Racial Equity
LWC is committed to listen, learn, and educate about equity. By coming together, we ensure the future does not repeat the past, because black lives matter.
Although increasing class and board diversity is a strategic initiative for LWC, continued reminders of systemic racism shine a light on the need to pause, reflect, and devote additional efforts to improve racial equity within the LWC class, board, and programming.
LWC’s graduate programming has expanded to include events and conversations to discuss the history of racism, systemic racism today, and how we can cultivate anti-racists mindsets and action within our community. LWC strives to lead by example, offer opportunities to learn, provide a safe place for dialogue, and empower people to think and act with equity in mind.
Please join our conversations and explore the resources below.
No one becomes 'not racist,' despite a tendency by Americans to identify themselves that way. We can only strive to be 'antiracist' on a daily basis, to continually rededicate ourselves to the lifelong task of overcoming our country's racist heritage."
- Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
Events & Resources
The Come Together conversations began in June 2020 with the vision to hold open dialogue within the LWC community about culturally relevant topics that are impactful to our leaders.
As our first step towards action, we engaged in conversations to emphasize LWC's stance of solidarity with the Black community and belief that black lives matter. The conversations have evolved into book and movie discussions about race, systemic racism, and how to address these topics in the workplace and our community. To date, we’ve held book discussion around Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be Antiracist, Heather McGhee’s The Sum of Us: How Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, and we are currently reading and discussing Robin DiAngelo’s newest book, Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm. The movies we watched and discussed during the summer of 2021 are noted below in the resources section. In the Fall of 2022, we will resume our book discussion group by engaging with the long-form journalism endeavor, The 1619 Project, by Nikole Hannah-Jones and writers from the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine.
This project was a collaboration between The Greater Hagerstown Committee, LWC and the Washington County Chamber of Commerce. We focused on cultural issues and how we can make an impact that will have a positive effect on the bottom line of our businesses and our community. Our overall goal was to end each session with a call to action, and our hope was to help facilitate discussions that led to collaboration as a community.
Resources
Washington County Free Library has created a community resources for Black History Month (1/2021)
If We Are Serious About Racial Equality, We Need to Start in Our Own Neighborhoods by Glenn Kelman (9/2020)
"These best friends created a wildly popular Google doc about how to be an ally to the black community."
- Washington Post Article (6/2020)This resource was compiled by Autumn Gupta with Bryanna Wallace’s oversight for the purpose of providing a starting place for individuals trying to become better allies. Choose how much time you have each day to become more informed as step one to becoming an active ally to the black community. (6/2020)
GHC Panel Discussion on racial injustice & policing (6/2020)
Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Social Justice
The Dominant Culture by Seth Godin (6/2020)
Dr. Robin DiAngelo publications, including: Is Everybody Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Critical Social Justice Education, What Does it Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, and Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm
Movie Discussions (Summer 2021): 13th, Just Mercy, and Harriett
Books LWC has discussed: How to be Antiracist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee, and Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm by Robin DiAngelo
Notable books on systemic racism, racial justice, and anti-racism:
The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Building the Prison State: Race and the Politics of Mass Incarceration by Heather Schoenfeld
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race by Jesmyn Ward
How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi
Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color by Andrea J. Ritchie
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations about Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America by Khalil Gibran Muhammad
Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment by Patricia Hill Collins
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks