Printable Book Club Questions for I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

Let’s first talk about our initial thoughts as we read this memoir. What surprised you? Did it cause for inner reflection about your own behavior and those around you?
The memoir was published in 2018 and much has changed in the world since then but the book is still very relevant. Let’s talk about this.
The first chapter is called White People are Exhausting. Here Austin highlights the origin of her namesake and how white people expect her to act white in many ways. Austin writes: “white people who expect me to be white have no yet realized that their cultural way of being is not in fact the result of goodness, rightness or God’s blessing. Pushing back, resisting the lie, is hella work.” Let’s discuss what she’s saying here.
Why is so hard for so many white people to talk about race? Why is there this push to pretend that everything is ok when reality there’s still so much racial injustice suffered by the black community every day?
Do you think things will finally change as a result of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020?
In college, Austin took a trip with other students that was a three-day journey down the South exploring Black history. It was an extremely hard trip. On the ride back, the black students talked about their anguish while the white students tried to distance themselves from it. But one white student said: “Doing nothing is no longer an option for me.” Let’s talk about this and how we can apply it to our own lives.
When talking about working in a culture of professional whiteness, Austin writes: “Whiteness wants enough Blackness to affirm the goodness of whiteness, the progressiveness of whiteness, the openheartedness of whiteness. Whiteness likes a trick of Blackness, but only that which can be controlled.” Let’s discuss this.
Austin writes about white fragility and says, “this is partly what makes the fragility of whiteness so damn dangerous. It ignores the personhood of people of color and instead makes the feelings of whiteness the most important thing.” Let’s discuss what she’s saying here about white fragility.
She goes on to say one of the problems of white fragility is, “if white family members are being racist, we must take Grandpa’s feelings into account before we proclaim our objection to such speech.” Now let’s talk about the problem with this—not calling out racist behavior because of being afraid to hurt someone’s feelings.
A lot of white people seem surprised that racism exists. Austin says that there’s a danger in believing niceness disproves the presence of racism, which showcases an ignorance of how racism operates in systems and structures enabled by nice people. She writes, “sadly, most white people are more worried about being called racist than about whether or not their actions are in fact racist or harmful.” Let’s discuss this.
Something that related to what’s happening in 2020 is when Austin talks about how the celebrations of the Civil Rights Movement are sanitized and the battles are whitewashed. When people post MLK quotes on Twitter, they’re ignoring the terror he and protestors endured at marches. Let’s talk about how this relates to the coverage of the 2020 protests.
At the end of the book, Austin writes about the shadow of hope. “Knowing that we may never see the realization of our dreams, and yet still show up.” Let’s talk about this.
What will you do different after reading this book?
What other antiracism books are you reading? (Here’s a list to check out).