Shanterra: Honestly, they were all hard :-) but the one that made me really spend some time in thought and with my therapists was "Should I See Color?" It was important for me to tell my truth but, I kept thinking about my choir teacher. I knew her intentions were not to harm even though it caused internal harm. That was hard for me to say out loud. Rosalind: The introduction! We must have rewritten it fifty times. I wanted to make sure that the tone was right; that the reader would get to know us and feel invited into our conversation in the first few pages.

In March 2023, Courageous Discomfort journal will be published. Until that time, we encourage you to keep having conversation and building community!

I keep going back to the scripture and command to "love my neighbor as myself" (Mark 12:31) and honestly, it feels like it's getting harder to live out that verse because as a culture we tend to only see our neighbor as the person living next door to us or the people we see. That mindset is causing great harm and that is not what Jesus had in mind when he gave this command. Neighbor is broader than the person next door. It's people I've never met. It's people I won't meet. It's people who don't look like me or believe what I believe. And yet, I'm to love them. Faith played a very important role because as there are people who don't love me because of the color of my skin or my gender or pick anything else, I still must love. I can only do that because of my faith.

We thought about the most common questions people have asked us over the years about race and racism. But we had a lot more than 20 so we had to pick the ones we thought the most people could relate to.

We started in December of 2020 and finished in March of 2022. That’s really fast by the way–it usually takes a year from when a book is finished to when it’s out in bookstores. And this was when publishers were having huge problems with the supply chain!

To contribute to making people feel that it’s not only possible to bring equity and dignity into their communities but they are the ones who can do it.

Rosalind: For me, the answer is why wouldn’t I want to do this? I have witnessed the impact of racism on so many families and young people throughout my life and felt that I needed to be more intentional and explicit about the connection between racism and dehumanization. I needed to take a more obvious stance about where I stood on these issues and how I saw them pulling us away from each other. And finally, because I work with people all over the country and I know that we are not as polarized as we are being led to believe.

Please contact Keely Thomas-Menter at keely_thomasmenter@chroniclebooks.com.

Please contact your Chronicle Books rep or email order.desk@hbgusa.com.

Please contact Keely Thomas-Menter at keely_thomasmenter@chroniclebooks.com.

You can pre-order your copy today here, or visit your local bookstore! The book comes out on 9/27.