Make a New Year’s resolution to read at least one book relating to the “Renewing Our Mission” program we will be focusing on this year.

In Waking Up White author Debby Irving shares her sometimes cringe-worthy struggle to understand racism.  She offers a fresh perspective on bias, stereotypes, manners, and tolerance. Wanting to help people of color, she reveals how each of these well-intentioned mindsets perpetuated her ill-conceived ideas about race. She explains why and how she’s changed the way she talks about racism, works in racially mixed groups, and understands the antiracism movement as a whole. Exercises at the end of each chapter prompt readers to explore their own racialized ideas.

This #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER tells about privilege, power, and race. Small Great Things is a new page-turner from Jodi Picoult.  She offers a thought-provoking examination of racism in America today, both overt and subtle. Readers will find much to discuss in the pages of this topical, moving book. The story revolves around Ruth Jefferson, a delivery room nurse who is African American.  She begins checking a newborn but is reassigned because the white supremist parents don’t want her to touch their child.  When Ruth is alone in the nursery the the baby goes into cardic distress. Does she obey orders or intervene?

January 2017 edition