Carolyn Baker Reflects on Racism and White Complicity in “An Unintentional Accomplice”
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In this episode 235, we visit with Carolyn Baker, author of “An Unintentional Accomplice: A Personal Perspective on White Responsibility,” a narrative of one woman’s path to confronting internalized racism, white guilt, and the complexities of racism in America.
Carolyn Baker was 62–years-old when she learned about the murder of Emmett Till, which sparked a personal investigation into her own personal biases. Starting with her cookie cutter upbringing in Southern California, Carolyn confronts white privilege with directness and honesty.
Richard L. Mitchell, PhD, a professor at Cornell University, had this to say about the book, “In ‘An Unintentional Accomplice’, Carolyn Baker lulls us through her “cookie cutter” Southern California childhood and Girl Scout ‘white bred’ mantras–that mirror of Disneylandish life–as we bask on the beach in our own smug skins. Then, like a stiletto, she slips in Emmett Till’s American tragedy making Klan enablers of us all without any need to dress-up in a great white sheet. Baker has clearly called out racism as the timeless tragedy in our time.”
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About the Author:
Award-winning author Carolyn L. Baker, M.Ed. grew up in Southern California during segregation and came of age in the counter-cultural climate of the 1960s. Baker spent decades working and investing in her native Los Angeles as a senior executive in the nonprofit sector.
Formerly an adjunct professor in the community college systems, Baker earned a graduate degree in Education from Northern Arizona University and began a 30–year executive career in nonprofit settings as wide-ranging as Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles to the Clinton Global Initiative. When Baker was in her mid-sixties, she first learned of the murder of Emmett Till, sparking an investigation of her own position as a white woman in the midst of a world of racial trauma.
The author lives in her native Los Angeles where she is proud to be challenging the status quo along with the multicultural authors of the Black/Brown female-led 2Leaf Press. An Unintentional Accomplice: A Personal Perspective on White Responsibility is a Non-Fiction Book Award Silver winner.
Additional Endorsements
“This book will affect you, and challenge old ideas about race, and race relations, as it should. … get a copy of a book that can and might just change your life.”
- Nick Lawrence, radio host WEEU Straight Talk, Philadelphia, PA
In this intimate memoir, An Unintentional Accomplice, Carolyn Baker leans into vulnerability to share her journey to explore whiteness as a white woman. She grapples with both the discomforts of dismantling whiteness and the desire to tolerate the discomfort in confronting injustices of racism. Her reflections are raw and vulnerable, as a white woman in process excavating the trails of her journey and uncovering decades of subtle and overt messages of racism.
- Aisha Dixon-Peters, Psy.D, University of La Verne, CA
The true story of one woman’s personal journey towards life-changing discoveries about white privilege and race. In an Unintentional Accomplice, Carolyn Baker’s realizations are told with gentle eloquence and deliver enlightening perspectives and compelling insights with power and conviction. Her conclusions ring true, and the importance of Baker’s message is all the more real and urgent as she offers a new holistic and collaborative approach to understanding and overcoming racism.
- The Honorable John Ladner, Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner, retired
A deep and insightful exploration of personal awakening from the heart of white privilege. An Unintentional Accomplice leads the reader to their own historical truths that have designed and shaped the hidden societal norms of racism. An honest discovery that shines light on the shadow of division in America to support a needed shift in consciousness and a greater healing of humanity.
- Lauren Monroe, Healing artist, speaker, and co-founder of Project Resiliency and Mind Body Drum
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