Book Club

This book was chosen to take us on a journey of gaining a broader perspective of the impact of slavery and the harsh reality of the lives of enslaved people and their descendants in a way that reminds us that this is not something that we are so far removed from. It gives us the opportunity to learn the ways in which slavery is often misremembered and watered down so we can remember and connect with those who suffered and still suffer today.

Ackerman’s Community Book Club selection for February is Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown. adrienne is the writer-in-residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, author of both fiction and non fiction books, a podcast creator, a doula, activist, and Black feminist rooted in Detroit.

Our January Book of the Month is My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending our Hearts and Bodies, by Resmaa Menakem.

Our December Book of the Month is Covering: The Hidden Assault on our Human Rights by Kenji Yoshino. In Covering, the author draws on both his personal experiences as a gay Asian American and expands upon these experiences to examine common ways many individuals downplay aspects of their identities that are based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and disability to become mainstream.

Tesoro by Yesika Salgado is Ackerman’s Community Book Club November book of the month. The author, a Salvadorian-American writer, is a two-time National Poetry Slam finalist and the recipient of the 2020 International Latino Book Award in Poetry. A self-described “fat, fly, and brown poet and activist,” Salgado writes about “her family, her culture, her city, and her fat brown body.” Each poem in Tesoro glimpses into the complexity and multidimensionality of forging an identity as a Latina growing up in the stigmatized and racialized US society.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson is Ackerman’s Community Book Club October book of the month. This book was chosen because it describes the racial hierarchy in the United States as a caste system—an unseen infrastructure that tightly holds each group in its place.

Ackerman’s Community Book Club is a pathway to curiosity. We invite you to read one book each month that explores diversity, equity, and inclusion. The books on our list have been selected with the aim of increasing knowledge, empathy, willingness, and skill to confront xenophobia as therapists, educators, and lifelong learners, in the personal and professional spaces we occupy.