A useful primer with powerful case studies on bias in the workplace.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion expert Douglas presents proven strategies for fostering more diverse and empathetic workplaces in this guide.
Though DEI training abounds throughout corporate, municipal, and academic workplaces across the country, the author notes that “in many cases, the Aggrieved Individuals do not benefit directly from these programs,” as at least one third of the nation’s Black employees “don’t feel respected or valued at work.” Motivated into action by the murder of George Floyd in 2020, which prompted the author to reflect on his own experiences with systemic racism, microaggressions, and DEI programs, Douglas co-founded the Safe Haven Dialogues consulting firm. Centering the voices of aggrieved workers, SHD prioritizes empowering employees to safely communicate with their employers “in order to find a solution that would increase the productivity of both the Aggrieved as well as the department in which they work.” In this short book, Douglas offers readers 18 anonymous case studies of people who have experienced varied forms of discrimination in American workplaces and campuses. Though the work environments and specificities of each case are unique, they point to endemic problems, from incompetent or abusive bosses to overqualified employees who are “proven, but never promoted.” With a doctorate in physical chemistry and a medical doctorate from Cornell University, and with a CV including positions at some of the nation’s most prestigious universities, Douglas, a Black man, is well aware of how microaggressions and institutionalized biases can influence even the most ostensibly progressive institutions. His background in research also informs the well-documented, thoughtful interview process at the core of the book’s case studies. Accompanied by a useful glossary and ample visual elements, this is an accessible book that can be easily understood by management, human resources personnel, and employees of all backgrounds. Curiously, issues related to microaggressions directed toward LGBTQ+ employees, from misgendering to ignored pronouns, are absent. More contextualization and data would also be useful in the brief introductory chapter to more fully illustrate the systemic nature of workplace discrimination.
A useful primer with powerful case studies on bias in the workplace.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2023
ISBN: 9781662938344
Page Count: 174
Publisher: Frank Douglas Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
