The book's cover was designed by Andrea Guinn. Photo: Courtesy of Skinner House Books via Liz Cooney
"Through the Lens of Whiteness," is a new book coauthored by Des Moines resident Liz Cooney.
Details: It's an examination of how pop culture images can perpetuate racial biases in the news, social media and even through memes or selfies.
- Readers are advised to accept they're constantly immersed in a racist, white supremacist culture and are pushed to educate themselves.
Catch up fast: Cooney's research started more than five years ago while studying communication and rhetoric as a graduate student at Syracuse University.
- Modern ways of communicating and documenting experiences through visual media platforms like Instagram caught her attention after she completed classes on race.
Zoom in: "We have to, as white people, help educate other white people about our whiteness, and how images are so influential in conditioning us to see things as we think are normal and universal when they are actually just totally steeped in racism," Cooney told Axios.
Of note: Liz is the daughter of Kevin and Mollie Cooney, longtime journalists at KCCI-TV who are now retired.
Talk about it: Reading in Public Bookstore + Cafe in WDM will host a book club reader discussion about "Through the Lens of Whiteness" on Jan. 31 at 7pm.
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