By Educators, For Educators

Reviews This section of the CPE Website is designed to give members of our community the opportunity to share their thoughts about resources (books, websites, curriculum guides, hands-on educational materials, and so on) that they’ve encountered. We encourage you to use the form at the end of this page to share your suggestions for resources you think are worthy of sharing with our community.

Books About Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion The following book reviews by Anthony Witte center on titles related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and offer observations for building awareness as well as concrete steps and practical solutions for bringing that awareness to action in various school settings. The books may be appropriate for use as a book club among educators or as an all-school read for those wishing to tackle pertinent issues on a school-wide level.

Anthony Witte is the Director of Inclusion at Children’s Day School and a member of the CPE Steering Committee.

Deep Diversity - Shakil Choudhury

If you want to bring a flowing conversation among an ethnically mixed group of people to a halt, simply say, “I’d like to have a conversation about race. Who’s in?” If you look carefully, you’re likely to see people physically begin to turn in their chairs, look at their watches, and excuse themselves physically or mentally to do that “thing” they need to do. What’s going on?

Shakil Choudhury would argue that our unconscious bias is taking over and attempting to move us - both literally and emotionally - to a safer space. And while some people of color and white allies might be tempted to lock the door and force a conversation, Choudhury feels this would be counterproductive and do little to move us along the continuum. Contrary to popular belief (potentially strong among educators), “...we do not think our way through life. We feel our way through life.” In other words, our unconscious mind dominates both our thinking and behavior. To complicate matters, our ‘hardware’ is pre-programmed from cave days to lean toward people who look like us and to have a negative bias against people who don’t.

So, what can educators do to counteract our notions on race and other elements of identity? One word: software. While our hardware may be set, our software can be reprogrammed over time. Choudhury lays out concrete steps we can take to examine our own emotional triggers, biases, and fears. He then offers specific suggestions that can help us be more mindful and develop new habits, as we interact with students and adults in our communities. Due to neuroplasticity, the malleable nature of the brain, with effort we can intentionally reprogram our minds to be less susceptible to innate fears and stereotypes and more open to positive narratives and perspectives from people outside our in-group. Deep Diversity acknowledges who we truly are, not who we aspire to be, and creates a roadmap for personal change - where it all begins.     

White Fragility - Robin DiAngelo

Dr. DiAngelo pulls no punches in this hard-hitting, upfront approach to understanding whiteness. In her book, she draws from the history of the U.S. and weaves a faulty narrative that most of us have learned about race, people of color, and being white. She asserts that due to the legacy of systems intentionally designed to privilege white people, we are all (including people of color) on a moving sidewalk taking us in the direction of white supremacy and racism. If we want to counteract these forces, we need informed actions to move us quickly in the opposite direction.   

But wait, some may say, “I love Blackish! I’ve seen Black Panther three times, never say the N-word, and have Asian friends! My partner is (insert ethnic minority here), so I can’t be racist!” Dr. DiAngelo carefully explains how white people conflate being good or having been marginalized in other ways with the impossibility of being racist. In other words, because “I’m a good person, educator, female, from a low socioeconomic background, or LGBTQ, and treat everyone the same... I can’t be racist.” Unfortunately, she says we can, and addresses these and other forms of resistance. Far from the white hoods, burning crosses, and Jim Crow laws of past decades, new racism appears in more subtle ways, from lower expectations of students of color, harsher sentencing for similar crimes, restricted access to housing, less adequate healthcare, to hiring bias. Another main culprit? Self-proclaimed white progressives, whose desire to be seen as “woke” places anyone who would dare point out a racist remark or microaggression in a dire predicament. White-progressive bullying behavior is a thing, and white fragility aims to resist feedback at all costs.

While the road will be long and fraught with mistakes, Dr. DiAngelo offers hope. Through understanding white socialization, recognizing racial triggers, and seeing how stereotypes affect our habits and behaviors, white people can begin to make real progress. In White Fragility, we learn how racism hurts white people too. By building relationships with people of color, unpacking personal narratives, and learning to welcome feedback, white people can ultimately learn to live a more fulfilling life, do less harm, and create more joy in the world.