What if I Say the Wrong Thing?: 25 Habits for Culturally Effective People
In this compelling new tip book you’ll find innovative and surprising ways to keep your personal diversity journey moving and the diversity commitment of your organization. Written to make this information bite-size and accessible, you’ll find quick answers to typical What should I do? questions, like: What if I say the wrong thing, what should I do? What if I am work and someone makes a sexist joke, what should I say?
What If I Say the Wrong Thing?: 25 Habits for Culturally Effective People by Verna Myers is a concise and insightful guide to fostering cultural competence and promoting inclusivity in diverse environments. The book offers practical strategies for individuals seeking to build stronger relationships across cultural differences, embrace diversity, and address unconscious biases.
The book is structured around 25 habits, each addressing a specific aspect of cultural effectiveness. Myers emphasizes that making mistakes is part of the learning process and encourages readers to focus on growth rather than perfection. Key topics include:
Awareness of Bias: Recognizing and challenging personal and societal biases that influence behavior and decision-making.
Active Listening: Creating spaces where people feel heard and respected.
Building Relationships: Engaging authentically with people from different backgrounds and avoiding tokenism.
Courage to Engage: Addressing uncomfortable topics like racism, privilege, and microaggressions openly and constructively.
Continuous Learning: Remaining curious and open to understanding new perspectives and cultures.
Myers uses anecdotes, examples, and actionable steps to illustrate her points, making the book approachable and practical. It’s an empowering resource for anyone striving to create more equitable and respectful personal, professional, or social environments.
Previous Books of the Month
December 2024
Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century
One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent—but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together this urgent, galvanizing collection of contemporary essays by disabled people.
From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s account of her debate with Peter Singer over her own personhood to original pieces by authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma; from blog posts, manifestos, and eulogies to Congressional testimonies, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and the past with hope and love.
November 2024
It Stops Here: Standing Up for Our Lands, Our Waters, and Our People
It Stops Here is the profound story of the spiritual, cultural, and political resurgence of a nation taking action to reclaim their lands, waters, law, and food systems in the face of colonization. In deeply moving testimony, it recounts the intergenerational struggle of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation to overcome colonial harms and the powerful stance they have taken alongside allies and other Indigenous nations across Turtle Island against the development of the Trans Mountain Pipeline—a fossil fuel megaproject on their unceded territories.
In a firsthand account of the resurgence told by Rueben George, one of the most prominent leaders of the widespread opposition to the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, It Stops Here reveals extraordinary insights and revelations from someone who has devoted more than a decade of his life to fighting the project. Rueben shares stories about his family’s deep ancestral connections to their unceded lands and waters, which are today more commonly known as Vancouver, British Columbia and the Burrard Inlet. He discloses how, following the systematic cultural genocide enacted by the colonial state, key leaders of his community, such as his grandfather, Chief Dan George, always taught the younger generations to be proud of who they were and to remember the importance of their connection to the inlet.
Part memoir, part call to action, It Stops Here is a compelling appeal to prioritize the sacred over oil and extractive industries, while insisting that settler society honour Indigenous law and jurisdiction over unceded territories rather than exploiting lands and reducing them to their natural resources.