Author Rosalind Wiseman, author of the book that the movie "Mean Girls" was based on, came to St. Louis last week to speak at the Women's Foundation of Greater St. Louis event about the book she wrote with Shanterra McBride, "Courageous Discomfort: How to have Brave, Life-Changing Conversations about Race and Racism." KMOX's Carol Daniel sat down with her to talk about it.
Wiseman said she wanted to address some of the basics when it comes to talking about race and racism, because some people can often feel uncomfortable with those topics. She said that it was time for this book because after a many people awoke to the realities of racism in 2020, many went quiet on the issue again.
"Not only did they get quiet, there was this extraordinary pushback against equity, inclusion, using the word 'woke' to ridicule people doing good work," she said. "And I felt like it was way past my time to be more explicit about what I believed were the consequences of taking away dignity from people."
One of the things she wanted to get across in her book was the true meaning of respect and dignity. She said that respect is a word that is used so often that people don't really think about what it means anymore.
"The definition of respect is to admire someone and admire their actions, not just what position they have, but how they got there," she explained. "And the definition of respect is actually about earning respect through hard work and how you treat people. And in contrast, the word dignity is about essential worth, that we are just given dignity."
Hear more from Rosalind Wiseman on her new book, and how she thinks we should approach race and racism:
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