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... But I'm NOT Racist!: Tools for Well-Meaning Whites Kindle Edition
Deepen your Resolve to Live as a Change Agent for Racial Justice
Who would you be if you were no longer afraid someone would call you racist? What impact could you have if you had proven tools and techniques to create greater racial justice in your organization? For the past two decades as a speaker and an executive coach, Dr. Kathy Obear has helped thousands of whites find the courage to challenge and change the dynamics of racism in their organizations.
- Do you stay silent and hold back for fear of making a mistake? Or making things worse?
- Are there times you want to speak up, but don’t know how to interrupt racist dynamics or organizational practices?
- Do you sometimes feel alone, like you are the only one raising issues about racial justice in your organization?
Through engaging stories and concrete examples and tools, Kathy shares her own personal struggles and the common challenges many whites face as they work to create more equitable, inclusive organizations.
Find practical skills and strategies to move through your fear of being called racist and learn to:
- Speak up with greater confidence and clarity
- Engage racist comments to deepen learning and facilitate change
- Stop feeling so alone and isolated
- Respond effectively when colleagues call you racist or criticize your efforts
- Develop powerful partnerships to create meaningful change in your organization
Read this book and find the inspiration and tools to deepen your resolve to live your values every day as a change agent for racial justice.
From the Author
Kathy Obear has over 30 years of experience as an organizational development consultant and trainer specializing in creating inclusion, team and organizational effectiveness, conflict resolution, and change management. She has given speeches, facilitated training sessions, and consulted to top leaders at hundreds of universities, human service and K-12 organizations, and corporations across the United States and internationally – designed to increase the passion, competence, and commitment to create inclusive, socially just environments for all members of the organization. She facilitated “training of trainers” programs for student affairs professionals, faculty, and student leaders at numerous colleges and universities, and am a Co-Founder of the Social Justice Training Institute. She taught graduate level courses on Effective Facilitation at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and am regarded as an expert at training leaders and facilitators to navigate difficult dialogues and triggering events.
She is grateful to be a certified Martha Beck Life Coach having had the amazing, transformative opportunity to complete her Life Coach development program. I offer Life Coaching and Executive Coaching in both an individual and small group format.
"It is imperative that leaders and staff demonstrate the capacity and competence to create inclusive environments that support the success of the full breadth of members in their organizations and effectively meet the needs of the increasingly diverse populations they serve." — Kathy
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.About the Author
Kathy Obear has over 30 years of experience as an organizational development consultant and trainer specializing in creating inclusion, team and organizational effectiveness, conflict resolution, and change management. She has given speeches, facilitated training sessions, and consulted to top leaders at hundreds of universities, human service and K-12 organizations, and corporations across the United States and internationally – designed to increase the passion, competence, and commitment to create inclusive, socially just environments for all members of the organization. She facilitated “training of trainers” programs for student affairs professionals, faculty, and student leaders at numerous colleges and universities, and am a Co-Founder of the Social Justice Training Institute. She taught graduate level courses on Effective Facilitation at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and am regarded as an expert at training leaders and facilitators to navigate difficult dialogues and triggering events.
She is grateful to be a certified Martha Beck Life Coach having had the amazing, transformative opportunity to complete her Life Coach development program. I offer Life Coaching and Executive Coaching in both an individual and small group format.
"It is imperative that leaders and staff demonstrate the capacity and competence to create inclusive environments that support the success of the full breadth of members in their organizations and effectively meet the needs of the increasingly diverse populations they serve." — Kathy
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.From the Back Cover
Deepen your Resolve to Live as a Change Agent for Racial Justice
Who would you be if you were no longer afraid someone would call you racist? What impact could you have if you had proven tools and techniques to create greater racial justice in your organization? For the past two decades as a speaker and an executive coach, Dr. Kathy Obear has helped thousands of whites find the courage to challenge and change the dynamics of racism in their organizations.
- Do you stay silent and hold back for fear of making a mistake? Or making things worse?
- Are there times you want to speak up, but don’t know how to interrupt racist dynamics or organizational practices?
- Do you sometimes feel alone, like you are the only one raising issues about racial justice in your organization?
Through engaging stories and concrete examples and tools, Kathy shares her own personal struggles and the common challenges many whites face as they work to create more equitable, inclusive organizations.
Find practical skills and strategies to move through your fear of being called racist and learn to:
- Speak up with greater confidence and clarity
- Engage racist comments to deepen learning and facilitate change
- Stop feeling so alone and isolated
- Respond effectively when colleagues call you racist or criticize your efforts
- Develop powerful partnerships to create meaningful change in your organization
Read this book and find the inspiration and tools to deepen your resolve to live your values every day as a change agent for racial justice.
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateJanuary 16, 2017
- File size1051 KB
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Product details
- ASIN : B01NCWVXEY
- Publisher : Difference Press (January 16, 2017)
- Publication date : January 16, 2017
- Language : English
- File size : 1051 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 118 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #527,168 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #305 in Civil Rights & Liberties (Kindle Store)
- #514 in Discrimination & Racism Studies
- #1,102 in Civil Rights & Liberties (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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I admit, I have always been open about wanting racial justice but until the last couple of years I hadn't really thought about what that meant or how to go about affecting any change. Heck, it was only maybe two years ago that I did anything more than say I was color blind and raising my children that way. I started waking up about that time to the suffering around me and the privilege to which I had and realized that I needed to do better, both as a person but also as a parent to educate my children to their own privilege and how we need to work to bring equality to all. I'm still learning and I have so very much to learn but this was a helpful book and I appreciated it. Much of it was geared towards how to facilitate racial justice in group environments which at the moment is not super relevant to me but is good to know. A lot of it is techniques for how to engage, meaningfully and purposefully with those that are using racist language in the hopes of opening a dialogue for them to see the hurt they are causing. I found those things very helpful and plan to keep rereading some of those passages so I can learn to not be silent when it comes up. I need to work harder to find my voice to say that these things are not right and I hope that the tools she has given here will help me to do so.
That said, there are things both stated and implied in this book that I find troubling.
First is the obvious subtext suggested by the title. It does not take many pages for a "well-meaning white" to discover that, in Dr. Obear's analysis, the response to "but I'm not racist" is "oh yes you are!" In stories and anecdotes about her life, the reader may get the sense that the author has never truly come to terms with (or forgiven herself for) her accident of birth as a Caucasian, her mother sending her to a private school to avoid an integrated public school, or any of her past racist transgressions. She repeatedly states her feelings of guilt and shame, her fear of being called a racist and a fraud, and her desire to make "personal reparations and amends". This is brave, and this is noble, but is it the best model for the would-be change agent to follow?
Another element which gave me pause was the suggestion that "well-meaning whites" form "white affinity groups" and "white caucuses" where they can freely discuss racial issues and confront their own racism without being subjected to criticism from people of color! The parodies and attacks from the Right are predictable, but if I may critique this idea from the Left: would not a better strategy be to form real relationships - with love, trust, mistakes, and apologies - with actual brown and black folks?
Maybe it's because I spent my youth in fist fights with neo-Nazis and hanging around in the "wrong" neighborhoods, maybe it's because I see "post-racial" attitudes and behaviors in some of today's youth, maybe it's because I'm ignorant of my own bias and I need to feel more white guilt, but I recommend taking this book with a grain of salt. Dr. Obear clearly understands the problem, but I cannot get behind all of her solutions.
In addition, Dr. Obear provides tangible tools, exercises, resources, and guidelines for white people who wish to actively work to dismantle white supremacy and systemic racism - both at the individual and institutional/organizational levels. A great resource for those looking to take their racial justice work and personal practice deeper!





