Writer Robin DiAngelo first coined the term “white fragility,” according to Minnesota Public Radio, in 2011 to describe the ways in which many white people react emotionally and defensively when confronted with issues of race.

Seven years later she released White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism. By very popular demand, C.H. Booth Library is hosting a discussion of that book next week.

According to Booth Library Director Douglas Lord, “Fifty-three people asked me to offer this specific title as a book discussion. So, of course, we responded.”

The discussion is scheduled for Thursday, March 25, at 7 pm. It will take place via Zoom.

Copies of the book are available at the library. The discussion is open to all, though registration is necessary to participate. Visit chboothlibrary.org and then the website’s Events Calendar to find the event and its registration links.

Lord admits the book is “not a traditional pick” for a library book discussion.

“People are hungry to discuss and consider topics that were once taboo,” he noted, adding “It also falls nicely into the library’s new Newtown Together series of programs which seeks to provide educational programs and materials on topics that people care about,” said Lord.

“This one certainly seems to have hit a nerve, and that’s good. We want people to talk about issues, and the library is the place to do that. Part of our mission is to raise the level of civic discourse in Newtown — this fits the bill perfectly.”

The discussion will be led by educator Dr Martha Brackeen-Harris, a former member of Bloomfield Library Board of Directors. She is currently the diversity, equity and inclusion consultant for the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, the Sunday school director of Union Baptist Church in Hartford, and a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

Brackeen-Harris earned a bachelor’s degree from the Pennsylvania State University and both a master’s and doctoral degree from the University of Hartford.

Of the featured book for next week’s program, Brackeen-Harris writes, “Some people love the book and some feel as though Ms DiAngelo pushes a bit too hard. I think that the content provides for a rich discussion.”

Whether readers agree with the underlying assumptions of the book or not, this is a book intended to challenge readers and is designed, in part, to make them comfortable with discomfort. As an excerpt from a reviewer at the University of Kansas put it, “The most helpful thing this book does is recognize how we’ve confused the issue of racism by conflating it with a good/bad dichotomy. Racism, as a system, transcends whether we are good or bad people, and that is a terrific jumping off point for the rest of the book.”