Kimberlee Yolanda Williams - Dear White Woman, Please Come Home: Hand Me Your Bias, and Ill Show You Our Connection

In her speculative epistolary memoir, Kimberlee Yolanda Williams cleverly imagines that white women are lost sisters who want to be found and brought back into community with Black women. Told through precise, relatable vignettes from daily life, Williams depicts the insult of microaggressions while presuming that white women want to be and do better. With equal force, Williams reckons with our divided times and beckons the way to a more united future. A compelling read for white and Black women alike.Julie Lythcott-Haims , speaker, activist, New York Times bestselling author

Through a series of deeply personal letters, Kimberlee Williams takes an innovative approach to antiracist struggle, powerfully connecting head and heart as she instructs with clarity and compassion. Not willing to give up hope for our collective liberation, Williams offers a guiding light as she calls white women home. May we find our way!Robin DiAngelo , PhD. Author of White Fragility and Nice Racism

Dear White Woman, Please Come Home caused us to pause for a moment and ask ourselves, with all these experiences, why would Williams still want us to be her sisters? Yet, she offers a beautiful and generous invitation for white women to see ourselves in her stories and reflect on the harm we cause in our everyday interactions with Black women. Deceptively subtle, we found ourselves engrossed in each story about another white woman. When we read the provocative questions she asks after each encounter, we realized that white woman was us! This is a much-needed book for all white women to read and reflect on how we can more authentically be in loving relationships with our sisters of color and reclaim our own joy when we come home.Ilsa Marie Govan and Tilman Smith , Co-Authors of Whats Up with White Women: Unpacking Sexism and White Privilege in Pursuit of Racial Justice

In a series of heartfelt letters, Kimberlee Williams reaches out to the sister she knew in childhood the one who shares her values and humanity, who is her friend and co-conspirator first...and white second to bring her home to their friendship. Every woman Kimberlee meets on her search might be this long-lost sister, but whether the woman shes encountered has demanded her seat on the bus, ignored her in a meeting, cut in front of her in line or assumed she didnt have good enough credit to get a mortgage, each of them proves to be unprepared for sisterhood with Black and Brown women. It took me a few letters to get into the groove of the structure and storytelling style, but once in, I was completely hooked and just wanted more. Ive read at least a dozen books that explain implicit bias and microaggressions, but Kims clear, simple letters to the white woman she wants back in her life make these concepts crystal clear and undeniable. In the most subtle way imaginable, Kimberlee Williams manages to slam home to every reader what a microaggression is, when you are committing one, and how to be a true friend through empathy, care and allyship. This is a work of pure artistry and a catalyst for real connection.Valerie Alexander , keynote speaker, Author of How Women Can Succeed in the Workplace (Despite Having "Female Brains")

In Kimberlee Williams Dear White Woman, Please Come Home, she captured her audience (me, a woman of color) by highlighting the racial divide between Black and white women (Sistas). She aptly describes the daunting experience to be Black and wanting to be accepted when acceptance means you have to be white. I am in awe of Williams stepping out and telling us we are trapped so deep in our insulated identity lens that we fail to look up to see for one second that we are Sistas. Thank you Kimberlee!Varetta Mayes , Board Leadership, The Flourish Collective

Kimberlee Williams driving desire in Dear White Woman, Please Come Home is to heal and restore. She is on a hopeful, though at times discouraging, journey to reconnect with her true white sisters that she is convinced are out there. I was moved as a white reader to understand her depth of love for unity and wholeness in relationships across the Black/white divide. Yet, this book is anything but a mushy love story. Williams is gentle, but does not coddle. She expresses her hurt, anger, exhaustion and deep disappointment when she is rebuffed and overlooked time and time again. She calls white women to account, to look at their biases and instinctual actions and gives us questions at the end of each letter to reflect on how weve been complicit. I have read many books about race and reconciliation, but this style of writing personal letters helped me better understand an individuals pain and longing. It cuts to the core when she asks me to use my white privilege to lighten [her] load, to not remain silent, and to not miss opportunities to build a bridge. As much as this book helps me understand Blackness, it also helps me come face-to-face with my whiteness. This is a book Ill be handing out often!Emily Nelson , Executive Director, The Flourish Collective