Debby Irving, author of GCS Book Club Selection, "Waking Up White," visits GCS

The GCS Book Club read "Waking Up White" in the spring last year, and in partnership with the PA, we have invited Debby Irving to speak at GCS.  Recent events have prompted many people to ask tough questions about race in the United States. 
Debby's book delves deeply into one white woman's attempt to understand how she fit into the narrative. She describes it this way, "I’m a white woman, raised in Winchester, Massachusetts during the socially turbulent 1960s and ‘70s. After a blissfully sheltered, upper-middle-class suburban childhood, I found myself simultaneously intrigued and horrified by the racial divide I observed in Boston. From 1984 to 2009 my work in urban neighborhoods and schools left me feeling helpless. Why did people live so differently along racial lines? Why were student outcomes so divergent? Why did I get so jumpy when talking to a person of color? Where did the fear of saying something stupid or offensive come from, and why couldn’t I make it go away? The more I tried to understand racial dynamics, the more confused..."
As Debby Irving states, "I wrote Waking Up White with a mission to change the way Americans are able to talk and think about race in cross-racial settings. With that in mind, I design my events to engage your community in a way that hopefully long outlasts my visit."

"Deborah Irving bravely describes her jolting and continuing journey from white oblivion to white awareness in an honest way that may inspire others to do such transformational work on themselves. She has courage in tracing many cultural and class assumptions that kept her for decades in a fog of racial denial and white dominance. This empathetic book can help white readers to dissipate the imprisoning white ignorance that we did not ask for but that has damaged our world and ourselves." – Peggy McIntosh, Ph.D., Associate Director, Wellesley Centers for Women; Founder and Senior Associate, National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity)

"Debby Irving’s powerful Waking Up White opens a rare window on how white Americans are socialized. Irving's focus on the mechanics of racism operating in just one life — her own — may lead white readers to reconsider the roots of their own perspectives — and their role in dismantling old myths. Readers of color will no doubt find the view through Irving's window fascinating, and telling." – Van Jones, author, Rebuild The Dream, The Green Collar Economy:How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems; President, Rebuild The Dream; Co-host, CNN Crossfire

"Waking Up White is engaging, challenging, and action-oriented! It's a must read for anyone exploring issues of racism, power, privilege, and leadership." – Eddie Moore, Jr., PhD, Founder, White Privilege Conference
 
 
- See more at: http://debbyirving.com
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Grace Church School is a co-educational independent school in downtown Manhattan, New York City providing instruction for nearly 800 students in Junior Kindergarten through Grade 12.