds, heal society of racism, and create an antiracist society. Do you? Why is hope so central to the antiracist movement?

8:00-8:40pm

40 minutes

Source: Book Club Kit "How to be an Antiracist"

Small Group

Large Group Discussion

• We will watch a the following brief video from “The Oprah Conversation” https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/a33534980/ibram-x-kendi-the-oprah-conversation-antiracism/
• What will it look like for you to be an anti-racist?

8:40-9:00pm

20 minutes

Keep the discussion going…

Come back soon!

Thank you.

Wednesday, August 26, 2020, 7-9pm ET