HauteAMBASSADOR Literary ReviewsLiterary Reviews

BY STEPHANIE BLOCK

Stephanie Block

is a third-generation family partner in RNDC and Young’s Market Company. She holds a WSET 3 certification in wine and spirits and is a recent graduate of an Executive MBA program from both Brown University and IE Madrid. Previously, Stephanie ran St. Supéry Estate Vineyards & Winery’s social media and worked Napa harvest 2016. Stephanie has championed gender equality as a national board member of the US National Committee for UN Women and once traveled the globe as an award-winning travel writer. She has lived in 6 countries and visited over 80. Elle adore parler français.

SOCIAL JUSTICE SUMMER READS What Our Leaders in the Community Are Reading Now

SUMMER IS HERE, AND THE WAVES WE SURF ARE REAL conversations with an urgent undertow of transformative soulsearching. So instead of trashy, splashy beach reading (we still love you!), let’s wade into deeper waters. With sea change must come a shift in what we read by the sea. Inspiring us to replace saucy trysts with social justice are community leaders who do this difficult and rewarding work every day. These are the people whose Zoom background bookshelves are more Tolstoy than toys. Ready for some more context for the revolution? Let’s dive in!

How We Show Up by Mia Birdsong Jamie Allison, Executive Director, Walter & Elise Haas Fund Mia Birdsong’s newly released book, How We Show Up, is a practical and aspirational guide for how to expand our circles of care to create just, supportive, loving, and vibrant communities. I love this book because it introduced me to diverse, visionary people whose lives serve as examples for how we can live better together. While reading this book, I laughed aloud, I was inspired, and I recognized the ways U.S. policies and cultural norms work to separate us from one another, rather than encourage what we really need—a shared responsibility for each other.

Jamie Allison

Debbie Tuttle Berkowitz

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson Debbie Tuttle Berkowitz, Senior Philanthropy Advisor, Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund A good entry point into learning about racial justice is Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. Bryan founded the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama over 30 years ago, providing legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons. The deeply personal narrative helps each one of us to “get proximate” with the issues, and “get uncomfortable” witnessing injustice. The book has also been adapted into an edition designed for young adults looking to start understanding the issues, as well as a movie which streamed for free across all platforms in June to educate viewers on systemic racism.

Alex Gladstein

In Order To Live: One North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park Alex Gladstein, Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation My book suggestion is In Order To Live: One North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom, by Yeonmi Park. This is a riveting personal story of a girl who first grew up inside North Korea and then overcame horrific, unbelievable circumstances to escape to freedom. It’s an incredibly informative read as you learn about what life is like for the average North Korean in the world’s most repressed country. But even after learning about all of the prison camps and torture and rape and suffering, you end up with an admiration of the human spirit, as Yeonmi triumphed over all of this against all odds. She is an inspiration to us all.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates Ashanti Branch, Founder and Executive Director, The Ever Forward Club, and Colleen Gregerson, Executive Director, Battery Powered Ashanti Branch: For me, this book felt like a book that I wrote in a different life. It speaks of the journey of a black man who voices the challenges of being in his body in a country that does not seem to be designed for him. The book takes a personal journey of that man through growing up in that black body that seems like a threat just by its mere existence. He talks about going to college and the journey of his life, illuminating the many contradictions and barriers hindering him from being the Collene Gregerson man he always wanted to be. The author writes in vivid detail. The stories were told as if I were standing there in the middle of the action. Colleen Gregerson: I had the opportunity to visit the National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, D.C. a few years ago. It was a deeply moving experience, the most extraordinary museum I have ever visited. They have a beautifully curated bookstore, and I asked the attendant for a recommendation. She pointed me directly to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book, Between the World and Me. Written as a letter to his teenage son, Coates questions how to live within a black body, unravels the impermeable racial injustice woven deeply and tightly throughout U.S. history, and points out the dangers of the American dream. Far from providing answers, he honestly lays bare painful questions and allows his reader, and son, to struggle with

Ashanti Branch them. Perhaps now, in this moment of national awakening, we can come together to form a response to these painful questions, a response that is just and equitable. It is clear why Toni Morrison called this book “required reading.”

Biased by Jennifer Eberhardt Paul Henderson, Executive Director, Department of Police Accountability, City and County of San Francisco It’s hard to think objectively about something that has informed and influenced me without contemplating current events, and I’m of two minds. On one hand, I’m heartened to see the attention being paid to issues of race and disparity; but on the other, I remain frustrated at the examples (that we know about and see) of what it has taken to awaken the broader society to these truths. Selecting just one book on a topic like race or social justice that means so much to me is hard, and I tried to choose a book that felt revelatory to my experiences, that exposed an ignorance I wasn’t aware of, and that seemed significant.

The book I chose is Biased by Jennifer Eberhardt, a Bay Area social psychologist and professor at Stanford University. If you had asked me beforehand about bias, I don’t think I could have told you how important it was or that I had biased beliefs myself and was part of systemic challenges that people bring to the table. Eberhardt’s book addresses the implications of race, class, and gender and their effect on society. This well-researched book incorporates narratives throughout the chapters, so it doesn’t feel so “text-booky.” More importantly, the narratives help address tough issues like police brutality and race inequalities by making them more digestible.

It was generally an easy read, but it left me feeling both intellectually surprised and emotionally exposed. At the end of the day, it’s books like this that I appreciate the most, the ones that leave me with a new interpretation of a topic that I thought I understood. I’ve incorporated the book into my intern program this summer at my agency, and I am introducing it to a whole new audience of diverse students leaders to try to share my experiences with folks younger than I am to grow with me. I hope you’ll join me!

Paul Henderson

Charleston Pierce

The Bible Charleston Pierce, Author, Fashion Director, Runway Coach, Founder, Charleston Pierce Production The Bible inspires me, because it tells me that all humans are loved and created by a loving God. God created all lives to live and to love each other in peace on this beautiful planet: Here’s one of my inspirational messages that I cling to from 1 John 5:20. I read it and then I wrote my own interpretation for me to live by: If a person says, I love God, the creator and maker of mankind, but hates his neighbors, that person does not know God. God is love and loves all mankind. All lives were created by God. If we hate others whom we can see, how can we love our Creator whom we have not seen? If we love God, then we must love our neighbors near and far. No matter how they may appear.