"Even as anti-racism practices seemed to be gaining momentum, the nation shows signs of falling back into long-standing patterns of racial injustice and inequality. Leaders who introduce anti-racist approaches to their organizations often face backlash from white colleagues and skepticism from colleagues of color, leading to paralysis. In What Might Be, Susan Sturm explores how to navigate the contradictions built into our racialized history, relationships, and institutions. She offers strategies and stories for confronting racism within predominantly white institutions, describing how change agents can move beyond talk to build the architecture of full participation. Sturm argues that although we cannot avoid the contradictions built into efforts to confront racism, we can make them into engines of cross-racial reflection, bridge building, and institutional reimagination, rather than falling into a Groundhog Day-like trap of repeated failures. Drawing on her decades of experience researching and working with institutions to help them become more equitable and inclusive, Sturm identifies three persistent paradoxes inherent in anti-racism work. These are the paradox of racialized power, whereby anti-racism requires white people to lean into and yet step back from exercising power; the paradox of racial salience, which means that effective efforts must explicitly name and address race while also framing their goals in universal terms other than race; and the paradox of racialized institutions, which must drive anti-racism work while simultaneously being the target of it. Sturm shows how people and institutions can cultivate the capacity to straddle these contradictions, enabling those in different racial positions to discover their linked fate and become the catalysts for long-term change" --

"This work identifies our two-party, comparatively non-representative form of democracy as the main culprit of why American politics are so dysfunctional-and shows us how to fix it"--

"In the U.S., the second-wave feminist fight to achieve legal and societal recognition of men's violence against women leaned heavily on the victim-offender binary, which has since become inscribed in funding schemes, legal remedies, and intervention approaches. In Broken, scholar-practitioner Lisa Young Larance interviews women who participated in antiviolence intervention and draws on her own extensive practice in the field to explain how this binary erases the trauma histories of those who both survive and cause harm. Calling for a more holistic conception of interpersonal violence that makes room for human complexity, Broken illuminates the connections across race, class, and sexual orientation that facilitate women's healing and repair"--

"The 2020 global pandemic further underscored the need for justice and visibility for Black women. Despite occurring over two months earlier, the tragedy surrounding the killing of unarmed, Breonna Taylor at the hands of police seemingly went unnoticed until the murder of George Floyd. This volume encompasses diverse disciplines to examine the marginalization and erasure of Black women. It recognizes their experiences, highlights their remarkable contributions, analyzes the treatment of women of African descent worldwide, and instills hope in the face of systemic racial oppression. Scholars analyze themes such as socio-political ignorance and the intersectionality of race and gender discrimination. The collection of essays empowers, inspires and informs readers, as it pays homage to the life of Breonna Taylor and forms a part of the continuum of works that celebrate, illuminate, and educate about the importance of Black and African American women"--

"This book tells the real story of abortion in America, one that captures a disturbing reality of sometimes insurmountable barriers put in front of women trying to exercise their legal rights to medical services. Without the efforts of an unheralded army of doctors, nurses, social workers, activists, and volunteers, what is a legal right would be meaningless for the almost one million people per year who get abortions. There is a better way-treating abortion like any other form of health care-but the United States is a long way from that ideal"--

Antiracism workshops and diversity policies have long been the response to racial tensions and incidents in corporations, schools, and nonprofit organizations. There is little evidence, however, that they create employment equity, reduce racial prejudice, or increase cross-cultural sensitivity. Sociologist Sarita Srivastava argues they often create more division and acrimony than progress. "Are You Calling Me a Racist?" reveals why these efforts have failed to effectively challenge racism and offers a new way forward. Drawing from her own experience as an educator and activist, as well as extensive interviews and analyses of contemporary events, Srivastava shows that racial encounters among well-meaning people are ironically hindered by the emotional investment they have in being seen as good people. Diversity workshops devote energy to defending, recuperating, educating, and inwardly reflecting, with limited results, and these exercises often make things worse. These "feel-good politics of race," Srivastava explains, train our focus on the therapeutic and educational, rather than on concrete practices that could move us toward true racial equity. In this type of approach to diversity training, people are more concerned about being called a racist than they are about changing racist behavior. "Are You Calling Me a Racist?" is a much-needed challenge to the status quo of diversity training, and will serve as a valuable resource for anyone dedicated to dismantling racism in their communities, educational institutions, public or private organizations, and social movements