Curriculum Source

Hearing the repeated refrain from BIPOC friends and colleagues “White people need to do their own work…” cofounders  Lorraine Marino and Antje Mattheus set out to define what that work would be. But they did not do this alone.

Through a network of supportive BIPOC colleagues, educators, and activists, they were able to interview people of color of varied ethnicities—Asian, Latinx, African American, Native American, as well as people identifying as biracial. They also included a range of socio-economics, professions, and political orientations. They asked participants what they wanted white people to learn. The resulting themes of these interviews are the basis of the current approach to the curriculum for all workshops. Though the workshops are facilitated by white people, this system of accountability to, and collaboration with, BIPOC remains foundational to this work. See info on “Accountability.”

The following are themes from those discussions with BIPOC:

  • This Includes:

    • White power and privilege (dominant/ mainstream group privilege)

    • White identity development

    • How racism works at an individual, group, and systems level; how whites keep it going; understand group-level identities and behaviors

    • Understand unconscious as well as conscious racism

    • White superiority: especially with regard to African Americans and other racialized groups; by seeing these groups as "less than," all types of oppressive behavior can be rationalized.

    • Ranking (understand ranking behavior; e.g., marginalized people get “emotional” and mainstream remain “calm and intellectual”)

    • Noticing segregation: Where one lives, shops, works, etc.

    • How “individualism” has affected white consciousness

  • For example:

    • Anger, fear easier to direct at those less dominant

    • Issues un-worked in the white community (e.g., white women and white men) get played out on people of color

  • This includes:

    • Collusion: staying silent when seeing racism; go along and not rock the boat

    • Denying one’s racist programming/ behavior; hard for white people to hear feedback

    • Needing approval from other white people; fear of consequences of living one’s principles; understand effect of marginalizing white people who work this issue

    • Denying differences between white and people of color; quickness to join with people of color: has negating impact, as if saying “my experience is same as yours.”

    • Tendency to quickly differentiate self from other “racist” white people

    • White people doing racial equity/diversity work who may think that they already "know it" can be the most defensive

    • Be willing to acknowledge a person of color’s experience of racism; be willing to examine one’s behavior and impact. Unwillingness to do so creates dilemma for people of color: to stay silent or risk being “the oversensitive/angry Black person”

  • This includes:

    • The self-image white people want can prevent seeing their own racist behavior

    • There is often a gap between white persons’ self-image and awareness of their actual behavior; this impacts their openness to feedback and their credibility

    • Need for white people to develop a reliable feedback system, not rely on how they see themselves

    • Folks doing racial equity and diversity work may express more subtle than overt racism, which is more difficult to address; tendency to deny racist behavior

  • Do the inner work to…

    • Get past defensiveness and self-image

    • Heal the hurt in oneself so it doesn’t bump against the other

    • Be willing to own one’s racism

    • Develop the will to get past fear – of the consequences of living one’s principles, of confronting other white people, of not colluding, of the need for approval from other whites

    • Skill of listening, acknowledging, talking, and changing; hearing feedback

    • Willingness to stay in the dialog, work through conflict

    • Getting past white guilt; don’t let it stop you from saving lives

    • To do ongoing work to keep the consciousness up; easy for any dominant group to lapse into unconsciousness; to continually work the cycle of denial, fear until behavior becomes an unconscious habit

  • This includes:

    • Role of the media: bombardment of images that keep negative stereotypes alive

    • People of color portrayed as incompetent; white’s tendency not to acknowledge persons’ of color contributions; or, to over-compensate by complementing on smallest of things (patronizing); competence as a difficult dynamic for people of color because of always having it questioned

    • Be willing to tolerate differences in speaking, dress, norms without judgment

  • For example:

    • Class/oppression dynamics integrally linked; can’t deal with one and not the other

    • Perception exists that there is only one class of people of color

    • History of slavery and economics linked

    • Talk, awareness, and intent are not enough; no real help; need to take action

    • If serious, need to make a commitment to action; every action goes some place

    • Whether someone’s behaviors/actions are aligned is what gives credibility or determines authenticity

    • Actions do not need to be all grand movements; small actions go a long way

    • White people may not grasp all the complexities of race; but don’t let this stop you from acting and taking responsibility for what has happened and still is happening

  • • Understand systemic and structural, not only individual acts

    • Recognize group-level white cultural behaviors

    • Understand persistence and perpetuation of systems

    • Study history as the context for current issues

    • The intersection of gender and race

    • The need to hear People’s of Color stories: cross-cultural sharing

    • Role of Christianity in racism

    • The interplay of various ethnicities – inter-group dynamics.

Curriculum Focus

The workshops cover three main skill areas: 

Recognition skills – to more clearly see and name racism and racial dynamics in its many forms.
Self-awareness – to understand one’s unconscious racial programming and work with it; to face and work through inner emotional barriers that prevent action; and to develop greater courage and resilience versus fragility.
Intervention skills – how to confront racism effectively at the individual, group, and systemic levels

The Work is Both Inner and Outer Focused.

To become effective anti-racists, Antje and Lorraine felt the curriculum must address inner work. This is also to address BIPOC experiences of many progressive white people acting from unconscious forms of racism or a faulty self-image, which were often denied.  In addition, Lorraine and Antje’s shared a common experience about the importance of making the unconscious more conscious for themselves around the issue of race.

This meant that the work had to include helping people explore their inner world as well as the outer dynamics of race and racism. So it was important to help people explore what they carry inside— to face embedded racial programming and beliefs—and to be able to deal with the emotional dimensions of racism. It wouldn’t be enough to leave racism as an abstraction or as something that “other people” engage in. We often say one has to be both an “inner and outer warrior” fueled by compassion, honesty, not self-righteousness.

The overall approach is based on nonviolent principles, including creating non-judgmental, challenging, high-trust environments where people can deeply explore their beliefs and actions and challenge themselves and one another. Learning to be effective allies and continuing networks of support is also essential to sustaining the work.

The work is now carried on and continually evolves and updates through the skilled facilitators who have furthered the work.

In 2022, the next level of the program was piloted for those who had taken the first level workshop and wanted to deepen their work. Confronting White Supremacy is the next-level program, and includes a workshop intensive, followed by a series of follow-up days. This cohort-based program is also a way to help a group build as a cohort who can continue to be a support to each other in a more ongoing way.

"Memphis" by Ricardo Levins Morales, The 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike, protesting economic disparity in the workplace. This disparity continues nationwide.

“Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect of other cultures.”

— Cesar Chavez, Mexican American labor organizer and co-founder, United Farm Workers