Curated Just for You... In Support of Our White-Bodied Racial Healing Partners

From Rev. Dr. Aliah MaJon:

I believe that the foundation of Racial Healing work, when it is genuine and is coming from true intention, invites us to start with the truth and take whatever time is needed to build our way to trust...

These two cornerstones cannot be skipped over nor can they be speeded up. To arrive at an authentic place of being able to stand side-by-side, the only shortcut that we have is to lead with our hearts.

Simply put, cross-racial partnerships invite us to go from “being woke to being real. ” However, please know that the process of doing that is not at all simple. Everyone involved has to be willing to do their own personal work so that we can show up for what we wish to achieve and, in particular, share the responsibility. Such collaborations are just what the world needs right now. Working across the historical divides is imperative to fix the long standing problems.

For my column in this issue, I want to offer a special bundle that I’ve curated for our White-bodied partners. I have chosen some things that I feel will be informative, useful, and inspirational. And (I should add), as a woman of color, I made the selections hoping I had made good choices... but, how could I know for sure? I, too, am learning everyone's needs. So, if you are a White-bodied person and you have suggestions, feel free to let me know about them. I am always happy to learn new things and grow in understanding!

Speaking of your bundle, please check out the four items that I pulled together for you below...

What is The UNtraining?

The UNtraining is a provocative and compassionate approach to help people discover how to work together in extraordinary ways to end our collusion with racism and all forms of oppression. The UNtraining provides insights and tools for all levels of experience and activism to white people and people of color.

The UNtraining groups for people of color and white people share a common foundational curriculum based on the teachings of Rita Shimmin and developed by Rita Shimmin and Robert/ Ro Horton:

• Multi-dimensional Consciousness — Developing the capacity and ability to hold more than one reality simultaneously
• Oppression 101 — Basic concepts of oppression
• Core Issue — Exploring the survival patterns which control our world view, and which determine how we relate to ourselves, other individuals and groups; and whether or not we have power and confidence to impact our world.
• Basic Goodness — Accessing the quality of belonging and love that is our basic self and being able to choose this spacious self to hold our conditioned sense of shame and fear. Basic goodness is the doorway to mutli-dimensional consciousness.
• Tracking — Techniques for applying awareness to our social conditioning and core issue.
• Working with Intensity — Accessing our entire range of feelings and expression with awareness and with an honoring of our specific cultural intensity caps.
• Inner World Work — Working within ourselves to increase awareness and acceptance of our own internal conflicts and gaining facilitative expertise with these conflicts so we do not project them onto others.
• Advanced Facilitator Training — Ongoing training for UNtraining Teachers

BONUS ARTICLE:
Standing in the Fire: the Spiritual Practice of Untraining Whiteness by Swan Keyes

Going to the Root: How White Caucuses Contribute to Racial Justice
Written by Alex Vlasic
The current political landscape of the United States has made it impossible for us to avoid our racial karma. In recent years, the news has been littered with it: police violence and murder of Black and brown people (which is not new), race-based travel bans and deportations, and the detention of migrant children from Latin America, to name a few. Unfounded in our DNA or biology, the invention of race historically and the current construction in North America divides humans based on skin color and other physical attributes. This division lives at the root of the institutionalized system called racism, which advantages those deemed “white” and therefore superior, and disadvantages people of color (PoC), denying their inherent human worth and dignity. These disadvantages, which manifest as direct violence (against people’s bodies), structural violence (as systems inhibiting wellbeing), and cultural violence (as prejudice and other attitudes that perpetuate the first two), affect people of color’s access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Read the complete article...

Robin DiAngelo | Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm

In Nice Racism, her follow-up work to White Fragility, the author draws on her background as a sociologist and over 25 years working as an anti-racist educator, picks up where White Fragility left off and moves the conversation forward.

Writing directly to white people as a white person, DiAngelo identifies many common white racial patterns and breaks down how well-intentioned white people unknowingly perpetuate racial harm.

DiAngelo explains how spiritual white progressives seeking community by co-opting Indigenous and other groups’ rituals create separation, not connection. She challenges the ideology of individualism and explains why it is OK to generalize about white people, and she demonstrates how white people who experience other oppressions still benefit from systemic racism. Writing candidly about her own missteps and struggles, she models a path forward, encouraging white readers to continually face their complicity and embrace courage, lifelong commitment, and accountability.

Discover more about Nice Racism.

Watch Robin DiAngelo in the video below in conversation with Resmaa Menakem, bestselling author of My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies.