SLCL Authors @ the J Presents Sociology Adia Harvey Wingfield on “Gray Areas”
St. Louis County Library Foundation and the JCC of St. Louis are pleased to host an SLCL Authors @ the J event with leading sociologist, Adia Harvey Wingfield, author of “Gray Areas: How the Way We Work Perpetuates Racism and What We Can Do to Fix It.”
Dr. Wingfield will be in conversation with Natalie Self, Senior Vice President of Equitable Economic Impact at Cortex Innovation Community.
The event will take place on Monday, November 27, at 7:00 p.m. at the JCC’s Staenberg Family Center – Mirowitz Performing Arts Center, 2 Millstone Campus Drive, St. Louis, MO 63146.
The program is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase at the event from Left Bank Books
Labor and race have shared a complex, interconnected history in America. For decades, key aspects of work—from getting a job to workplace norms to advancement and mobility—ignored and failed Black people. While explicit discrimination no longer occurs, and organizations make pledges to honor and achieve “diversity,” inequities persist through what Dr. Wingfield calls the “gray areas:” the relationships, networks, and cultural dynamics that are now more important than ever. The reality is that Black employees are less likely to be hired, stall out at middle levels, and rarely progress to senior leadership positions.
Wingfield has spent a decade examining inequality in the workplace, interviewing over two hundred Black subjects across professions about their work lives. In this accessible and important antiracist work, Wingfield chronicles their experiences and blends them with history and surprising data that starkly show how old models of work are outdated and detrimental.
It’s time to prepare for a truly equitable, multiracial future and move our culture forward. To do so, we must address the gray areas in our workspaces today. This definitive work shows us how.
Adia Harvey Wingfield is a leading sociologist and a celebrated author who researches racial and gender inequality in professional occupations. Dr. Wingfield is the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Arts & Sciences and Vice Dean for Faculty Development and Diversity at Washington University in St. Louis. Her previous book, “Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the New Economy,” won the 2019 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and she writes regularly for mainstream outlets, including Slate, The Atlantic, and Vox.
Program sites are accessible. With at least two weeks' notice, accommodations will be made for persons with disabilities. Call 314-994-3300 or contact us.