I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

Shit, I've got work to do. Brown wrote an excellent book - I'm glad people have highlighted it recently.

Written as a memoir, Brown talks about growing up in a majority white neighbourhood and adjusting to black cultural norms during later summers. The different tactics teachers took in during her schooling through college and how she came to think of herself as a “white whisperer” until the job environment became clear there was a lot of work to be done in her chosen field (Christian ministry). It sets out clearly the awkward moments, then constant microagressions, and the white resistance to diversity that might force work cultures to change or adapt to non-white people's need to make a more diverse culture in truth rather than photo-op.

The structure of the memoir and Browns work in diversity work show clearly it's not just a “couple of bad apples” but gross ignorance supported by the white privilege not to know or understand better. How much is our desire not to be uncomfortable or have to change - because we're more invested in our identity as nice (white) people than making spaces better and more welcoming for black and other POC. Brown also highlights how white people position black people like her as confessors and absolvers - not appreciating the work they are asking black people to do for them.

Summary: In this nonfiction work, Austin Channing Brown powerfully relates her experience with racism as a Black woman, and specifically a Black woman in the Church and in Christian ministry. This book is one that will inspire empathy on the deepest level and challenge complacent white Christians to take their place in the fight for true racial justice and reconciliation—justice and reconciliation that require structural change and real work, not just empty words and tokenistic acknowledgement of the presence of people of color. This book is, in a word, excellent.