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
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
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