When tackling topics of systemic racism, it’s all too easy to build narratives centered around white men and toxic masculinity. But white women have long held seats at the table— from their pre-Civil War ability to buy and sell enslaved people to the million-plus women members of the KKK, and beyond— as systems of white supremacy were built and maintained. We cannot skirt around the gendered roles of white women in systemic racism if we, as a society, hope to dismantle systems of oppression. We need to make space for a deeper understanding; Seattle anti-racist facilitators Ilsa Govan and Tilman Smith offer just such a space in their new book, What’s Up with White Women? Unpacking Sexism and White Privilege in Pursuit of Racial Justice.  Govan and Smith offer a frank yet compassionate guide for white women interested in becoming more effective in cross-cultural, anti-racist practices. The authors dive into stories of white women’s experiences with sexism, racism, and white privilege and discuss how white women harm BIPOC (and themselves) by colluding with systems of oppression. They cover how white women often hijack conversations on race. And they provide guiding questions and actions for strengthening anti-racism practices. After all, the opportunity for deeper understanding comes with a powerful companion: the unique opportunity to take action. Ilsa Govan has extensive experience as a facilitator, consultant, writer, and social justice activist. As Co-Founder of Cultures Connecting, she has led conversations about racial equity at workshops and conferences across the country. Prior to Cultures Connecting, Ilsa worked as an Equity and Race Specialist for Seattle Public Schools where she was tasked with addressing institutional racism in a large organization. She is the co-author of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Strategies for Facilitating Conversations on Race. Ilsa is deeply invested in examining how her own identity influences her interactions with others, particularly through the lens of privilege and oppression. Tilman Smith has been an educator and project manager for over thirty-five years, serving as a teacher, administrator, college instructor, caucus facilitator, trainer, and coach. She has facilitated workshops throughout the country on the topics of racial justice, white privilege, internalized sexism, and internalized white superiority. Currently, Tilman partners with government, educational, and non-profit agencies as a race-based caucus organizer, facilitator, trainer, and executive coach. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in French and History from the University of Colorado and her Master’s Degree in Human Development from Pacific Oaks College Northwest. Karena Hooks is a Leader, Organizer, Transformational Coach, Mentor, Educator, and Facilitator with over 20 years of experience working with individuals and organizations at all stages of life. Her roots run deep in the fields of Social Justice, Organizational Development and Leadership, and Community-based Systems Change for nonprofit/non-governmental, public, and private sectors globally. She serves as Adjunct Faculty at Columbia University’s School of Social Work online program and was recently featured on KING 5’s award-winning series, Facing Race. Buy the Book: What's Up with White Women?: Unpacking Sexism and White Privilege in Pursuit of Racial Justice (Paperback) from Elliott Bay Books  Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation online click here.

Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series

179. Ilsa Govan and Tilman Smith with Karena Hooks: What’s Up with White Women?

 Anatole France once said, “Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” Susan Orlean’s soul has been awake for a very long time, indeed. The award-winning author brings forth On Animals, a collection of writings about our relationship with animals, done throughout her illustrious career. Orlean brought a keen eye and a warm sensibility to the animals that we eat, tame, and make our pets; animals that are wild and wondrous, and animals that could very well eat us. Orlean was 6-years-old when she wrote a book called Herbert the Near-Sighted Pigeon. She hasn’t stopped writing about animals since. The collection includes pieces on backyard chickens (of which she has a clutch), backyard tigers (one woman had twenty-three of them), famous whales, and hard-working donkeys. Delightful and profound, On Animals celebrates our collective existence in this soulful world. Susan Orlean has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1982. She is the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Library Book, Rin Tin Tin, and The Orchid Thief, which was made into the Academy Award-winning film Adaptation. She also writes a weekly column for Medium, runs a book club on Literati, and writes for television, including How to With John Wilson (HBO) and the forthcoming adaptation of The Library Book.  Leigh Calvez has worked as a scientist, naturalist, nature writer, and teacher. Her writing has appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, High Country News, The Ecologist, Ocean Realm, The Christian Science Monitor, The Seattle Times, and more. She is also the author of New York Times bestseller, The Hidden Lives of Owls, and the award-winning The Breath of a Whale. Buy the Book: On Animals (Hardcover) from Elliott Bay Books  Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation online click here.  

178. Susan Orlean with Leigh Calvez: On Our Relationship with Animals

How old were you when you got your first cell phone? Did “going online” ever involve listening to a series of pained squeaks and static, willing the family PC to connect to…whatever it is it connected to? Today, children are presented with a sparkling array of digital tools that many of us could barely fathom as kids. How are parents and caregivers supposed to guide small humans into the digital realm without feeling completely overwhelmed? Instead of telling children what NOT to do online, EdTech expert Richard Culatta argued we should spend more time teaching kids HOW to navigate the online world. Cyberbullies happen. Social media isn’t going away, and neither are online games. In his new book, Digital for Good, Culatta helped caregivers prepare kids for navigating the tricky situations they will undoubtedly encounter as they move through the digital world, and offers straightforward advice for raising good digital citizens. Richard Culatta is the CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), a nonprofit serving education leaders in 127 countries. Prior to joining ISTE, Richard was the chief innovation officer for the state of Rhode Island, and was appointed by President Barack Obama to lead the US Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology from 2013-2015. Dr. Margaret Morris is a clinical psychologist focused on how technology can support wellbeing. She is an affiliate faculty member in the Information School at the University of Washington and a research consultant. Morris is the author of Left to Our Own Devices: Outsmarting Smart Technology to Reclaim Our Relationships, Health and Focus. Buy the Book: Digital for Good: Raising Kids to Thrive in an Online World (Hardcover) from Third Place Books  Presented by Town Hall Seattle and Seattle’s Child. 

177. Richard Culatta with Dr. Margaret Morris—Digital for Good: Raising Kids to Thrive in an Online World

It’s been a watershed year. Social justice, and all that it means to us, is both in our grasp and slipping through our fingers. Seattle journalist Marcus Harrison Green, a dear friend and frequent collaborator with Town Hall Seattle, knows this well. Growing up black in South Seattle, Green has seen both the sharp rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the murk of police brutality in tandem. Based on experience, Green offered sharpness and clarity about racism as it pervades all aspects of our society – from classrooms and police patrolled streets, to the newsroom. He also writes about religion, mental health, human morality, and what his beloved grandmother taught him – and now teaches us. Marcus Harrison Green is a columnist for The Seattle Times. A long-time Seattle native, he is the founder of the South Seattle Emerald, which focuses on telling the stories of South Seattle and its residents. Michele Matassa Flores is executive editor of The Seattle Times. Buy the Book: Readying to Rise: Essays (Paperback) Elliott Bay Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation online click here.

176. Marcus Harrison Green with Michele Matassa Flores: Readying to Rise

Phyllis Wheatley, the first African-American author of a published book of poetry, wrote, “Imagination! Who can sing thy force?/Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?”. Wheatley could very well have been calling to the Black creatives, writers, orators, and leaders who would follow her. The imaginative force of Malcolm X and Toni Morrison, James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Barack Obama and Langston Hughes are imparted by Farah Jasmine Griffin in a series of meditations on the fundamental questions of art, politics, and the human condition in Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature. Griffin blends memoir with a deep reading of the Black community’s rich panoply of artists and thinkers who have made an indelible mark on America. By poring over the poems of Phyllis Wheatley, the speeches of Frederick Douglass, the lyrics of Billie Holiday, the novels of contemporary Jesmyn Ward, and others, Griffin sheds light on what it means to be human. Through this lens, Griffin explores deeper questions and themes of justice, slavery, racism, segregation, mass incarceration, and more, all the while calling the names of those recently lost, like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Both a celebration of Black America, and a meditative renunciation of what America has denied its Black citizenry, Griffin gives vivid tribute. Farah Jasmine Griffin was the inaugural chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department at Columbia University. She is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient. Buy the Book: Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (Hardcover) Elliott Bay Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation click here. 

175. Farah Jasmine Griffin: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature

 In Hungary, one summer’s night in 1969, Judy Temes’ family packed the car for, what was supposed to be, a vacation to Vienna. Judy’s parents took her 12-year-old brother and left her behind. She was five-years-old and was given to her grandmother. Her family wasn’t taking a vacation. They were escaping Hungary’s totalitarian regime. Her father, a doctor who survived the Holocaust, was using tourist visas that allowed entry into a Western country. Such visas were given under one particular condition. One child had to be left behind. This was the government’s way to ensure that citizens who left the country would return. Girl Left Behind is Judy Temes’s memoir, a story in which she didn’t know why her family left her, nor if she’d ever see them again. It’s a story of loss and trauma, the horrors of political strife and the cost of immigration policies. It’s the story of what it means growing up without a sense of home until you define it yourself. Judy Temes is a Seattle-based teacher, writer, and journalist whose work has been published in The Boston Globe, The Patriot Ledger, and other publications. Tina Schumann is a widely published poet and editor of the anthology Two-Countries, U.S. Daughters, and Sons of Immigrant Parents. Her work has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, Ascent, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and read on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac. Buy the Book: Girl Left Behind (Paperback) Third Place Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation online click here. 

174. Judy Temes with Tina Schumann: Girl Left Behind

In the beginning there was a bit. And then the pixel: a particular packaging of those bits. With the coming of the pixel, the organizing principle of most all modern media. Nearly every picture in the world is now composed of pixels: cell phone photos and Mars Rover transmissions, book illustrations and video games. Pixels and digital images are now all but synonymous. Pixar cofounder Alvy Ray Smith offered in his new book, A Biography of the Pixel, simple but profound ideas that unify the dazzling varieties of digital image making. Pixel’s development begins with Fourier waves, proceeds through Turing machines, and ends with the first digital movies from Pixar, DreamWorks, and Blue Sky. Don’t know what a Fourier wave is? Don’t have a clue what a Turing machine does? Smith makes hard-to-understand concepts accessible to the layperson. Every field has now been touched by the small and mighty pixel – from the arts to technology; from business to entertainment. Smith opens our eyes to show how pictures composed of invisible stuff become visible. Alvy Ray Smith co-founded Pixar and Altamira Software. He was the first Director of Computer Graphics at Lucasfilm and the first Graphics Fellow at Microsoft. He has received two technical Academy Awards for his contribution to digital moviemaking technology. Charles C. Mann is a correspondent for The Atlantic, Science, and Wired, has also written for Fortune, The New York Times, Smithsonian, and Vanity Fair, among others. He is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestseller 1493. He has also written for the TV network HBO and the series Law & Order. Buy the Book: A Biography of the Pixel (Leonardo) (Paperback) Third Place Books  Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation online click here.

173. Alvy Ray Smith with Charles C. Mann: A Biography of the Pixel

Have you ever visited the defunct coal chutes on Capitol Hill? Do you know where you can find a 100-year-old sidewalk or the nearest pocket park? Susanna Ryan, local cartoonist and creator of Seattle Walk Report, was joined by Crosscut’s Knute “Mossback” Berger for a fresh look at Seattle’s hidden historical gems. Ryan gave us a preview of her new book Secret Seattle with a visual presentation exploring the weird and wonderful hidden history behind some of the city’s most overlooked places, architecture, and infrastructure. Local history buffs, walking enthusiasts, and armchair explorers alike can revel in the hidden locales uncovered, and revealed, by Ryan. Self-taught cartoonist, illustrator, and designer Susanna Ryan is the artist behind Seattle Walk Report, a popular comic series hosted on Instagram and published as a book in 2019. With her keen eye for Seattle’s overlooked landmarks and everyday ephemera, she captured everything that makes the Emerald City magical. Her work has appeared in Seattle Magazine, The Stranger, Seattle Refined, The Evergrey, and the Seattle Review of Books, as well as on KOMO News and 107.7 The End. Knute “Mossback” Berger is Crosscut’s Editor-at-Large and host of the Mossback’s Northwest TV series on KCTS 9. He writes about politics and regional heritage. Previously he served as Editor-in-Chief of Seattle Weekly, Editor & Publisher of Eastsideweek, and as Managing Editor of Washington Magazine. He is Editor-at-Large for Seattle Magazine and has written two books, Pugetopolis and Space Needle, Spirit of Seattle. He is a regular commentator on KUOW-FM and a Rainier Club Fellow. Buy the Book: Secret Seattle (Seattle Walk Report): An Illustrated Guide to the City's Offbeat and Overlooked History (Hardcover) Third Place Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation online click here.

172. Susanna Ryan with Knute Berger: A Guide to Seattle’s Offbeat and Overlooked History

At first sight of Frida Kahlo’s painting The Two Fridas, author Emily Rapp Black felt an instant connection with the artist. An amputee from childhood, Rapp Black grew up with a succession of prosthetic limbs, and learned she had to hide her disability from the world. Kahlo sustained lifelong injuries after a horrific bus crash and her own right leg was eventually amputated. In Kahlo’s art, Rapp Black recognized her own life. In this astoundingly personal presentation, Rapp Black joined us with fellow author Lidia Yuknavitch to explore her own story and her attachment to Kahlo. With candor and vulnerability, she chronicled how Kahlo’s art reflected her own, from numerous operations, to the compulsion to create, to silent pain. She told the story of losing her infant son to Tay-Sachs, giving birth to a daughter, and learning to accept her body.  Rapp Black examined how the experiences and art of another can help shape our own lives—and inspire us to find a way forward when all seems lost. Emily Rapp Black is the author of Poster Child: A Memoir, The Still Point of the Turning World, Sanctuary, and Frida Kalho and My Left Leg. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Vogue; The New York Times; Time; The Wall Street Journal; O, The Oprah Magazine; and the Los Angeles Times. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review and is the nonfiction editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. Rapp is currently an associate professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, where she also teaches medical narratives in the university’s School of Medicine. Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of the bestselling novels The Book of Joan, a cli fi restorying of Joan of Arc, The Small Backs of Children, and Dora: A Headcase. Her memoir The Chronology of Water is currently being adapted for film by Kristen Stewart. Her book The Misfit’s Manifesto is based on her TED Talk “On The Beauty of Being a Misfit.” Her book of short stories, Verge, was published in 2020, and her next novel, Thrust is forthcoming. She founded the creative lab Corporeal Writing in Portland, Oregon. Buy the Book: Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg (Hardcover) Elliott Bay Books  Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation online click here.

171. Emily Rapp Black with Lidia Yuknavitch: An Amputee’s Personal Examination of Frida Kahlo’s Work

The Arts & Culture series enriches our community with imagination and creativity. Whether reinventing the classics for a new audience or presenting an innovative new art form, these events are aimed at expanding horizons. From poetry to music to storytelling, this series leaves our audiences inspired, encouraged, and seeing the world with new eyes.

hubhopper

Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series

hubhopper