Author Talk: The Right Kind of White with Garrett Bucks

Join the Mill Valley Library for a special talk by Garrett Bucks, founder of The Barnraisers Project and author of The Right Kind of White, a revelatory memoir that earnestly reckons with whiteness. As the product of progressive parents and a liberal upbringing, Garrett Bucks prided himself on the pursuit of being a “good white person”: the kind of white person who treats their privilege as a responsibility and not a burden; the kind of white person who people of color see as the peak example of racial allyship; the kind of white person who other white people might model their own aspirations of being “better” after.

But it’s Bucks obsession with “goodness” that prevents him from building meaningful relationships, particularly with those who look like him. The Right Kind of White charts Garrett’s intellectual and emotional odyssey in his pursuit of this ideal whiteness, the price of its admission, and the work he’s doing to bridge the divide from those he once sought distance from.

Garrett Bucks is the founder of The Barnraisers Project, which has trained nearly one thousand participants to organize majority-white communities for racial and social justice. He is also the author of the popular newsletter The White Pages. Originally from Montana, he lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with his wife and two children. The Right Kind of White is his first book.