The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias

The publication of The Person You Mean to Be in 2018 coincided with the development of several social justice movements, notably, Black Lives Matter (BLM) and MeToo, testifying to the growing call for racial and gender equity in the US. The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter first appeared on social media in July 2013, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old Black student from Florida. This marked the beginning of BLM, a decentralized socio-political movement highlighting racial discrimination and inequity, with an emphasis on police brutality and racial violence against Black people. BLM gained national attention after two other high-profile deaths: the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri (2014), and the police choking of 43-year-old Eric Garner in New York City (2014). Protests erupted nationwide, gaining the support of politicians, celebrities, and sports icons. In 2016, for example, Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers began kneeling on one knee to protest racial discrimination during the playing of the national anthem before games. He stated: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color” (xvi). He later added: “This is because I’m seeing things happen to people that don’t have a voice, people that don’t have a platform to talk and have their voices heard, and effect change. So I’m in a position where I can do that” (xvi). BLM gained momentum in 2020, after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Four-hundred-fifty major protests occurred across the US. Social change and defunding the police were among the protesters’ rallying cries.

In a 2017 tweet, American actress and activist Alyssa Milano encouraged her followers to use the phrase “Me Too” as a status to “give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem” of sexual harassment and assault (Ohlheiser, Abby. “The Woman Behind ‘Me Too’ Knew the Power of the Phrase When She Created It—10 Years Ago.” The Washington Post, 19 Oct. 2017). Tarana Burke, a sexual assault survivor and activist, first used the phrase in this manner in 2006 on Myspace, hoping to empower women through empathy. However, MeToo only became a global movement after Milano’s tweet went viral. Millions of posts using the phrase and #MeToo hashtag appeared in English before spreading to other languages. The movement sparked discussions of sexual harassment, especially in Hollywood, and led to the termination of several high-profile individuals, including producer Harvey Weinstein, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, and actor Kevin Spacey.

The publication of The Person You Mean to Be not only coincided with the development of BLM and MeToo, but also with a slew of publications about racial and gender inequality in the US. While Dolly Chugh focuses on why bias exists and how to address it, many other authors have also addressed the problem of racism in America (Oluo, Ijeoma. So You Want to Talk About Race. Seal Press, 2018); studied the continued relevance of civil rights activists (Gaude Jr., Eddie S. Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own. Crown, 2020); and provided tools for readers seeking answers to pressing questions about race (Acho, Emmanuel. Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man. Flatiron Books, 2020). The Person You Mean to Be, then, is part of a growing movement to confront, understand, and address social inequity in American society.