[Sosfbay-discuss] Dismantling Racism Workshop Held by Green Party at National Meeting

[JamBoi]

I attended this workshop, and got a LOT out of it.  It
is my hope in this county party we will actively
combat racism and work to incorporate people of color
and related issues into our activism and our
leadership.


Green is colorful!

Drew

Dismantling Racism Workshop Held by Green Party at
National Meeting

Extracted from a report by Isabelle Buonocore who
attended the workshop.
For the full report, email:
isabellebuonocore at hotmail.com

The Green Party of the United States offered a
Dismantling Racism Workshop, July 11-13, 2007 , at its
annual national meeting in Reading , Pennsylvania . It
was an intensive 18-hour workshop, held over 3
consecutive days, with attendees working together and
having meals together. There were 29 participants, 45
percent of whom were people of color, and 39 percent
were non-Green Party members who came from places in
Pennsylvania as close as Reading and as far as
Harrisburg .

Rita Harris, a woman of color from Tennessee , and
Bill Price, a white man from West Virginia ,
facilitated the workshop. They took turns providing
information and facilitating group sharing and
discussion. In one of the workshop sessions, Rita and
Bill facilitated separate color and white caucuses
giving people a chance to "work" within their own
identity group. Rita and Bill are professionals who
work for the Environmental Justice Program of the
Sierra Club.

The workshop began on a Wednesday with a private
dinner buffet in the same room that cloistered the
participants for all their workshop sessions till noon
on Friday.

The workshop dealt with individuals' experience, lack
of experience, consciousness, and denial of racism. It
examined racism in assumptions, communication, and
practices from the personal to the cultural and
institutional. The cycle of oppression and "white
privilege" were concepts that we explored. We also
discussed the meaning of "white allies" and what white
people and people of color might do on a personal and
organizational level to confront racism. The grinding
effect of racism on the lives of people of color, the
lack of awareness of white privilege by whites, and
the impact of both was discussed.

One of the Dismantling Racism Workshop sessions
addressed the subject of "white allies" for people of
color (white persons who do not remain silent but
confront racism). We shared our experience of how
people of color and white people are treated when they
bring up the need to address racism in predominantly
white organizations. When a person of color brings up
racism it is seen by whites as self-serving. To be a
white ally for people of color is to risk having other
white people not like you.

The last workshop session was about actions Greens
could take toward dismantling racism, and how we could
work to transform our organizations to be fully
inclusive. The list of some of what we could do is
long, but here are a few things. Become better
educated about people of color. Read publications by
people of color - outside the white canon of writers.
Listen to what people of color have to say. Interrupt
"jokes" about people of color and ethnic groups. At
all future Green Party Annual National Meetings, have
racism on the agenda either as a workshop or a panel
presentation. Have strategic meetings with Greens who
think "we don't have a problem." Don't stifle anger,
it represents something that needs to be heard;
determine what that is. Primarily we must keep in mind
that we cannot expect change if we keep doing things
the same way.

___________________

JamBoi: Jammy, The Sacred Cow Slayer
The Green Parties' #1 Blogger
http://dailyJam.blogspot.com

"To the brave belong all things"
Celt's invading Etrusca reply to nervous Romans around 400BC

"Live humbly, laugh often and love unconditionally" (anon)


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