The Petoskey District Library is making itself part of the conversation about racial injustice by hosting a book conversation from 7-8p.m. Aug. 27 outside the library.
Community members were invited to read the book, White fragility: Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism by Robin Diangelo, that five panel members will discuss Thursday night.
Prior to this culminating conversation, three informal meetings were held for readers to talk about the book.
Director Val Meyerson said the idea arose following the murder of George Floyd, when three involved community members approached her with the idea of bringing awareness to the topic in their predominantly white community.
“They started a partnership with McLean and Eakin Bookstore called ‘Diversify the Library’ where we put a wish list up at the bookstore and ask community members to help purchase these books for us and that was really successful,” she said. “We added 90 books about people of color or by people of color to our collection.”
Director Val Meyerson says she says she thinks the book and the conversation will help people who are skeptical to address racism .
“The committee and I selected that title mostly because we felt like Petoskey is very white in its demographics and thought that it would speak to a lot of people,” she said. “We all read it and felt like it had a lot to say and it created a lot of thought within us individually.”
Meyerson said she received some negative feedback, but overall it was mostly positive remarks from the community. She said the conversation is to raise awareness, not accusations.
“It’s really about doing some thinking and learning about who we are as an entire nation and how our history has gotten us to this place and how that marginalizes a lot of our members of our community.”
