The Wake Up (ePub)

Let's face it: many of us want to do good and show up right now--but "good people" can and do perpetuate harm. The Wake Up: Closing the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real Change takes us beyond performative measures to show us the hard, sometimes painful, and ultimately joyful work that we must engage in to advance true equity.

Michelle Kim is the expert that experts turn to for diversity and inclusion. Based on the D&I trainings she and her company Awaken give, The Wake Up is the antithesis of rigid "best practices"; instead of providing a list of tasks, Kim gives us the tools to create our own adaptable toolkit, ultimately empowering us to lean into the discomfort and build capacity to stay in complexity and nuance, rather than demand simplicity or quick, self-congratulatory fixes. The Wake Up is a call to no longer be satisfied with common reactive and defensive stances, and to recognize the harm in relying solely on the labor of already burdened and marginalized communities. Kim teaches us how to think, approach, and bein this movement as thoughtfully and powerfully as possible, and shows us how to build resilient and genuine human connections while we try new things, recover from mistakes, and find our own authentic voice.

We can all learn how to be honest with ourselves understand that good intentions alone don't make good people. The Wake Up helps us commit to finally getting the foundation right, and challenging ourselves to do the real work to go deeper than the surface level "diversity and inclusion" work to effect real change.