Can we talk about race and racial inequality in our forum?

I used to think that sex and money were the final frontiers in forum. If we are willing to share deeply about these topics, perhaps our forums have reached a level of trust and vulnerability that leads to transformational value.

In the America we now inhabit, I wonder if race and racial attitudes might be even more sensitive and taboo.  Some questions you might consider at your next forum meeting:

• How has your upbringing influenced the ways you think about people from other racial backgrounds?
• How would you describe the current extent and nature of your relations with people of other racial backgrounds? How do you feel about that?
• What recent or long past personal experiences are you reminded of as you read about protests across America? Why?
• As a business leader, how have you supported (or undermined) efforts towards racial equality and racial justice?

You may wish to read this excellent guide to Daring Discussions before you begin the conversation.

Two recent articles that forum members might read in advance:

“Who Gets to Be Afraid in America?” in The Atlantic by Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to be an Antiracist

“Don’t understand the protests? What you’re seeing is people pushed to the edge,” in the Los Angeles Times by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the N.B.A.’s all-time leading scorer