Antiracist Book Club - Introduction

Date: 
October 7, 2020
Time: 
4-5pm
Place: 
Zoom
Event Type: 
Host Organization : 

About this series

The Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine is pleased to announce the launch of our antiracist book club series.

Every other month, we invite you to join us to discuss a text confronting racism and the experiences of being BIPOC in America. All sessions will occur over zoom and be led by Patricia Sanchez, a graduate student in the Ethnic Studies program at San Francisco State University. Our hope is that these informed discussions on racism will provide us with the opportunity to learn, discuss and become active participants in our efforts to combat racism in our community.

The first session will take place Wednesday, October 7, from 4-5pm.

Selected text

For this first session, we will read three short introductory texts about racism. Links to the text are below.

  1. Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (James Jones)
  2. White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (Peggy McIntosh)
  3. Defining Racism: Can we talk? (Beverly Daniel Tatum)


Guiding questions

As you make your way through the selected text, we encourage you to consider the following:

  1. As a member of the medical community, there is a great deal of ethical responsibility in regards to understanding how experiments should be done. After reading this text, what struck you the most about these experiments, and how would you critique the PHS officials in their interpretation of the experiment?

  2. Privilege is not something we are actively taught about in our education yet something present in our lives at all times. In what ways did McIntosh's piece make you reflect on your own privilege? Did you think about these things beforehand in the manners she had put them?

  3. Tatum talks of racism and the various definitions that can exist. She acknowledges there are many different ways to define it so long as there is an understanding of it as a system and not simply harmful prejudice. After reading Tatum's piece, how would you define racism and the role you play within it? What were some examples in the text where you understood her definition of racism?


Joining the book club

This series is open to all members and staff of the BCMM and ImmunoX communties. Register below to receive the zoom link.

 

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