By Sarah Todd
Senior reporter, Quartz and Quartz at Work
Anti-racist reading lists are a hot commodity in the wake of protests over police brutality and widespread injustice against Black Americans. But they’re far from a cure-all. As Lauren Michele Jackson argued in Vulture, treating literature by Black authors as a primer on racism and allyship may serve to flatten the richness and artistry of those books.
Part of the issue is that reading can be an insular experience. People looking to deepen their understanding of race and inequality may benefit more from participating in a dialogue that features many different perspectives—ideally, with someone knowledgeable about the material at hand guiding the discussion. That’s why Ann Kowal Smith, founder and executive director of Books@Work, suggests discussing literature as a means of broaching conversations about race in the workplace. Research also suggests that reading literature may help increase empathy and understanding of others’ experiences, potentially spurring better real-world behavior.
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Read the full article at Quartz.
