Group 1

Facilitator:  Afra Hersi
Meeting Dates: Monday 9/29, 10/13, 10/20, 10/27, 11/3 from 12-1 p.m. in Jenkins Hall 115.  Monday 10/6 from 12-1 p.m. in Jenkins 220.

No Shame In My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City

Author:  Katherine S. Newman 
Book List Price: $16.00*
ISBN:  0-375-70379-9

Cultural anthropologist, Katherine S. Newman, is a professor of urban studies at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Here she studies the working poor in Harlem, providing readers with insights into the plight of blue-collar workers who persevere at jobs nobody wants. Tragically, they never seem to get ahead, yet their own value structure tells them to continue because they are doing the right thing. Newman takes us on an unforgettable journey inside the lives of many of the people she and her student researchers came to know during her two-year study. Pertinent demographic data and analysis are interspersed with these poignant glimpses. (From Library Journal)

Group 2

Facilitator:  Candra Healy
Meeting Dates: Friday 10/3, 10/10, 11/7 and Thursday 10/16 from 12-1 p.m. in Jenkins 115.  Friday 10/24 and 10/31 from 12-1 p.m. in Sellinger 101A.

The Syringa Tree

Author:  Pamela Gien
Book List Price: $13.95* 
ISBN:  978-0-375-75910-9

In the tradition of such great southern African writers as Nadine Gordimer and Doris Lessing, this gripping first novel tells the apartheid story through the eyes of a white child who loses her innocence as she confronts the anguish of a black family torn apart by law, separated from each other and from her. Gien was born and raised in Johannesburg, and her acclaimed autobiographical Broadway play with the same title won the 2001 Obie Award. Now her spare, beautiful prose fills in the history and politics at the height of apartheid. But the focus is on the child Elizabeth and her liberal home. Her part-Jewish dad is a surgeon at the black Baragwanath Hospital. Her parents allow her beloved nanny, Salamena, to give birth to a baby girl, Moliseng, born illegally in the white suburb and hidden for years from brutal police raids that would banish the child. When finally Moliseng must leave for the seething Soweto black township, Elizabeth is bereft at the loss of her sister-friend. And what of Moliseng and her broken mother? The small, daily details reveal the savage cruelty of displacement and of servants in the backyard, even with a kind, white "madam." Beyond message, the story builds to the unforgettable climax of the 1976 Soweto uprising, led by children, who are massacred. (From Booklist)

Group 3

Facilitator:  Michael Puma
Meeting Dates: Thursday 10/2 from 12:15- 1:15 p.m. in Jenkins 115. Thursdays 10/9, 10/16, 10/23, 10/30, 11/6 from 12:15-1:15 p.m. in College Center 107.

Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights:

Author:  Kenji Yoshino
Book List Price: $15.95*
ISBN: 978-0-375-76021-1

Yoshino's memoir-cum-treatise combines a provocative examination of the current state of civil rights with an account of his experiences as a gay Japanese-American. Arguing that discrimination now targets "the subset of the group that fails to assimilate to mainstream norms," Yoshino describes a phenomenon that he calls "covering": the pressure exerted on racial minorities to "act white," the social acceptance offered to gays as long as they don't "flaunt" their identities, the ways women in the workplace are expected to camouflage their lives as mothers. Exploring the history of civil-rights litigation in the United States, Yoshino concludes that courts have too often focused on individuals' capacity to assimilate, rather than on the legitimacy of the demand that they do so. (From The New Yorker)

Group 4

Facilitator:  Peggy O'Neill and George "Skip" Casey
Meeting Dates: Wednesday 10/1, 10/8, 10/15, 10/29, 11/5 from 12-1 p.m. in Jenkins Hall 115. Wednesday 10/22 from 12-1 p.m. in Sellinger 101A.

Understanding White Privilege: Creating Pathways to Authentic Relationships across Race

Author:  France E. Kendall
Book List Price: $26.95*
ISBN:  0-415-95180-1

Racial privilege is hard to see for those who were born with access to power and resources. Yet it is very visible for those to whom it was not granted. Understanding White Privilege is written for individuals and those in organizations who grapple with race every day, as well as for those who believe they don't need to. It is written for those who have tried to build authentic professional relationships across races but have felt unable to do so. It is written for those who believe strongly in the struggle for racial justice and need additional information to share with their friends and colleagues. Inviting readers to think personally about how race--theirs and others'--frames experiences, relationships, and the way we each see the world, Understanding White Privilege focuses squarely on white privilege and its implications by offering specific suggestions for what we each can do to bridge the racial chasm.

Group 5

Facilitator: Doris Trainor
Meeting Dates: Monday 9/29, 10/6, 10/13, 10/20, 10/27, 11/3 from 12-1 p.m. in College Center 114.

Race Manners for the 21st Century: Navigating the Minefield between Black and White Americans in an Age of Fear

Author: Bruce A. Jacobs
Book List Price: $14.95*
ISBN: 978-1-55970-804-3

Defining manners as "consideration reached through interchange," Jacobs provides an accessible and inspiring response to the contemporary American climate of grievances and attempts at public dialogue about race. Sorting his discussion into such practical venues of public and social life as maneuvering through the streets, analyzing the dating patterns of strangers, telling ethnic jokes, and shopping at the local supermarket, the author consistently reminds both black and white readers that stereotyping is harmful to the stereotyper as well as to the stereotyped; that history informs attitudes; and that cultural change comes through interpersonal exchange, argument and consideration, not through ignorance, fear of speaking up, or failure to listen. Students, teachers, and others who care about where we are heading-and where we have been-as a culture and as a political state-need to read this book. And, having read it, they will want to talk about it; expand upon it; and consider the ideas, fears, and hopes for further interchange that it elicits. (From School Library Journal)

Group 6

Facilitator: Lovell Smith and Martha Wharton
Meeting Dates: Monday 9/29, 10/6, 10/13, 10/20, 10/27, 11/3 from 11-12 p.m. in College Center 114.

Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing

Author: Joy Degruy Leary
Book List Price: $24.95*
ISBN: 978-0-9634011-2-0

While African Americans managed to emerge from chattel slavery and the oppressive decades that followed with great strength and resiliency, they did not emerge unscathed. Slavery produced centuries of physical, psychological and spiritual injury. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing lays the groundwork for understanding how the past has influenced the present, and opens up the discussion of how we can use the strengths we have gained to heal.

Group 7

Facilitator: Wendy Smith
Meeting Dates: Monday 9/29, 10/13, 10/27, 11/3 from 12:15-1:15 p.m. in Jenkins Hall 115.  Monday 10/6 from 12-1 p.m. in Xavier 102. Monday 10/20 from 12-1 p.m. in Jenkins 115.

The group will read two Newberry Award winning books for middle school students, both dealing with racial issues in 20th century America. Through reading and discussing these books, participants will begin to understand how the racial paradox is being presented to our children. What are the messages being sent by these and other books like them? While the books are originally intended for school age students, they are high quality literature and guaranteed to make you laugh and cry, sometimes on the same page.

Maniac Magee

Author: Jerry Spinelli
Book List Price: $6.99*
ISBN: 978-0316809061

Maniac Magee is a folk story about a boy, a very excitable boy. One that can outrun dogs, hit a home run off the best pitcher in the neighborhood, and tie a knot no one can undo. "Kid's gotta be a maniac," is what the folks in Two Mills say. It's also the story of how this boy, Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee, confronts racism in a small town, tries to find a home where there is none and attempts to soothe tensions between rival factions on the tough side of town. Presented as a folk tale, it's the stuff of storytelling. "The history of a kid," says Jerry Spinelli, "is one part fact, two parts legend, and three parts snowball." And for this kid, four parts of fun. (From Amazon.com)

The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963

Author: Christopher Paul Curtis
Book List Price: $6.99*
ISBN: 978-0440228004

The year is 1963, and self-important Byron Watson finally pushes his family too far. Before this "official juvenile delinquent" can cut school or steal change one more time, Momma and Dad finally make good on their threat to send him to the deep south to spend the summer with his tiny, strict grandmother. Soon the whole family is packed up, ready to make the drive from Flint, Michigan, straight into one of the most chilling moments in America's history: the burning of the Sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church with four little girls inside. Christopher Paul blends the fictional account of an African American family with the factual events of the violent summer of 1963. Fourth grader Kenny is an innocent and sincere narrator; his ingenuousness lends authenticity to the story and invites readers of all ages into his world, even as it changes before his eyes. (From Amazon.com)