Jessie Luna was featured by CSU Social on Instagram October 7, and her fan club quickly chimed in. The full text of her spotlight is below, followed by screenshots of comments. Jessie connected with Rams Read earlier this fall as she adopted the initiative’s inaugural book, Citizen: An American Lyric, for her SOC 205 course. In late July, President McConnell announced the launch of Rams Read and offered her thoughts on the book here.

Meet Dr. Jessie Luna, assistant professor of Sociology (she/her/hers).

Hometown: Corvallis, Oregon

What is Rams Read?

“Rams Read is an initiative to get our entire campus community thinking about a topic together. The Rams Read book provides shared material for conversation for us all to engage in. I’ve chosen to assign the book for my students, since this year’s book, Citizen: An American Lyric, by Claudia Rankine fits nicely with one of my sociology courses.”

How does the book apply to your course?

“One of the courses I teach is Contemporary Race and Ethnic Relations. One of the big challenges of teaching that course, and in our country’s conversation about race, is that many white Americans don’t want to have conversations about race, or don’t think racism is real anymore. The unwillingness to talk about and the discomfort of addressing and looking at racism reinforces its existence in systemic, structural, and individual ways. This book is a personal look at a sociology issue. In sociology we often look at studies, data, and statistics about racial inequalities, but this book offers a way to humanize it.”

How does the current book apply to the world at this moment?

“This book is useful in this moment, where there are broader conversations and protests against police violence and racial injustice. We’re seeing people more willing and open to having conversations, and listening in ways many people haven’t been doing until recently. In the book, Rankine explores the lived experiences of racism, micro-aggressions, and the day-to-day encounters that show how a buildup of these single acts is incredibly harmful. She puts the reader into the skin of that experience, and it’s precisely this kind of understanding that I think we need more of right now.”

Why do you support this community read initiative?

“A specific action like this will create more engaging conversations in our university community, and it acts as a starting place for these critical discussions to occur. With RamsRead, many people across campus in different departments and disciplines are given the same foundation for a conversation that we can engage with and respond to together.”