A Racial Equity Book Club for CAS Members and Friends - Join Us
This is a time when many of us are reflecting on our history of racial inequity and its impact on us and our society - as are we here at CAS. We’re offering our members and friends a way to make a connection - in a book club focused on racial equity and conservation.
Our third book is by Dr. Carolyn Finney - Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors. Dr. Finney is a storyteller, author and a cultural geographer who is deeply interested in issues related to identity, difference, creativity, and resilience.The aim of her work is to develop greater cultural competency within environmental organizations and institutions, challenge media outlets on their representation of difference, and increase awareness of how privilege shapes who gets to speak to environmental issues and determine policy and action. She is grounded in both artistic and intellectual ways of knowing.
In the case of race and the environment, it’s not just who we imagine has something valuable to say. These assumptions, beliefs, and perceptions can be found in the very foundation of our environmental thinking, how we define the “environment” and how we think of ourselves in relationship with the environment. Who do we see, what do we see?"
— from the Preface
"Using collective memory, race, and environment, Finney looks at the effect of slavery and Jim Crow segregation and their key roles in shaping African American connections to place--the 'great outdoors' or the 'environment' more generally. She looks at representation of African Americans in the great outdoors as being a key site of contestation, of struggle. She also looks at the difficulties inherent in discussions of race and diversity within environmentalism, and with environmentalists. Finney shines a different light, and brings a different voice to bear."
— Julian Agyeman, Tufts University from Dr Finney’s website.
Our first and only meeting about this book will be on Wednesday April 28 from 6-7 pm. (Postponed from April 21.)
We encourage you to purchase the book from a Black-owned bookstore:
Semi-colon - 515 N Halsted St, Chicago
AALBC - a guide to Black-owned book stores in IL
