Bookstores Host Community Conversations on Race, Diversity

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As Americans continue a sometimes contentious dialogue on racism, police brutality, and gay marriage in a rapidly changing nation, bookstores like Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, North Carolina, The Regulator Bookshop in Durham, North Carolina, and Left Bank Books in St. Louis, Missouri, have made concerted efforts to engage with their local communities on issues of race and diversity.


This summer, Left Bank Books in St. Louis, Missouri filled one store window with Black Lives Matter posters, bringing both praise and controversy to the store.

This September, Quail Ridge hosted its first “What’s Going On?” discussion session, part of a series of monthly town meetings on diversity that invites community members to engage in a healthy dialogue in a safe, nonjudgmental enviornment. According to store manager Sarah Goddin, the series was inspired, in part, by the national conversation about racial tensions in America, which was sparked by the shooting in August 2014 of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

Quail Ridge’s first community conversation on Sunday, September 13, drew 75 people, a mixed crowd, both racially and age-wise, Goddin said. Although other topics such as LGBT rights were raised during the hour-and-a-half conversation, 95 percent of the discussion focused on race, she said.

The conversation was moderated by North Carolina State University social psychology professor Rupert Nacoste, the author of Taking on Diversity: How We Can Move From Anxiety to Respect (Prometheus Books) who teaches a class at NC State called “Interpersonal Relationships and Race,” and retired NC State philosophy professor Clay Stalnaker, who has moderated town hall meetings at Quail Ridge on a variety of topics for the last 15 years.

“We had had an event for [Nacoste’s Taking on Diversity], but we felt that we really wanted to go further … to talk about issues of what Rupert calls ‘neodiversity.’ Now it is not just race: it is abilities, it is sexuality, it is religion. There are just so many different issues of diversity, so for the first discussion, our idea was to learn from the people who came what they’re interested in talking about,” said Goddin.

Audience members brought up specific diversity-related issues affecting both the Raleigh and local college communities, putting into context socially divisive issues such as the national outrage over the disproportionate killing of unarmed black men by police, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision to make marriage equality the law of the land, and the racially motivated murder of nine black parishioners at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The discussion, which was open-ended and had no set agenda, was emotional, with some so moved by the force of their feelings they were shaking and crying, but, Goddin noted, such intensity can be seen as a positive.

“It was kind of an emotional event, which was good,” she said. “I think people are really hungry for a forum to talk about these issues: a place they feel is comfortable for everybody, where you can say what you think and have [a moderator] there to keep it calm and non-threatening, so you can have honest conversation.”

Quail Ridge’s second “What’s Going On?” session is scheduled for October 11. In addition to ideas gleaned from her five or six pages of notes from the previous session, suggestions for discussion topics will also come from people who left their e-mail addresses on a clipboard passed among attendees.

In the meantime, to tide over those interested in learning more, Quail Ridge has compiled a list of diversity-related titles, covering a range of topics, including ableism, ageism, slut shaming, and fat shaming, which is currently posted on the store’s website.

Quail Ridge is lucky to have two NC State professors volunteer to moderate its sessions, and Goddin suggested that other booksellers who are thinking of hosting an event or starting a conversation series to foster community dialogue on race and diversity begin by looking to their own local universities for resources.

In nearby Durham, The Regulator Bookshop recently hosted a community discussion on Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Spiegel & Grau) which, since it came out on July 14, has become the store’s fastest-selling book of the summer, said store owner Tom Campbell.

Between the World and Me is a book-length letter that Coates wrote to his son about being black in America, which grounds his own experiences in the legacy of slavery and current racial violence. The September 8 discussion hosted by Regulator featured Randall Kenan and Tim Tyson, two University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill professors who have written and taught on racial topics and on the Civil Rights Movement.

By Campbell’s count, about 150 people attended the evening event — a completely full house for the store. The racial breakdown of the crowd was around 75 percent to 80 percent white, a statistic that reflects the store’s customer demographic.

“A young woman of color remarked that at first she was disappointed to see [a lower number of attendees of color],” said Campbell, “but then she realized that there was something positive in that all of these white folks wanted to come out to discuss this book.”

Campbell, who characterized the discussion as “amazingly open,” noted that those who attended were ready and willing to learn from one another.

“I sensed that everyone there felt that there was still a lot of work for all of us to do in regard to this thing called race,” said Campbell. “There was some feeling that the book was too bleak in that it didn’t include any steps for moving forward. But someone said that the book provided a great service by asking us to face the problems of race and quoted Einstein, who once said, ‘The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them,’ and that problems that are not faced cannot be solved.”

In the normal course of business, Regulator frequently hosts events with writers like Sonia Williams, author of Word Warrior (University of Illinois Press), and Damon Tweedy, author Black Man in a White Coat (Picador), whose work explores the subject of race; however, last month’s discussion of Between the World and Me was the first in a new series of authorless “Community Conversations” the store is hosting.

In November, a palliative care doctor and a hospice social worker will use Dr. Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal (Metropolitan Books) as the starting point for a community discussion on death and dying. A third conversation on global warming is scheduled for January.

“My unstated subtitle for the series is ‘Let’s Talk About Things We’d Rather Not Talk About,’” Campbell said. “But I really think there is a desire on the part of lots of folks to talk about difficult things, and the bookstore — like a secular, non-denominational church — is a perfect place to hold these discussions.”

Since last August’s shooting of Michael Brown in Feguson, a suburb of St. Louis, Left Bank Books has been at the forefront in fostering conversations about racism and about the Black Lives Matter movement.

In August 2014, Left Bank co-owners Jarek Steele and Kris Kleindienst marched with protestors, curated a Black Lives Matter reading list, and started a #FergusonReads book club, whose members read books covering topics of racism, police brutality, mass incarceration, the Civil Rights Movement, and what it means to be black in America.

In March, Steele and Kleindienst also began selling Black Lives Matter yard signs as part of a project begun by Metropolitan Congregations United. Left Bank has sold hundreds of the signs for a $5 donation to the organization and asks that purchasers post pictures of their signs on social media.

This August, Left Bank decorated one of its storefront windows to mark the anniversary of Brown’s death and the start of Black Lives Matter. Steele and Kleindienst took all inventory out of one of the store’s most prominent windows and papered it with Black Lives Matter signs.

Since then, Left Bank has gotten a lot of feedback from customers on the display, and an overwhelming majority was supportive, but not all.

“We did get a few pretty angry responses,” said Steele. “I actually have a pile of mail on my desk from people who have sent letters. There has been lot of e-mail and phone calls and some actual visits from people who were pretty angry about it.”

One message came from a customer who stated he would not be returning to the store because of its support for the movement. The message prompted Steele to write a lengthy, heartfelt response explaining the store’s choices; “A Matter of Words — Losing a Customer and Opening a Conversation” was posted on the store’s blog and was picked up by social media and widely circulated on the web.

Steele said that making such bold statements is consistent with the store’s history of activism since its founding in 1969 by a group of politically active Washington University students.

“Our store has always been rooted in a progressive political base, and we will serve anyone, we will talk to anyone, we will welcome everyone with open arms and hearts into our store,” Steele said. “Part of that is having to trust that the better angels of our nature will prevail, and that people who might disagree won’t be violent about it. But if they are, that’s a chance we have to take.”

Left Bank continues to host numerous author events each year, many on books with themes of social justice, and will carry on with its activism through book groups, readings, and offering its space for community events, according to Steele.

On October 21, the store will host local poets Dorothy Payne and Michael Castro, the poet laureate of St. Louis, who will read in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. In a free program that includes live musical performances and refreshments, each poet will answer questions, sign books, and “poetically address the pressing issue of racism, celebrate the contribution of African-Americans to the cultures of the Americas, and express their emphatic solidarity with the struggle for black equality.”

For other booksellers looking to actively engage their community in a dialogue on race, Steele stressed that it is important that the effort come from a place of honesty and conviction.

“My advice would be to look within and come from a really honest and humble place. You shouldn’t do it for publicity; you should do it for good reasons. Take some time to really think about it and get your heart right with it because it’s a hard thing to do; people will come in and challenge you from both sides.”

But, Steele added, the risk is worth it; it’s what comes with being a leader.

“Sometimes you feel like you’re twisting in the wind out here,” he said, “and that’s really sort of what leadership feels like — when there is no one else around you to make you feel safe, when you’re leading out in front. Sometimes you’ll get your butt kicked, and we have a little bit, but it’s worth it, I think.”