How to Start an Antiracist Book Club
Americans are looking for new direction in race relations. Many people want to be part of that effort. If this describes you, you’ve come to the right place.
My suggestion: start an antiracist book club of your own.
Your first thought is likely to be, “I’m not qualified to lead a reading group. I’m new to activism. I wouldn’t even be able to come up with a list of books.”
These hesitations are understandable. Racism in America is fraught with emotion. Who wouldn’t be terrified at the prospect of sitting down in someone’s living room and trying to talk with people you barely know about the most controversial of topics? What if people argued, got hateful or stormed out?
Finding and joining an existing antiracial book group is also a matter of luck. If you are plugged into a Church, library, or network of activists, then you may already have an opportunity to hook up with a group. We know that thousands of Americans have gathered in book clubs. But if you’re new to activism or such a group is not part of your circle of acquaintances, then you may feel stuck with yearnings to be doing something, but not knowing where to start.
Again to my suggestion. Start a book club on your own.
Every book club dedicated to fighting racism was started by someone who was hesitant at first. After several months, most book clubs are having a transformational impact on their participants. Even People of Color and long-time social justice activists have garnered new insights. The dreaded meltdown or explosion almost never happens. In my experience, talking about race in my small mixed race group is actually fun. The discussions are punctuated with laughter.
My book club, a mixed race group of about 10 is a safe place. Talking with one another is a relief. Even admitting to my own hidden racist attitudes is okay. When my group gathers, we feel able to ask one another questions about past experiences and admit to prejudiced attitudes.
Most people genuinely yearn to put race suspicion and White supremacy behind and to build an egalitarian society. Many of your friends and their friends probably feel as you do, yearning for change, wanting to know more, and needing to do something.
My confidence that novice activists can organize a book club to combat racism is based on the assumption that people who voluntarily get together to explore racism and racial justice already are united in the direction they wish for our society to go. People who will say “yes” to your invitation to join a reading group already want to shed lingering suspicion of people who are different, and that they already suspect that they have been taught lies about American history.
The key to leveraging these sentiments is in the way you organize the group.
Below are six crucial steps. These will get you started and enable you to skirt around not only conflict but the problem that wrecks many small groups—creeping change in the agenda.
1. Settle in your mind that you are the leader.
Your decision to read this far in this post and your contemplation of starting a group, are essentially acts of leadership. Decide now that handing off leadership to someone who may have greater expertise than you or who is pushier than you opens wide the door for your group to become something completely different from what you want.
Being the leader does not necessarily mean that you are the expert in racial justice. Neither does it mean that you will dictate everything the group does. What it does mean is that you will gently take responsibility to keep the group on track with its most fundamental goal—to read books and talk about race.
At several points in the process of organizing and conducting a book club there will be voices beckoning you to settle for having a slightly different kind of group. “Isn’t climate change a bigger issue than race?” “We won’t make any progress on race until we have changes in Washington.” “My brother-in-law who works in urban renewal can speak to our group.”
Leadership not only tactfully heading off the subtle changes in agenda but setting up the group where everyone agrees ahead of time about what you’re going to do together.
The best way to guard the agenda from the inevitable subversion that will drift your way is to heed the following points.
2. Talk with one person
There’s one person in your circle of acquaintances who is likely to have the same feelings about race and a reading group that you do. That person may be a best friend. She may have experience in organizing groups or a personal encounter with racism.
Talking with that partner is the transition point when your private dream becomes the project of a little community. When you pick up the phone call your partner or catch him at Church or a social gathering, you’ve become a group.
Share with him or her what you’re wanting and thinking. Invite that person to help lead. Work together to reach agreement about having a reading group that will focus on race. Get some fundamental points worked out. For example agree…
- That you’re going to focus on race
- That you’ll read books on the subject and discuss
- That you’ll meet for a set period, say 5 months, with a book for each month
- That the group will be discussion-oriented, not a class
- That the two of you will be the organizers, but decisions about the content and participants will be done by the group as a whole
3. Gather the group
You and your partner now have the rudiments of an anti-racist book club in hand.
There are several people in your circle of friends, church, neighborhood, who are just like you and who want to be in an anti-racist book club. They just haven’t taken the initiative to do what you’ve done, namely to organize one. These people will be grateful for your effort and will make great members of your group. You just don’t know who all of them are.
As part of your conversation with your co-leader partner, you probably shared the names of people who would be likely members. List these, divvy them up between the two of you, and invite them to join.
“Hey Jill, Jane and I have been talking about having a short term anti-racist book club. We have an idea that you might welcome such a group and we think that you’d be a great addition. Take some time to consider what I’m proposing and get back to me. No pressure. I’d understand if this isn’t the kind of thing that you can be a part of right now. We’re going to read four powerful books on race, which we haven’t chosen yet. For starters, we’ll meet at Jane’s house on her back patio. We thought that you’d be a great member of such a group and wondered if you’d like to join us.”
The key to the invitation is to give the invitee plenty of room to opt-out. A book club dedicated to fighting racism is not a 100th birthday party, where putting in an appearance is socially mandatory. It’s an intimate gathering to discuss a complex and emotional topic. For that to succeed, participants need to have a principled desire to be a part.
Resist the temptation to recruit. You don’t want to gather a group of people who are present but who don’t want to do what you and your partner have planned.
These folks will subvert the process.
The inviting process should be patient and need not produce massive numbers of people. If you and your partner can each recruit, say, two additional people, you’ve got six. You can have a great experience with that many people.
You can also publicize the group and invite strangers. The beauty of this approach is that you will reach people who may have no other opportunity to participate in such a group. Additionally, you’ll avoid projecting an image that your book club is a social clique, hardly appropriate for a group dedicated to inclusion. Publicizing also has the advantage of bringing to the surface people who you never imagined care about antiracism.
I’m guessing that if you’re contemplating organizing a reading group you probably have an idea where announcements might appear—church newsletters, bulletin boards at Starbucks, libraries, colleges, and the like.
Don’t let the group get larger than twelve. It should not surprise you if word about your book club produces a flood of inquiries. Racism-themed book clubs are very popular nowadays. If you have more people than one reading group can accommodate, deputize additional leaders, and launch as many groups as you need. Don’t, in other words, let your group balloon into a 25 member group.
My book club is intentionally interracial. In other words, our leaders have worked to include People of Color. This, of course, is ideal.
The problem is that many White book club organizers may not have Black acquaintances or voluntary participants in order to have, say a racially balanced group. My recommendation is to do the best you can and not lapse into pleading with potential participants because of their race. One of the sharp criticisms of anti-racism book clubs is that Black recruits feel a burden to take care of White racism or be spokespersons for their racial group.
On the other hand, your book club may be shaping up to be an all-white gathering. If this happens you’re confronted with the choice of meeting with who you have or abandoning the effort. My judgment is that you should meet, read and discuss, and think together how future versions of your group can be more inclusive.
4. Contract
You’ve got a group. It’s a group because its members have agreed to be a group that will read and discuss race.
You and your partner are the leaders for the time being. Now get the group together. Do group things in a group way. By that I mean entrust to the collective wisdom of the group all of those necessary organizational decisions that you and your partner have not yet decided upon.
You already know that the group is going to be reading books about race.
But you may not have decided on the exact titles. Get the group to agree on a method of identifying the titles. There plenty of lists around. There are several on my website. The key here is to democratize title selection and let each member name a title.
Or they may name two or three and the top vote-getters will be the reading list.
Make the leadership explicit. Expect that group members will affirm you as the leader.
You’ve already led the group through the crucial formative stage. I suppose that there could be a person in the group who is more willing and competent and has won the trust of the group to be the leader. Who knows maybe your efforts have brought to the surface other group leaders and the possibility of additional reading groups. But for the time being, having the group acknowledge your leadership will give the group the necessary structure to navigate through several months of reading and discussing racism.
Iron out details of meeting place, length of meeting, refreshments, and whatever else seems important at this stage. At this stage, you will have everything in place to launch your new antiracist book club.
5. Nurture the process
There are some chores that you, the leader, can do that will help the group get through its contracted term. Consider phoning each member simply to check-in. “Hi, Ben. We’ve got book club next week. Don’t forget we’re starting fifteen minutes later so Liz can drop off her babysitter and get back. By the way, how’s this month’s book going for you?”
Check and recheck the meeting room arrangements.
If you’re meeting at a local library, phone the circulation desk a day or two before your meeting just to make sure that your room is reserved.
The nurturing process may seem optional. But it can head off problems that can detract from the reading group’s goals. Someone loses his or her reading list, can’t get a book, was indignant about a remark made at last month’s gathering, changed an email address and isn’t receiving notices, and so on.
6. Repeat
At the second to last meeting of your planned term group members are beginning to realize that their experience is coming to an end. They are assessing what they’ve done and what they want to do in the future. The time when a reading group is coming to an end is precisely the time to repeat the contracting process. Find a way to blend into your group’s discussion a conversation about what happens next. Some people will need to leave the group. There may be others in the wings who want to join. Group members may want to invite friends. A new book list will need to be developed. The host may need a break and your group will need to find a new place. Someone may have developed a yearning to form a group around a particular topic that has come up in your group’s discussions but was never covered exhaustively. That person is a logical leader of a new group.
He or she may benefit from these guidelines as they launch a small group focused on a particular issue.
Something wonderful is happening in America. People by the millions are ready to set aside our insistence that White people will always be the dominating group. We’re finally working together in large numbers to welcome People of Color and non-traditional lifestyles into all of the benefits and prosperity of American life.
You can be a part of that movement. And you don’t have to be alone. Others yearn to join hands with you.
The all-powerful first step is to organize.
Pick up the phone. Call your best friend. Have a conversation. Someone has observed that the antiracist book club movement is a combination of recreation and activism. That’s not an indictment. Re-creation is what activism aims towards. You can be a part.
