2020 Series: White Supremacy Culture

Unlearning Circle: Perfectionism

In July 2020, UWSA held the first in a multi-month Unlearning series that will explore how people, and white people in particular, have been racialized and socialized in white supremacy culture. We ground these circles in the work of Tema Okun and others, such as Kenneth Jones, and Daniel Buford of the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, who have outlined these characteristics. Our discussion will focus on how these aspects shape our cultural norms: how we think and act, and how they show up in our institutions and our communities.

We begin this series with a reflection of white folks’ internalized sense of urgency because, over the past month, many white people are “waking up to racism.” With so many white people urgently wanting to become “anti-racist”, how can we, as white folks, harness our energies to support the racial justice work led by communities of color who have been fighting white supremacy for generations?

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.