A Little Bit About Book Club
- anchorsailcoach
- Jul 16
- 3 min read
Early in 2025, I put out a call to see if anyone would be interested in an anti-racist book club. I wanted to be in community with people interested in doing some of the same personal growth work I was doing and had been doing for years, and though my own reading and listening and thinking was helpful, I craved conversation with like-minded people.
I received some responses and got to work getting organized.
Our goals may not always be perfectly aligned, but we do all have a personal commitment to building a more just world.
Our book club is small(ish) and focused on unpacking racism primarily for ourselves through reading and community. The conversations are often deeply vulnerable, something I believe is required for the work to be meaningful. We are all busy, and so though we all work to show up, there are no hard and fast rules around engagement. The space is meant for each member to get what they need at the pace they can handle.
We all consciously create safe space together that allows for mistakes, honest reflection and accountability.
If you're interested in starting your own anti-racist book club, here's some of what I've learned so far.
One Way to Have Vulnerable Conversations
To build this space, our first meeting was spent in community with a friend who talked to us about how we might better have difficult, vulnerable conversations.
During our first meeting, our friend talked to us about how our brains work and how understanding some of the basics around how our brains work can help us regulate ourselves when we're having vulnerable conversations. Essentially: Our brain's main function is to keep us alive, and it's constantly making predictions based on our past and lived experiences.
When we "flip our lids," as this friend put it, we are experiencing a level of threat (real or perceived) that makes us feel unsafe and processing difficult emotions, having vulnerable conversations—in other words, doing some of the work we hoped to do with this book club!—is difficult, if not impossible.
Finding ways to regulate so we can feel safe enough to have vulnerable conversations with one another is important, and that can be as simple as taking a half-minute to breath or check in with ourselves around basic needs like hunger and sleep.
Then, we can name it to tame it, which is where the feelings wheel above becomes helpful. We are so accustomed to identifying only basic emotions like sadness, anger, fear, joy. But to really get to the heart of those feelings, which I personally find helpful when attempting to sink into vulnerability, we need to try and be as precise with our language as possible so we can truly understand not only that we're feeling a particular way but also why we're feeling that way, what the true root of those feelings are for us.
Centering Safe Space: Book Club Community Agreement
Here are some of the very basic things we agree upon:
We understand this space is for learning, vulnerable conversation, and growth that will allow us all to more actively create the world we want to live in, whatever that looks like for you.
We may not all be in the same place or work at the same pace, but we agree to listen without judgment or shame.
Vulnerable conversations can necessarily feel risky or overwhelming. All book club members are encouraged to share when any topic of conversation starts to feel too uncomfortable so we can help regulate and refocus if necessary.
We all understand and appreciate the work will sometimes include discomfort and will do our best to honor the discomfort as a path to personal growth.
We will work to call one another in with compassion.
Have questions? I'd love to hear from you.
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