I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

How does the illusion of racial harmony exacerbate racist biases? How do these biases come to the forefront in Brown’s academic, professional, and personal lives?

How does Ms. Phillips’ public acknowledgement of her own racism play into the book’s broader themes about how Whiteness centers itself, even in putative efforts to correct racial injustice? Why does her admission make Brown so uncomfortable?

How does Dalin’s death cause Brown to evolve, both as a Christian and as a racial justice activist? What assumptions about criminality and so-called “good” and “bad” Black men are challenged by his incarceration and death?

What are some of the challenges Brown faces as a Black woman in a majority-White professional setting? How do the actions of the coworkers and superiors reflect Dr. Simms’s refrain, “Ain’t no friends here”?

What does Brown mean when she refers to “nice white people”? How is this cult of niceness and professed White innocence in some ways more insidious than overtly hostile White supremacy? On what assumptions is it built?

How do Brown’s attitudes toward anger evolve over the course of the book? What challenges does she face in expressing her anger as a Black person, a woman, and a Christian?

Brown’s relationship to Christianity, particularly with respect to racial justice, is complicated. To Brown, how are the tenets of Christianity instructive to the fight for racial justice? How does the Church sometimes fail to live up to these tenets?

What does Brown mean by “the shadow of hope”? How does she justify continuing to work on behalf of racial justice causes while admitting that hope is dead to her?