Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools and Beyond

Acknowledgments
About the Author
Introduction
Chapter 1. Breaking the Silence: Ushering in Courageous Conversation About Race
Racial Achievement Disparities and Other Systemic Racial Inequities
Three Critical Factors
The Courageous Conversation Strategy and Protocol
PART 1. PASSION: AN ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTIC OF RACIAL EQUITY LEADERSHIP
Chapter 2. What’s So Courageous About This Conversation?
Courageous Conversation
A Difficult Conversation
Chapter 3. Why Race?
The Problem of the Color Line
Racial Disparity
Race as a Factor in Education and Beyond
Dealing With Race
Establishing Common Language Around Race
Do We Have the Will?
Chapter 4. Agreeing to Talk About Race
Racial Consciousness
Four Agreements of Courageous Conversation
PART 2. PRACTICE: THE FOUNDATION OF RACIAL EQUITY LEADERSHIP
Chapter 5. The First Condition: Getting Personal, Right Here and Right Now
Personal, Local, and Immediate
The Impact of Race on My Life
Degree of Racial Consciousness
Racial Consciousness Versus Racial Unconsciousness
Chapter 6. The Second Condition: Keeping the Spotlight on Race
Isolating Race
Unpacking Race
Chapter 7. The Third Condition: Engaging Multiple Racial Perspectives
Social Construction of Knowledge
Surfacing Critical Perspectives
Chapter 8. The Fourth Condition: Keeping Us All at the Table
Interracial Dialogue
Creating Safety
The Courageous Conversation Compass
Chapter 9. The Fifth Condition: What Do You Mean By “Race”?
A Brief History of Race
A Working Definition of Race
Chapter 10. The Sixth Condition: Let’s Talk About Whiteness
White Is a Color
White Privilege
White Is a Culture
White Consciousness
Whiteness as Examined in the Five Conditions
White Racial Identity Development
PART 3. PERSISTENCE: THE KEY TO RACIAL EQUITY LEADERSHIP
Chapter 11. How Racial Equity Leaders Eliminate Systemic Racial Disparities
Invisibility Versus Hypervisibility
Understanding Students of Color and Indigenous Students Within a White School
Understanding Systemic White Racism
The Injustice of Gradualism and Incremental Change
Chapter 12. Exploring a Systemic Framework for Achieving Equity in Schools
A Vision of Equity
Systemic Racial Equity Transformation
Chapter 13. Courageous Conversation as a Strategy for Achieving Equity in Schools
Personal Racial Equity Leadership
Individual Teacher Racial Equity Leadership
Whole-School Racial Equity Leadership
Systemic Racial Equity Leadership
References and Selected Bibliography
Index

Glenn Singleton has devoted over thirty years to constructing racial equity worldwide and developing leaders to do the same. Author, thought leader, and strategist, he is the creator of Courageous Conversation a protocol and framework for sustained, deepened dialogue, and Beyond Diversity, the curriculum that has taught hundreds of thousands of people how to use it. Glenn is the Founder and President of Courageous Conversation TM, an agency that guides leadership development in education, government, corporation, law enforcement, and community organizing. He is the award-winning author of Courageous Conversations About Race; A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools, Second Edition; and of MORE Courageous Conversations About Race.

Glenn has consulted executives at Wieden + Kennedy (W+K) Advertising, Google, Amazon, Procter & Gamble, the New York Department of Education, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, the Stavros Niarchos, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and the Bill & Melinda Gates foundations. Along with W+K, he received the 2017 Most Valuable Partnership (MVP) Award by AdColor. He is the recipient of the George A. Coleman Excellence in Equity Award by the Connecticut State Education Resource Center. Cited in the June 2018 edition of the Hollywood Reporter for his work with 21st Century Fox Animation, most recently, Glenn was awarded the AdWeek/AdColor 2020 Champion Award, and the 2020 National Speech and Debate Association Communicator of the Year Award. In 1995, Glenn founded the Foundation for A College Education and continues to serve on its Board of Advisors. He is also the founder and Board Chair of the Courageous Conversation Global Foundation, which develops partnerships to promote racial justice, interracial understanding and human healing worldwide.

Glenn has trained law enforcement leaders with the U.S. Embassy in Western Australia, and established the Courageous Conversation South Pacific Institute in Auckland, New Zealand. For eight years, he served as an adjunct professor of educational leadership at San Jose State University. Glenn has been a guest lecturer at Harvard University and has instructed faculty, students and administrators at the University of Minnesota, New York University School of Medicine, and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University, Glenn Singleton is a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. and 100 Black Men. He currently resides in Washington, D.C.

Deepen the dialogue to address racial disparities in your organization
Schools, like all organizations, face a nearly insurmountable hurdle when addressing racial inequities—the inability to talk candidly about race. In this timely update, author Glenn Singleton enables you to break the silence and open an authentic dialogue that forges a path to progress for racial equity. The third edition offers new coverage of the structural inequities in schools and society that have been exposed by the pandemic as well as heightened public awareness of racial injustice.
Courageous Conversations about Race allows you to deepen your personal understanding of race and its impact on all students. You will discover how to apply the strategy and protocol to

• Embrace the four agreements—stay engaged, speak your truth, experience discomfort and accept non-closure—to deepen interracial dialogue
  
• Build a foundation for advancing equity using the Six Conditions of Courageous Conversation
  
• Examine the role of race in your life using the Courageous Conversation Compass to understand and guide your actions
  
  
• Expand your capacity to lead others on the journey in addressing institutional racism disparities

This guide empowers you with practical tools and insights to successfully challenge racist policies and practice in schools and beyond. It is your call to leadership—one that will impact student achievement and drive systemic transformation.