An Evening with Debby Irving, author of “Waking Up White”

Join us for a community conversation on racial inequality and white privilege with author Debbie Irving. Debby Irving brings to racial justice the perspective of working as a community organizer and classroom teacher for 25 years without understanding racism as a systemic issue or her own whiteness as an obstacle to grappling with it. Debby Irving shares her insight into to the everyday perpetuation of racial inequality by well-intentioned white people. As general manager of Boston’s Dance Umbrella and First Night, and later as a classroom teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she struggled to make sense of tensions she could feel but not explain in racially mixed settings. In 2009, a graduate school course, Racial and Cultural Identities, gave her the answers she’d been looking for and launched her on a journey of discovery. Debby now devotes herself to working with white people exploring the impact white skin can have on perception, problem solving, and engaging in racial justice work. Her first book, Waking Up White, tells the story of how she went from well-meaning to well-doing.  

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