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Important Conversation
Monthly facilitated book club and discussion group for healthcare, holistic healing professionals, and all service professionals (teachers, spiritual leaders, etc) addressing race, gender, & cultural issues and our implicit biases so we can make holistic healthcare accessible to ALL.
This group will be a peer-led group of people willing to explore and consider their world view and the world view of others so we provide better service. Please note that I (Renee Groenemann) claim no expertise in issues of race, culture, sexuality or gender, but I do claim ability and interest in gathering people around important and challenging discussions: moving through the muck of it together.
Our Book for March - April:
The Canary Code: A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity, and Intersectional Belonging at Work
By: Ludmila N. Praslova PhD
This Inner Eye Life Coaching group is co- sponsored and hosted by Spirit(ed) Growth and The Healing Space of Cincinnati.
Registered participants can join our private group for further discussion and support.
Previously Discussed
Limited Time Only
Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto
Tricia Hersey
As described on Amazon:
“What would it be like to live in a well-rested world? Far too many of us have claimed productivity as the cornerstone of success. Brainwashed by capitalism, we subject our bodies and minds to work at an unrealistic, damaging, and machine‑level pace –– feeding into the same engine that enslaved millions into brutal labor for its own relentless benefit.”
Hood Feminism
Mikki Kendall
As described on Amazon:
“Today’s feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. That feminists refuse to prioritize these issues has only exacerbated the age-old problem of both internecine discord and women who rebuff at carrying the title. Moreover, prominent White feminists broadly suffer from their own myopia with regard to how things like race, class, sexual orientation, and ability intersect with gender. How can we stand in solidarity as a movement, Kendall asks, when there is the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others?”
Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender
Dr. Kit Heyam Ph.D
As described on Amazon:
“Before We Were Trans illuminates the stories of people across the globe, from antiquity to the present, whose experiences of gender have defied binary categories. Blending historical analysis with sharp cultural criticism, trans historian and activist Kit Heyam offers a new, radically inclusive trans history, chronicling expressions of trans experience that are often overlooked, like gender-nonconforming fashion and wartime stage performance. Before We Were Trans transports us from Renaissance Venice to seventeenth-century Angola, from Edo Japan to early America, and looks to the past to uncover new horizons for possible trans futures.”
This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
Cole Arthur Riley
As described on Amazon:
“So writes Cole Arthur Riley in her unforgettable book of stories and reflections on discovering the sacred in her skin. In these deeply transporting pages, Arthur Riley reflects on the stories of her grandmother and father, and how they revealed to her an embodied, dignity-affirming spirituality, not only in what they believed but in the act of living itself. Writing memorably of her own childhood and coming to self, Arthur Riley boldly explores some of the most urgent questions of life and faith: How can spirituality not silence the body, but instead allow it to come alive? How do we honor, lament, and heal from the stories we inherit? How can we find peace in a world overtaken with dislocation, noise, and unrest? In this indelible work of contemplative storytelling, Arthur Riley invites us to descend into our own stories, examine our capacity to rest, wonder, joy, rage, and repair, and find that our humanity is not an enemy to faith but evidence of it.”
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Richard Rothstein
As described on Amazon:
“Widely heralded as a “masterful” (Washington Post) and “essential” (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law offers “the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation” (William Julius Wilson). Exploding the myth of de facto segregation arising from private prejudice or the unintended consequences of economic forces, Rothstein describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning; public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods. A groundbreaking, “virtually indispensable” study that has already transformed our understanding of twentieth-century urban history (Chicago Daily Observer), The Color of Law forces us to face the obligation to remedy our unconstitutional past. 13 illustrations”
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Isabel Wilkerson
As described on Amazon:
“Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Isabel Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.”
Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own
Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
As described on Amazon:
“Begin Again is one of the great books on James Baldwin and a powerful reckoning with America’s ongoing failure to confront the lies it tells itself about race. Just as in Baldwin’s “after times,” argues Eddie S. Glaude Jr., when white Americans met the civil rights movement’s call for truth and justice with blind rage and the murders of movement leaders, so in our moment were the Obama presidency and the birth of Black Lives Matter answered with the ascendance of Trump and the violent resurgence of white nationalism.”
Yellow
Isabel Wilkerson
As described on Amazon:
“Writing in the tradition of W. E. B. Du Bois, Cornel West, and others who confronted the “color line” of the twentieth century, journalist, scholar, and activist Frank H. Wu offers a unique perspective on how changing ideas of racial identity will affect race relations in the twenty-first century. Wu examines affirmative action, globalization, immigration, and other controversial contemporary issues through the lens of the Asian-American experience. Mixing personal anecdotes, legal cases, and journalistic reporting, Wu confronts damaging Asian-American stereotypes such as “the model minority” and “the perpetual foreigner.” By offering new ways of thinking about race in American society, Wu’s work dares us to make good on our great democratic experiment.”
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
Isabel Wilkerson
As described on Amazon:
“In this beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson presents a definitive and dramatic account of one of the great untold stories of American history: the Great Migration of six million Black citizens who fled the South for the North and West in search of a better life, from World War I to 1970.“
Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates
As described on Amazon:
“Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.”
Minor Feeling: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
Cathy Park Hong
As described on Amazon:
“Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America. Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative—and its relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality, will change the way you think about our world.“
Feminist, Queer, Crip
Alison Kafer
As described on Amazon:
“In Feminist, Queer, Crip Alison Kafer imagines a different future for disability and disabled bodies. Challenging the ways in which ideas about the future and time have been deployed in the service of compulsory able-bodiedness and able-mindedness, Kafer rejects the idea of disability as a pre-determined limit. She juxtaposes theories, movements, and identities such as environmental justice, reproductive justice, cyborg theory, transgender politics, and disability that are typically discussed in isolation and envisions new possibilities for crip futures and feminist/queer/crip alliances. This bold book goes against the grain of normalization and promotes a political framework for a more just world.”
We Got Soul, We Can Heal: Overcoming Racial Trauma Through Leadership, Community and Resilience
Phyllis Jeffers-Coly
As described on Amazon:
“Poet Alice Walker has described culture as something in which one should thrive; further, that healing means putting the heart, courage, and energy back into one’s self within one’s own culture. Similarly, the “yes, yes ya’ll,” phrase, used by classic 1990’s-era hip hop DJs and artists, evokes the passion in Black American culture. Written with that same celebratory spirit–and using the idea of culture and SOUL synonymously–this book explores of the ways in which integrating SOUL (culture) with contemplative practices can foster healing and restoration, expanding our understanding of leadership and community interaction and impact. With years of experience in higher education and as a mentor and teacher living in Senegal, the author stresses the importance of celebrating Black cultures, including the role of ancestry, community interdependence, elder-mentors and institutions such as HBCUs.“
On the Couch with Dr. Angello: A Guide to Raising and Supporting Transgender Youth
Dr. Michele Angello and Crystal Cheatham
As described on Amazon:
“When a single child comes out, their entire family will transition, along with their community. On The Couch With Dr. Angello is an eye-opening guide to navigating social spaces when most don’t quite understand the process of changing genders. Dr. Angello offers emotional help and unwavering support as parents with trans identified children ride the waves of grief, acceptance and eventual healing. After years of televised appearances this book comes at a time when the sensationalism of transgender identity has calmed-a time when hearts and ears across the nation are daringly sympathetic and finally able to aid and uplift the transgender experience. In this fascinating examination of budding identity all audiences have something to gain as Dr. Michele Angello uncovers the behind the scenes journey parents, teachers, pastors, children and medical professionals will take in order to support gender variant youth. Grappling with the real life situations of transitioning in public, coming out to school principals and dealing with family dynamics, Dr. Angello leaves no topic unturned from faith and spirituality to hormone therapy. On The Couch With Dr. Angello might very well be an undercover Trans 101 course. Camouflaged by its diligent story telling, this would-be self-help book is a reassuring response to youth who are yearning for guidance as they angle to step into their right skins. Skillfully and uniquely Dr. Angello addresses the tender experience of discovering who our best allies are. As she has in practice with many teenagers she addresses the angst in developing crushes, dating and sex; the hope in fostering relationships with the ever-important cheerleaders; and provides action steps to seek out and create safe space in school, in church and the doctor’s office. As a source identifying the true complexities of human anatomy this book is a powerful testament to where the limitless destinations a heart felt pursuit for authenticity can lead. Chronicling a 14-year practice, Dr. Angello inspires hope, challenges boundaries and demonstrates just how powerful unconditional love can be. Regardless of your place on the gender spectrum On The Couch With Dr. Angello is a book you won’t want to put down.“
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
Dr. Robin DiAngelo
As described on Amazon:
“In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.“
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
Dr. Michele Angello and Crystal Cheatham
As described on Amazon:
“In the 16th century, the beginning of African enslavement in the Americas until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment and emancipation in 1865, Africans were hunted like animals, captured, sold, tortured, and raped. They experienced the worst kind of physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual abuse. Given such history, isn’t it likely that many of the enslaved were severely traumatized? And did the trauma and the effects of such horrific abuse end with the abolition of slavery?“
How to Be an Antiracist
Ibram X. Kendi
As described on Amazon:
“Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.“
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem
Resmaa Menakem
As described on Amazon:
“In this groundbreaking book, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology.
The body is where our instincts reside and where we fight, flee, or freeze, and it endures the trauma inflicted by the ills that plague society. Menakem argues this destruction will continue until Americans learn to heal the generational anguish of white supremacy, which is deeply embedded in all our bodies. Our collective agony doesn’t just affect African Americans. White Americans suffer their own secondary trauma as well. So do blue Americans—our police.”