Marking Black History Month, NLN Launches Taking Aim Book Club

Marking Black History Month, NLN Launches Taking Aim Book Club

Dr. Robert Livingston’s Award-Winning Work, The Conversation, Leads Transformative National Dialogue to Understand & Push Back Against Structural Racism in the Struggle for Health Equity

Washington, DC — In time for Black History Month, the National League for Nursing introduces a powerful new venue for nurse educators nationwide to have a soul-searching conversation about the corrosive effects of structural racism and implicit social bias on the nation’s health care and how to implement real change to bring about universal health equity.

The NLN Taking Aim Book Club will launch on February 1 through the League’s exclusive member community, NLN Connect. Beginning this journey of exploration, dialogue and transformation, participants will dive in with a close reading of the award-winning book, “The Conversation: How Seeking and Speaking the Truth About Racism Can Radically Transform Individuals and Organizations,” (Penguin Random House, 2021) by renowned social psychologist, Harvard professor Dr. Robert Livingston.

Hosted by the NLN Taking Aim Committee and facilitated by committee member Danica Fulbright Sumpter, PhD, RN, CNE, FADLN, an inclusive teaching and learning expert, the book club will tackle a chapter or two each month over the course of this year. Dr. Sumpter has organized the material using three sections from the book, posing probing questions in each one:

1. Condition: Do we all believe racism exists, and what are its structural origins? How do social disadvantages differ for Blacks and whites? And what are the psychological and evolutionary origins of all intergroup biases?
2. Concern: How much do white people care about racism? What is the moral cost of condoning racism? And what is the practical importance of redressing racism?
3. Correction: What can everyone do to promote racial equality? And how can leaders and organizations create greater racial equality?
   

Asynchronous sessions, moderated by a rotating cast of Taking Aim committee members, will make possible participation across different time zones and accommodate individual schedules. The flexible framework is designed to advance the creation of “Teaching to Transform (T-3),” a unique engaged community for deep-dive discussion, lively exchange of ideas, and sharing of real-time teaching and clinical experiences and evidence-based resources. 

Inspired by the League’s innovative Taking Aim Initiative: Addressing Structural Racism, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Implicit Bias and Social Justice, a series of workshops and webinars created four years ago, the NLN Taking Aim Book Club will focus on those same themes to spark new knowledge and understanding and seed strategic action to profoundly alter the perspective of how health care providers are taught to engage with communities of color to maximize positive health outcomes.

“Teaching to Transform through this new NLN Taking Aim Book Club will bring us into uncharted territory, requiring those who join to take a courageous leap into a space where they will collectively grapple with difficult, sometimes uncomfortable, topics and ideas and reshape their critical consciousness. But we feel certain that this direction is both possible and necessary to meet the needs of a complex, dynamic health care environment beset by inequitable treatment of patients of color that must not be allowed to persist,” said NLN Chair Patricia Sharpnack, DNP, RN, CNE, NEA-BC, ANEF, FAAN, Dean and Strawbridge Professor at the Breen School of Nursing and Health Professions at Ursuline College in Ohio.

“Without question, this is not your ordinary book club,” said NLN President and CEO Beverly Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN. “At the National League for Nursing, we are committed to the long-term goal of achieving health equity and believe that piecemeal change will not suffice. Wholesale transformation of nursing education is key to opening access to quality health care for all. We are excited to spearhead this endeavor, building on the past success of our Taking Aim Initiative, which first introduced this vital imperative.”

Over the coming months, NLN Taking Aim Book Club participants should expect to:

• Resolve to become increasingly comfortable having difficult conversations
• Reflect on opinions and ideas that differ from their own
• Examine and critique assumptions and taken-for-granted knowledge that undergirds long-held thoughts, beliefs, and actions
• Practice noticing and interrogating affective responses that arise when participating in difficult dialogues
• Cultivate community by sharing strategies and drawing support from others around the country who are striving to advance health equity and justice
  

For more information about the National League for Nursing, visit NLN.org.

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION & Author Dr. Robert Livingston

A Financial Times Best Book of the Year, The Conversation is considered an essential tool for individuals, organizations and communities of all sizes to jumpstart dialogue on racism and bias and to transform well-intentioned statements on diversity into concrete actions. The Conversation has also been nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Achievement, is a finalist for the FT/McKinsey Business Book the Year Award, and on the “long list” for a Porchlight Business Book Award.

Author Dr. Robert Livingston is one of the nation’s leading experts on the science underlying the concepts of bias and racism. His research has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review. For two decades, Dr. Livingston has served as a diversity consultant to scores of Fortune 500 companies, public-sector agencies and nonprofit organizations. He has held professorships at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and the University of Sussex. He is currently on the faculty of the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University.

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