Central Connecticut professor Christopher J. Doucot was invited to be the speaker at the “Central Authors” event at the CCSU Bookstore. “Central Authors,” sponsored by CCSU Bookstore, the offices of the Provost and Institutional Advancement and the Media Center, focuses on CCSU alumni who have gone on to publish several works outside of the campus. With CCSU English professor, Gilbert Gigliotti, acting as the moderator, Doucot spoke about his book, “No Innocent Bystanders.”

Doucot’s book discusses the role of allies within social justice movements and what works and what does not. It also explores the marginalization of African Americans and other races throughout America’s history and asks what can be done by others to improve race relations.

Doucot opened the event by thanking everyone for attending and proceeded to discuss his reasons for writing the book. As a CCSU professor who teaches race, class and gender, he felt that he had to open up talks of reconciliation with other races on his behalf, as well as citing the “Black Lives Matter” movement as an influence for writing the book.

“We need to work to with integrating our communities,” Doucot stated. “We want to encourage white folks to overcome their fears and integrate with other groups.”

Doucot also discussed what he liked to call “The Three R’s,” which were reckoning, repair and reconciliation. These three elements, in Doucot’s words, needed to occur before progress in fixing relationships between races could begin.

At the end of the event, the audience was allowed to participate in a short Q&A session. Questions ranging from what could be done to improve race relations, to asking what else inspired him to write the book and if there were any things that were left out of the final product.

Gigliotti encouraged everyone to come back next time, as the next event would feature a poet.