Persia West signed copies of her new book, Just be kind at a launch event in Breeze Brasserie, Trafalgar Street, Brighton earlier this month.
The book comes out of her long years of speaking, writing and consulting on Diversity and Human Rights issues, locally in Brighton and the UK, as well as across Europe. As she says on the back cover, it took her a lifetime to get this simple.
For all LGBT people, in fact for anyone at all, the essential approach of kindness has real power. When I took this on board myself, I found that it really was, as the subtitle says, one way to change my world. Understanding of others is not always possible, nor necessary, I can just be kind anyway, no matter what.
This surprisingly simple, but not always easy message is powerfully expounded in the book, and richly illustrated with examples. I find the writing clear and elegant, always interesting, often touching, and very relevant to how all of us from any kind of minority want to be treated, and treat others.
The book has fifteen short chapters, each looking deeply into a different aspect of the power of Just be Kind, for example The Manly Art of Kindness, which comes from Persia’s own trans insights into the nature of men and women.
Just be Kind seems a good place to begin – at Christmas, or any other time of the year – to change the world. Our own worlds of course, because, as Persia writes, we always have to begin at home if we want to see change in the way people treat us.
Review by Christian Bergmann
The book costs £6.99 and is available on Amazon
For more information about Persia West, CLICK HERE:
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