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Resources to tackle privilege Social change Transforming Conflict Understanding power Understanding whiteness

Support Space: Black Joy – White envy

The monthly Support space for white people unlearning racism continues Thursday May 25th 5.30-7pm

Theme:  Black Joy: White Envy

This space is for NVC practitioners, whether you are beginning your journey with NVC or you have been practicing it for decades.

This month we will explore what comes up in our bodies reading this article on ‘Black Joy’ in the pursuit of racial justice and notice disconnection, defensiveness, reaction, envy … and particularly invite enquiry into how behavioural patterns based on envy can show up in our white-bodied ways.  

Empathy and constructive challenge is encouraged. 

Here is zoom link,  or contact ceribuckmaster@gmail.com for more info. 

About Unlearning Racism for white NVC practitioners

Unlearning Racism is a support space for white people interested in NVC and we meet monthly. Info here

It is co-held under the umbrella of pre-emptive work by the Conflict Transformation Weave.

For those of you who are interested in conflict facilitation, understanding systemic issues such as explicit and internalised racism, class, gender inequality, neurodivergence and physical mobility and how different aspects of these identities ‘intersect’ (or ‘crossroad’ each other) is essential.

It’s also essential as a facilitator to have a sense of how your own social identities impact and inform your experience (who can you easily empathise with and who not, as just one example) and a sense of how other people experience you as you show up in all the glory of the intersecting features of your identity.

Categories
Resources to tackle privilege Social change Transforming Conflict Understanding power Understanding whiteness

When parts of your identity fall through the cracks

Falling through the cracks

In our April 2023 Unlearning Racism support space for white people, we looked at Intersectionality and why an intersectional lens is important, particularly when considering the complex marginalisations that happen around race.

Ijeoma Oluo in Chapter 5 of her book So, you want to talk about Race explores personally how

  • Their queer identity may be overlooked by anti racist movements
  • Their black identity may be overlooked by feminist or queer movements
  • Their middle class identity may cause them to overlook poor people in all movements

This is the essence of Intersectionality: it is an invitation to explore our identities in order that parts of us don’t fall through the cracks of connection, and that we might be better equipped to understand other people’s experiences of marginalisation.

What we did in the session

If you missed the session, we watched 3 min section starting at 56 mins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByiEt0hpmkk  (total video length 1hr 18 mins and we will discuss parts of this video in the future)

We then explored these questions:

What would be the areas of identity you might overlook or not notice because they are not part of your identify?

Whose experience would be inaccessible to you because of that?

And What action might you take to counter this or do this differently?

  • For example, I’m a cis-woman, I put my pronouns on my screen as an act of solidarity with non binary people
  • Im an able boded person, I try to name accessibility in venues I use, so disabled people don’t have to always ask for the information they need to come along.
  • I’m a white man. I tend to read books by other white men. I can create change by finding my knowledge and learning in works by black women, or people from the Global South.

We then went on to ask this question

What other examples can you think of, that if you didn’t hold awareness of different identities people occupy, that part of their experience would go unacknowledged, and could create huge conflict and imbalance in life?

Further exploration …. How Intersectionality evolved as a concept

You can watch Kimberley Crenshaw talk about the original case involving Emma Degraffenreid that led to coining the term Intersectionality. https://youtu.be/JRci2V8PxW4 (5.50 mins)

Emma Degraffenreid was an African American who didn’t get a job in a car plant that employed African American men on the factory floor and white women as secretarial support in the office. Her lawsuit for discrimination was thrown out because black men were being employed and white women were being employed. But Emma Degraffenreid faced double discrimination as an African American woman and the law refused to understand her experience and tossed the case out of court. Kimberly Crenshaw advocated that there was no name for the problem, and when you can’t name or frame a problem, you can’t solve it, hence the need for a lens, such as Intersectionality to see Emma’s dilemma.

An ‘Intersection‘ is more commonly used in the US than the the UK. It’s simply where two roads meet, so if the word crossroads or junction provides a visual image that might support understanding, go for it!

About Unlearning Racism

Unlearning Racism is a support space for white people interested in NVC and we meet monthly. Info here

It is co-held under the umbrella of pre-emptive work by the Conflict Transformation Weave.

For those of you who are interested in conflict facilitation, understanding systemic issues such as explicit and internalised racism, class, gender inequality, neurodivergence and physical mobility and how different aspects of these identities ‘intersect’ (or ‘crossroad’ each other) is essential.

It’s also essential as a facilitator to have a sense of how your own social identities impact and inform your experience (who can you easily empathise with and who not, as just one example) and a sense of how other people experience you as you show up in all the glory of the intersecting features of your identity.

Categories
Community conversation Social change Understanding whiteness

Community Conversation – Understanding Whiteness

Thank you for your attendance and/or interest in the Conflict Transformation Weave’s Community Conversation – Understanding Whiteness on Friday 19th November 2021.  


I know many more of you were interested in this Conversation than were able to attend.

We began looking at these Books

In A Race is a Nice Thing to Have, Dr Janet Helms explores 6 lenses of whiteness, through which we interpret racial events, race and racism; and how important it is for white people to understand and free themselves from the ‘rules of whiteness.

She advocates asking the question ‘How is racism playing out in our organisation or network?’

In What white people can do next, Emma Dabiri discusses how overly focusing on ‘performative allyship’ and worrying about saying or doing the wrong thing replaces the solidarity we need.  She explores how we need to be talking about class, capitalism and sources of oppression.  She advocates building a coalition around shared interests, figuring out people’s material needs and working together to organise a workplace or community.


Here is a short video (15 mins) with the framing of the evening.  You also get the questions.

Slides shared are here.


The questions we asked about how white supremacy is showing out in our contexts and organisations are helpful for ongoing reflection.


We are going to co-host an Understanding Whiteness Study Group beginning in January 2022 on these dates Once a month
Sunday 30th January 10am – 11.30am
Sunday 27th February 10am – 11.30am
Sunday 27th March 10am – 11.30am
April – June date tbc

More info here

Register interest here

Categories
Social change Understanding whiteness

Understanding Whiteness Study Group

Understanding Whiteness Study group

After the Community Conversation on 19th November 2021, we will continue the journey of Understanding Whiteness in relation to our NVC practice, there will be a 6 month series of sessions to study and apply to our own contexts

  •   Janet E Helms (2020) A Race is a Nice Thing to Have A Guide to Being a White Person or Understanding the White Persons in Your Life 3rd edition San Diego:Cognella
  •   Emma Dabiri (2021) What White People Can Do Next From Allyship to Coalition  Penguin Random House UK

Logistics

It’s like a book group.

You will need access to both books, either buying, ordering from local library (order now!) or sharing.

We’ll begin in January or February 2022

1 meeting a month for 1.5 hours.

We meet for 6 sessions.

We will rotate hosting the session. If you host the session, your task is to:

  • Come with some reflections on the material to begin the conversation
  • Facilitate ‘something to happen’
  • Clarify chapters to focus on in next session

We will definitely begin with weekend morning sessions and either continue with these or also include Midweek lunchtime options

Please try to commit to all 6 sessions.

The Conflict Transformation Weave (CTW) will continue to support this learning in NVC UK networks. Kate Gard Cooke has also been instrumental  in bringing this group into being, contributing resource suggestions and energy.

The Books

In A Race is a Nice Thing to Have, Dr Janet Helms explores 6 lenses of whiteness, through which we interpret racial events, race and racism; and how important it is for white people to understand and free themselves from the ‘rules of whiteness.

She advocates asking the question ‘How is racism playing out in our organisation or network?’

In What white people can do next, Emma Dabiri discusses how overly focusing on ‘performative allyship’ and worrying about saying or doing the wrong thing replaces the solidarity we need.  She explores how we need to be talking about class, capitalism and sources of oppression.  She advocates building a coalition around shared interests, figuring out people’s material needs and working together to organise a workplace or community.

In the meantime,here are a couple of resources, you can watch/read to get a feel for the writers.

  1. “A Race is a Nice Thing to Have” w/ Dr. Janet E. Helms (US context) in discussion with Maryam M. Jernigan-Noesi (1 hr 22 mins)
  2. Emma Dabiri in discussion (1 hour) with Ellie Mae O’Hagan (UK & Ireland context)
  3. White racial identity and anti-racist education (article by Sandra Lawrence and Beverly Tatum
  4. Racial identity development – facilitator guide (uses the 6 schemas Dr Helms addresses)