Debby Irving Reviews

Debby Irving is an emerging voice in the racial justice community. Combining her business development skills, classroom instruction experience, and comprehension of systemic racism, Irving teaches and consults with organizations and individuals seeking to make racial equity in both institutional and personal level.

Irving grew up in Winchester, Massachusetts, during the socially turbulent 1960s and '70s. Following a blissfully sheltered, upper-middle-class suburban youth, she discovered herself intrigued and horrified by the racial split she detected in local Boston. Her career began in various urban performance-art and community-based non-profits, where she found that her finest efforts to "assist" caused more harm than the good she planned. Her one-step-forward-two-steps-back expertise of racial understanding finally lead her to dig deeply into her very own white privilege, at which she discovered truths she never knew existed. Waking Up White describes that journey and the lessons learned along the way.

Now a racial justice teacher and writer, Irving works together with other white people to transform confusion into fascination and anxiety into actions. She has worked in public and private urban schools, both in the classroom and in the board level, to cultivate community among pupils, teachers, employees, and families by focusing on frank dialog that joins and educates people through mutual interests and divergent backgrounds. A grad of the Winsor School in Boston, she also holds a BA from Kenyon College and an MBA from Simmons College. Waking Up White is the first book.

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