2020 Series: White Supremacy Culture

Unlearning Circle: Fear of Open Conflict

“We cannot allow our fear of anger to deflect us nor seduce us into settling for anything less than the hard work of excavating honesty…” Audre Lorde 1981

UWSA’s September Unlearning Circle will focus on the characteristic of fear of open conflict in the continuation of our series on White Culture Characteristics. Come and explore how fear of open conflict is both a barrier for our engagement in anti-racism work and also upholds white supremacy culture. This topic will address issues such as our socialization to value politeness at the expense of important changes and how civility shuts down conversations on race. In our unlearning circles, we engage in large and small group discussions to address racism at individual, cultural and systemic levels.

ABOUT UNLEARNING CIRCLES: UWSA’s first Unlearning Circle in the winter of 2017 was created as a place for white people to do the work of reflection and community self-education. As we continue to gather to critically examine our own participation in cultures of dominance, we build our capacity to show up as individuals and as a city-wide community network for Black, Indigenous and people of color-led anti-racist efforts in a positive and accountable way. The Unlearning Circles are an opportunity for white identifying people to explore white supremacy culture and our role and responsibilities in undoing racism. We welcome and recognize the gift of the presence of any People of Color who choose to join us.

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Resources:

White Supremacy Culture PDF https://www.dismantlingracism.org/uploads/4/3/5/7/43579015/okun_-_white_sup_culture.pdf

People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond - Antiracist Principles: https://www.pisab.org/our-principles/

short summary from Robin DiAngelo on niceness and how it is an evasion to real anti racism work https://bigthink.com/videos/why-does-systemic-racism-exist -

A Conversation with White People on Race https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXow7olFyIM&t=234s

Martin Luther King and the ‘polite’ racism of white liberals https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/01/17/martin-luther-king-polite-racism-white-liberals

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What too many white people still don’t understand about racism https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/09/magazine/what-too-many-white-people-still-dont-understand-about-racism/