Rachel’s book is a powerful and beautiful example of sharing herself from a deeply heart-centered place, and sharing her knowledge with eloquence, heart, and spirituality. Right now more than ever is a time for everyone to really dive in and do the work, and as a white woman I feel it’s more important than ever to educate ourselves and truly create change in the deepest parts of our lives that we may have been unconscious of. If you, like me, are ready to stop talking and start listening and really take the time to understand, this is the book you MUST read. Thank you Rachel for taking the time to write this incredible book. It was life changing to read.
Rachel Ricketts finally helped me confront things I’ve long been afraid to see and given me the tools to create a daily practice that has the potential for global ripples.
Through love, rage, and humor, Rachel Ricketts both challenges and inspires us all (but especially us white cis women) to turn anti-racist work into a daily practice; to sit in the discomfort of the violence we have perpetrated, and turn that discomfort into action. This book is absolutely essential reading.
Holy Healing! What Rachel Ricketts offers the world in Do Better is a healing balm for a society that has long needed a new perspective and approach to an ancient problem that has been ignored, denied, un-addressed, and unhealed. Do Better answers prayers that many have prayed. Do Better offers a bold possibility for change and healing. Do Better offers a deeply sacred choice that we must all make at such a time as this.
Do Better , like Rachel Ricketts, is a true gift to this earth. Rachel’s devotion, wisdom, and guidance towards collective liberation is truly powerful and unmatched. To know her work is to know integrity, growth and elevated consciousness. Do Better offers not just that, but a path forward where we can personally and collectively dismantle systems of oppression, and do so in a way that is rooted in divine love. Because of this book and Rachel's mentorship I truly can say that I push myself to do better.
Do Better should be required reading for all white women . . . It was emotional and challenging but in all the ways this work should be.
This is the book we’ve been waiting for. Wow! Rachel provides us with a real, raw and relevant examination into the deep, spiritual and transformative work that we all need right now to heal from the dehumanizing structure of white supremacy. We know that white supremacy harms all of us and that the wounds go deep. Thus, we know that the work to heal from this must reach us far beyond the surface level. And that’s what Rachel is offering us here in this book—the deep, beyond the surface excavating, exploration and examination of the multiple places in which white supremacy harms us while offering us tools to fight against that harm and to heal. This is the book that will change lives, if you allow it. A must read and do!
Do Better is a clear, powerful, direct, wise, and extremely helpful treatise on how to combat and heal from the ubiquitous violence of white supremacy. Using a voice that is both passionate and compassionate, Rachel Ricketts instructs where necessary and soothes when needed—but never flinches from the urgency of the mission at hand. These pages are meant not merely to be read, but to be studied, workshopped, and put into daily practice. I would recommend Do Better to anybody who wishes to live a life of higher consciousness and humanity. But to white readers in particular, I say: Pull up a chair, grab a pen, lay down your defenses, and listen very respectfully to Rachel Ricketts. She has offered up an exceedingly valuable resource to a tired, troubled (and all too often delusional) world. This is a book we all need.
Do Better is a much-needed addition to any spiritual person’s anti-racism toolkit. This book does not only open the door to anti-racism work, but gives you the tools to walk through it. Rachel has created an engaging, inspiring, and practical resource that you will return to time and again.
02/01/2021
Antiracism workshop leader and “secular spiritualist” Ricketts offers a primer on combating white supremacy in her accessible, urgent debut. She opens with an explanation of how pervasive racism is, how trauma can be inherited, and how oppression is internalized by marginalized people. Defining spirituality as “an ethereal concept... in direct opposition to the analytical, tangible, facts-based knowledge adored by white supremacy,” Ricketts argues spiritualism and social activism go hand-in-hand and notes that “to approach racial justice in a heart-centered and embodied way” requires an honest mindset that allows for righteous rage. Ricketts, who is Black, shares many personal stories of her own encounters with racism, as well as a heartbreaking account of her mother being spat on for being mixed-race. She also warns against adopting spiritual practices that focus on profit or rely on cultural appropriation, and prepares readers with a host of immediate actions they can do to combat racism, among them being attuned to microaggressions and considering impact rather than intention of one own’s actions. Rickett’s conversational tone and accessible activities will prove welcoming to anyone new to racial justice work. Agent: Cherise Fisher & Wendy Sherman, Wendy Sherman Assoc. (Mar.)
a timely and excellent call-to-action,
San Francisco Book Review
★ 01/01/2021
Racial justice educator and spiritual activist Ricketts offers tools for healing and liberation that anyone can use, with questions directed to individuals based on their identities and their comfort with social justice. This book is about internal work, especially work that is necessary for white people to undertake in order to avoid performative activism. It also calls for individuals to lean into the ways in which we uphold white supremacy by participating in racist institutions, so that we can all contribute to a more just society. Ricketts acknowledges that people might be scared to start engaging in antiracist work, and afraid of making mistakes. With that in mind, she offers an approachable entry point to key concepts and terms, such as intersectionality. A section on emotional violence caused by gaslighting or silence is particularly impactful. The glossary she has compiled, along with her careful notes about how she does not speak for everyone, illuminate many of the discursive and action-based errors people with privilege make when they do not take the time to learn before asking, speaking, or acting. VERDICT Meticulously researched, compassionate, and bold, this book should be read immediately and frequently returned to as a textual companion for the ongoing, reiterative work of antiracism.—Emily Bowles, Lawrence Univ., WI
★ 2020-11-26
White supremacy is a systemic issue, but it starts and is perpetuated in “hearts and minds,” writes Ricketts, a queer Black woman and “trained racial justice educator, attorney, grief coach, and spiritual activist.” The battle for justice must be fought on both fronts, but White people typically fight racism as something outside of themselves, as a matter of comfort. Ricketts, however, refuses to coddle readers. Those who most need her guidance to do the “deep inner work” of anti-racism may be the least willing to stay the course. Her righteous, “loving anger” shines through on every page. She warns White women, in particular, that they will not like what she has to say. But it is to their advantage to keep reading this challenging but hopeful extension of the author’s in-person workshops, designed for “all those who are ready to fight for a more equitable world, in which everyone, most notably Black and Indigenous women+, can finally find freedom.” With a 20-page glossary of terms to help meet readers where they are, the book is exhaustive in its breadth and depth. Ricketts examines the consistent insidiousness of racism, from “friendship fails” to inequity in the workplace. She unpacks concepts such as prejudice, privilege, anti-Indigeneity, and decolonization, and she explores the differences among anti-Blackness, racism, and White supremacy. Ricketts speaks directly to readers via blunt, infectious, and at times humorous prose, including deeply personal anecdotes of her experiences of racism, which began in early childhood. Practical action items—e.g., meditations, affirmations, writing prompts, and “heart check-ins”—will get readers “spiritually activated” and able to work through the defensiveness and fear that can hinder growth beyond the superficial.
A soulful, essential boot-camp-in-a-book that raises the bar significantly in the field of anti-racism training.
