A Talk with Racial Justice Educator and Author Debby Irving

Description

Author of the book Waking Up White, Debby Irving, will visit Berwick Academy on Monday, April 4 at 7 p.m. In the talk, titled "I'm a good person, isn't that enough?", Debby will share stories and lessons from her own life to explore how those experiences shaped and changed her belief system on race. Copies of Debby's book will be for sale at the event and she will conclude with a book signing. The event is free and open to the public and will be held in the Patricia Baldwin Whipple Art Center Theater at Berwick Academy.

RSVP to 207-384-2164 or online at http://bit.ly/1LOE3it. Waking Up White is the book Debby Irving wishes someone had handed her decades ago. By sharing her sometimes cringe-worthy struggle to understand racism and racial tensions, she offers a fresh perspective on bias, stereotypes, manners, and tolerance. As she unpacks her own long-held beliefs about colorblindness, being a good person, and wanting to help people of color, she reveals how each of these well-intentioned mindsets actually perpetuated her ill-conceived ideas about race. She also explains why and how she's changed the way she talks about racism, works in racially mixed groups, and understands the racial justice. "When I finally came to understand the way racism worked," Irving explains, "I spent a lot of time thinking about what might have enlightened me earlier. I decided it wouldn't have been an academic book, an essay, or a book from the perspective of a person of color -- it would have been another white person describing their own awakening, with some humor, poignancy and drama in the mix. What I needed was a memoir so irresistible that I would have read it even if racism weren't on my mind."

Founded in 1791, Berwick Academy is an independent, coeducational day school located in South Berwick, Maine. For over 200 years, the Academy has pursued its mission of promoting "Virtue and Useful Knowledge" through a purposeful blend of strong academics, arts, and athletics. Berwick serves nearly 600 students in grades PK-12 from the seacoast area of southern Maine, New Hampshire, and northeastern Massachusetts.