Courageous Discomfort: How to Have Important, Brave, Life-Changing Conversations about Race and Racism

An empowering handbook on how to have candid conversations around race and become a better advocate, written by a Black woman and a white woman who ask and answer 20 common, uncomfortable-but-critical questions about racism.

Many people struggle to have honest conversations about race, even those who consider themselves allies or identify as anti-racist. For anyone who wants to have better, more productive discussions, Courageous Discomfort is an empowering handbook that teaches you how to do just that.

In these pages, authors (and best friends), Shanterra McBride, who is Black, and Rosalind Wiseman, who is white, discuss their own friendship and tap into their decades of anti-racism work to answer the 20 uncomfortable-but-critical questions about race they get asked most often, including:

Should I see colour? I’m a good person - how can I be racist? What if I say something wrong? What kind of apology makes a difference?

These 20 questions-as-chapters invite you into the conversation without judgment and inspire thoughtful reflection and discussion. There will be moments when you will laugh or cringe at the ridiculous or awkward things you read. But the truth is, there is no perfect solution or script for every maybe-racist, sort-of-racist, or blatantly racist situation. And that’s OK: making mistakes is just an opportunity to do better next time. But doing this work will empower us to have the relationships we really want to have, including the relationship we want to have with ourselves.