A White Woman's Journey Toward Racial Equity and Healing

By Adele DiMarco

I’ve been an active spiritual seeker for close to 20 years. Parallel to my early years on the road towards self-discovery was a pull to the “green”(sustainability) movement. I was blessed to be an entrepreneur in my early thirties as a consultant to many environmental organizations that were working to make the place where I live (Cleveland, Ohio) more healthy and whole, working with the “3 Circles” of Sustainability: Social, Environmental and Economic.

As my work continued, I began to notice that in Cleveland (and nationally as well), the “green movement” was largely a white movement. This was concerning to me. The City of Cleveland was then and is now over 50 percent African American. And it was clear to me that many injustices existed for people of color in general. I thought, “If the sustainability movement is going to attend to the healing and wholeness of this place, then addressing the social impact of racism is as important — if not more so — than solar panels, recycling, and bike lanes.”

This drew me to doing more work on the grassroots level and to focus more on the “social” lens of sustainability. I reflected back on myself at age 25, when I moved to Cleveland for graduate school. I moved to Cleveland Heights, which is a racially diverse, fairly progressive inner-ring suburb. It was then that I started bumping up against my own beliefs, biases, and deeply held stereotypes. While living in Cleveland Heights, I would see and meet middle-class African Americans and see African Americans in leadership roles. I had not experienced that in the small Indiana city I grew up in. By exposure to the contrast, I started to see the beliefs I held about black people that were being challenged — that all black people were poor, and not a part of any of the business or government world I grew up knowing.

	Erica Merritt

At the same time, I was growing my capacity as a consultant through training at the Gestalt Center for Systems and Organizational Change. Many of my colleagues were diversity practitioners from across the country, and our conversations were often about race. I was waking up to my identity as a WHITE woman — for the first time in my thirties. Soon thereafter I met and befriended an amazing woman named Erica Merritt. Four years later, in 2012, the two of us had launched a 5-part leadership development program, which we designed and co-facilitated.

At the end of April 2018, six years after our launch, Erica and I closed out our tenth cohort of this leadership program — which is now called PRISM: A Racial Equity Leadership Learning Lab.

And what a journey it has been. I can honestly say that this work has been some of the most profound spiritual growth I have done. The work has helped me shed layers of denial, ignorance, arrogance, guilt, and shame that I had no idea lived inside me and were influencing my thoughts, perceptions, and actions unbeknownst to me. The unconscious beliefs — beyond unconscious bias — were cloaking my heart from embracing the fullness of our humanity. Until I did this work, I didn’t even know this layer lived inside me.

Here are some of the powerful Ah-ha’s I’ve gained in the past six years of exploring racism and my racial identity as a white woman.

• That racism in the United States is much more than individual acts between people that are cruel or demeaning. It was designed as, and operates as, a system. This system penetrates our unconscious beliefs, which then influences our relationships with each other. It’s held in place through dynamics of power and economics.

• That I can be BOTH a good person AND have internalized racism — which is influencing my daily perceptions and behaviors. This is a radical notion, especially for “white liberals.”

• As a white person in the United States, I must recognize BOTH that I DID NOT create the system of racism AND that I am highly likely to be perpetuating it through my thoughts, beliefs, and actions. I may do this at the same time, if I am not aware of how it is operating around me and within me.

• That “white fragility” shows up in the range of emotions white people express when hearing about, and even learning about, racism — such that the emotions stop us from being able to engage in the healing work. This range goes from guilt, shame and sadness to anger, denial, and frustration. Essentially, white fragility is a niche form of low emotional intelligence.

• That while race is a social construct, it is my recognition that, as a white person, I DO have a race. This awareness of my own “whiteness” is what paradoxically helps me deconstruct racism.

• That exploring diversity must include exploring the dynamics of power and privilege that are operating inside of all dimensions.

• That hearing the stories of people of color, what they encounter and endure on a daily basis, regardless of their socio-economic status, can facilitate deep, deep compassion and understanding of how pervasive this system of injustice is in our country.

Adele DiMarco Kious, MA, MBA, is the founder and lead steward of Yinovate, LLC and producer of The Adele Report, a weekly podcast and online TV series. Her passion is igniting and fanning the flames of the entrepreneurial spirit in people who are leading change. As a master coach and facilitator, her strength is working with groups, supporting them to lead transformational change within themselves and the communities and organizations they serve. Click here for more information.