:: lectures

Passage Along the Great White Way: What is White Privilege and Why is it Not Exclusive To Whites? by Enoch H. Page

The aim of this talk is to provide some simple ways of thinking about white privilege, a most complex and pervasive phenomenon. I claim that white privilege is not just the flip-side of racism nor is it merely an outcome; rather it literally is the raison d'etre of racism, the reason why it exists as a set of organized practices. I provide examples of how white privilege is sustained and maintained through various forms of denial so that its benefits and beneficiaries are reproduced. I further explain that we might think of white privilege as a social disease, one in which people have come to believe that they must have it in order to succeed. This suggests that along with white privilege we must also be willing to examine our concepts of professionalism and success. What do these ideas mean once we factor white privilege out of the equation? While this social disease initially was propagated by those who strove to create a white race, I argue that the actions of this race towards other groups has not only included racial suppression, but also has increasingly relied on a certain form of racial promotion. As one product of this form of racial promotion myself, I try to help the audience to see that whiteness now floats among the races and that its privileges now can be acquired by some of those who are not white, as long as they meet the behavioral criteria of whiteness.

The Hidden Costs of Privilege: How Racism Harms Whites by Tim Wise

Developed out of Tim Wise's nationally-acclaimed article "School Shootings and White Denial," this presentation will examine the ways in which whites are harmed by their own racial privileges, even as they are given huge benefits, in relative terms, from a system of white supremacy. From the economic costs to society, to the loss of ethnic heritage and family connections, to the social entropy engendered by the sterile, isolated environs of the mostly white suburbs, the costs are substantial. While the harms to whites are nowhere near as substantial as those to racism's victims--people of color--it is still worth thinking about the ways in which the costs of racial privilege ultimately are too high a price to pay for most members of the dominant group. Special attention will be given to the ways in which privilege, by virtue of heightening the expectations and sense of entitlement felt by its recipients, ultimately leaves those recipients of privilege unprepared to deal with setbacks, however minor. As such, privilege creates anxiety, anger, and even rage in its beneficiaries: all of which can be directed either at people or color, or increasingly against ones own family, community, school, workplace, etc. Developing an understanding of the high costs of privilege--even to those who receive it--is an important component of any attempt to build a counter-racist movement, dedicated to the eradication of inequality.

Making Systems of Privilege Visible by Peggy McIntosh
Peggy McIntosh will describe some of her experiences in coming to see and define what she called the "invisible knapsack" of white privilege in 1988. Her talk will focus on the way that several different but braided systems of over-advantage work through institutions and psyches. She has found that when she benefits from a system of unearned advantage, she is usually oblivious to it, under the myth of meritocracy, which is the idea that whatever people end up with must be what they wanted, worked for, earned, and deserved. When she is not benefiting from a system of privilege, she is keenly aware of the knapsacks of privilege on others' backs. For her, as a white person, studying the braids of power in people and in institutions is not a matter of blame or guilt, but a chance for getting smarter about power relations, and also a chance to learn how to spend unearned advantage to weaken systems of unearned advantage.

Against Diversity: Power, Politics, and Privilege by Robert Jensen

In the contemporary United States, discussion of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class often takes place under the rubric of diversity or multiculturalism, which often depoliticizes the issues. The fundamental frame for pursuing analysis of these questions should political not cultural, structural not individual. Instead of focusing solely on diversity, we need to focus on power. Our goal should be not only a diversity of persons and cultures, but a fundamental change in the systems and structures of power.

Subverting White Privilege: White Anti-Racist Activism by Fran Smith
With over 20 years experience as an anti-racist activist in Boston Fran has many strategies to share about subverting white privilege and not colluding with institutional racism. She will discuss action individuals can take daily to dismantle white supremacy and institutional racism.

:: workshops

Saturday April 27th
+ Bias-Based Bullying and Privilege
+ Examining White Privilege: What Is It and How Does It Show Itself?
+ Hate Speech / Free Speech
+ Interracial Relationships
+ Interrupting Our Complicity With Whiteness: How can whites and certain people of color identify their own white privilege and disrupt its reproduction?
+ Men and Whiteness
+ Perspectives on Whiteness in the Queer Community
+ Solving for the White X: Applying Malcolm's Lessons Toward Increasing White Students Racial Self-Awareness
+ Toward Equity and Justice: Mentoring and Teaching Youth
+ Understanding the War on Terrorism
+ Unraveling Internalized White Supremacy
+ White Consumption of Black Music
+ White Guilt: Challenges and Choices
+ White Privilege in K-12 Education
+ Women and Whiteness

Bias-Based Bullying and Privilege
This experiential workshop helps participants understand how bias-based bullying in schools serves as a training ground for society’s “privilege/lack of privilege” dynamic. Bias-based bullying behavior arises from and reinforces an imbalance in power among students, whether it is based on skin privilege, heterosexual privilege, gender privilege, or any other institutionalized privileges. Background materials on bullying, privilege, and intervention programs/strategies will be provided.
Facilitator: Randy Ross

Examining White Privilege: What Is It and How Does It Show Itself?
This workshop will examine that form of racism known as white privilege--how it began with the institutionalized racism that is woven into the very fabric of this country, and how it operates now in average white US citizens. The workshop will start by looking at some historical facts about the early beginnings of this nation--including how the "white race" was invented--and then proceed to detailed discussion of what white privilege is now and how a white person benefits from it daily, whether he or she wants to or not.
Facilitator: Donna Lamb

Hate Speech / Free Speech
In a society with a commitment to free speech, can identity-based attacks on individuals ever be punished? If so, in what circumstances? Answering the question requires thinking about the reasons we value free speech and the harms that result from hate speech.
Facilitator: Robert Jensen

Interracial Relationships
Explore how two women are oppressed in separate ways: one through color and one through society's denial of culture. Hear two very different perspective of how these women view themselves compared to how society judges them. Join in an interactive workshop that outlines the power structure in which we live and how this encourages oppression.
Facilitator: Faith Yacubian and Lisa Harrison

Interrupting Our Complicity With Whiteness: How can whites and certain people of color identify their own white privilege and disrupt its
reproduction?
The object of this workshop is to help participants in a safe environment to grapple with the fact of their white privilege or their desire for it. It assumes that white people and people of color face different issues in their pursuit of white privilege. It also suggests that if whites tend to view the problem one way and people of color another way, then biracial people may be positioned to learn to see the issue both ways. How can we learn to be of any 'racial' composition and still learn to use our white privilege in constructive ways that help to dismantle white privilege? How can we, of different racial backgrounds, help each other to reflect upon our complicity with whiteness and shed that weakness as we progress towards the strength of interracial unity?
Facilitator: Enoch H. Page

Men and Whiteness
In this interactive workshop we will explore the relationship between male privilege and white privilege, and how they impact the lives of white men in our society. We will draw upon the Men’s Resource Center’s 19 years of experience with its mission of “supporting men, challenging men’s violence and developing men’s leadership in ending oppression” to examine strategies for raising consciousness, and changing personal and cultural patterns of privilege and power.
Facilitators: Steven Botkin and Carl Erikson

Perspectives on Whiteness in the Queer Community
This will be an informal panel discussion raising questions around community and recognition, privilege and white consciousness in a queer context. Six individuals will be sharing their perspectives on whiteness in queer communities.
Facilitators: Amelia Ortega, Sarah Eley, T. Aaron Hans

Profiting from Racism: the financial benefits of white privilege
In this workshop, we want to explore how centuries of explicit and legal racial discrimination continue to benefit white people financially even though racial discrimination is officially illegal. What if we could measure privilege in dollars and cents? We believe that looking at the history of racism in this way could be a critical component of the reparations movement. In addition to asking what people of color are owed from the legacy of racism, we could ask, “What have white people unfairly and unethically gained from the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow laws? And therefore, what should white people return that is not ours?”
Facilitators: Cooper Thompson and Emmett Schaefer

Solving for the White X: Applying Malcolm's Lessons Toward Increasing White Students Racial Self-Awareness
The goal of this workshop is to provide White Americans with a structured framework in which they can begin to understand the meaning of race in their lives, specifically the pain and privilege of Whiteness. The presentation explores some of the teachings of Malcolm X and applies them to racial healing for White Americans through increased race-awareness about the meaning of Whiteness.. Aspects of this awareness process includes experience of emotional upheaval, understanding of historical context, and social/political realities inherent in developing race awareness. Discussion of strategies in teaching this material, including attention to resistance, use of presenter's race, and self-disclosure of presenters will also be included.
Facilitator: Gary Glass

Toward Equity and Justice: Mentoring and Teaching Youth
This experiential session will examine insights and practical skills that guide all students toward an understanding of inequity and social injustice in our current society and engender in them the personal responsibility that is essential to actively promote equity and social justice so that they may live in an authentic anti-racist society.
Facilitator: Manuel J. Fernandez

Understanding the War on Terrorism
See bio description.
Facilitator: Boston Mobilization

Unraveling Internalized White Supremacy
Racism is built upon the belief that as white people we are innately superior. I want participants to unravel within themselves the messages that we white are taught, the ones that we refuse to acknowledge are alive and well within us; the very messages that informs our behaviors and convince People of Color that we are generally clueless and often racist. I want participants to dig down deep and face their own internalized white supremacy, to change and to commit to living fully human in our homes, in our families and friendships, in our work, and in our communities… all in 2 hours!
Facilitator: Phyllis Labanowski

White Consumption of Black Music
This workshop is a presentation of her Division III project, "Deconstructing the White Negro: White Consumption of African-American Music from Mistrelsy to Hip-hop. The project describes the white appropriation of African-American music throughout the 20th century, starting with blackface performance, on to Rock and Roll and Jazz in the 1950's. Why have whites always been attracted to Black cultural expression, and why have they often tried to co-opt it and control it? Taking these issues and applying them to the emergence of hip-hop culture and young whites attraction to it and appropriation of cultural symbols, what has changed? How has the increased Black ownership and production of hip-hop, as well as its commercial success changed the dynamic of white appropriation? Through interviews and personal experience she examines the ways in which some whites have benefited from and hip-hop by allowing it to facilitate self understanding and racial consciousness. This is the project in a nutshell. Following the presentation of the project will be in depth discussion of the subject, possibly breaking off into caucuses and coming back together for discussion. It will also include samples from music and film. This workshop is subject to changing and Cary welcomes any input from the participants in the structure of the workshop.
Facilitator: Cary Graber

White Guilt: Challenges and Choices
What do we know about guilt in general and white racial guilt in particular? What is the difference between healthy guilt and unhealthy guilt? When learning about racism, do more White women feel guilty than White men? How does shame connect to guilt? What are behavioral manifestations of white guilt, and what can we do about it?

These are some of the questions and controversies that we will explore in this session. Through written reflections, movement, drawing, sculpting or constructing, participants will begin with a short exploration of their own experience and/or observations of white guilt. We will, on a volunteer basis, gather our collective wisdom and put it into a larger framework. One assumption of this workshop is that understanding the complexity of white guilt can be liberating and move us toward effective action. Follow-up activities for personal development and a bibliography will be available.
Facilitator: Judith Hudson

White Privilege in K-12 Education
An A+ in Whiteness is the Only A that Really Matters: A Teacher and Students look at White Privilege in K-12 Education We live in a country whose history has been molded and designed around the social construction of race-- created by Whites in order to gain and then maintain a system of privilege. Public Education is one of the many tools used to reaffirm this system. One of the main goals in creating our mass public education system in the late 1800's was to create a systematic way to maintain white privilege and teach whiteness. There are many key historical factors that have worked to reaffirm this model and change its many faces as Racism in the United States has become more covert and complicated. In this workshop we will discuss the major historical factors that have championed whiteness. We will also look at the public schools on a more practical day-to-day basis examining how in K-12 education whiteness is taught and rewarded on individual, group, and institutional levels. We will discuss models of "success" within K-12 education and how teachers and other educators teach and award whiteness through classroom culture, curriculum, language, space, and management, cultural dissonance, student / student relations, and general ignorance. We will examine how group dynamics within public education successfully maintain a social culture of whiteness through white teacher dominance, a general lack of allies, attitudes towards "diversity", political correctness, and community involvement. Lastly we will look at the very simple ways that public education acts as an institution to make the group and individual "teaching and affirmation of whiteness" almost inevitable-- focussing on hiring practices, teacher education programs, testing, institutional "solutions", the age old e xcuse "there just aren't any teachers of color out there...", diversity trainings, parent involvement / community involvement, and color- blindness. Lastly, we will look at some of the other institutions that closely interact with schools in ways that reenforce the system all together--- police, community businesses, community groups (boy / girl scouts and other youth groups, youth sports leagues, churches, colleges, etc.) Several high school students will help facilitate the workshop.
Facilitator: Kelley Brown

Women and Whiteness
Theoretical Sisterhood: Feminists Protecting White Privilege Addressing the continued privileging of gender over other social formations within feminism and women's studies, this discussion group will explore ways to recognize whiteness in ourselves and in our worlds. We will also identify ways to become feminist anti-racist activists.
Facilitator: Arlene Avakain

---

Sunday April 28th
+ A Follow up Conversation about Class and Hetrosexual Privilege With Peggy McIntosh
+ Abolishing the White Race: Program for Action
+ Accountability
+ Cultural Appropriation or Respectful Sharing?
+ Examining White Privilege: What Is It and How Does It Show Itself?
+ Igniting (R)evolution with the Spoken & Written Word
+ Making Art and Poetry About Whiteness
+ Spending White (Male) Privilege: using privilege to challenge racism
+ Taking Action... Defining the Problem and Creating Solutions Within Our Reach
+ The Body/Mind & Race
+ The Intersection of Racism, White Privilege and Classism
+ The Legacy of Slavery on White People
+ U ROC if you Undo Racism
+ White People Challenging Racism: Moving From Talk to Action
+ White Privilege: A Spiritual Journey
+ White Privilege in Organizing and Activism
+ White Supremacy in the Pioneer Valley

A Follow up Conversation about Class and Hetrosexual Privilege With Peggy McIntosh
Peggy will expand on her lecture "Making Systems of Privilege Visible" to talk more specifically about other privileges, including Heterosexual privilege and Class privilege.
Facilitator: Peggy McIntosh

Abolishing the White Race: Program for Action
Facilitators: Students for the Aboliton of Whiteness and Noel Ignatiev

Accountability
What it accountability? What does it mean for white folks to be accountable to other white folks? To people of color? To organizations or institutions? Can people of color be accountable to white folks? Also, what does it mean to take leadership from poc? What prevents you personally, (or white people, or institutions) from taking leadership from poc?

Together we will explore these questions, identifying the manefestations of what we have been taought to believe about white people and poc. We will explore the inherent problems that result from uncooperative behavior and actions and will spend some time thinking about solutions. We believe it is important to understand the problem on a deep level before proposing "quick fix" solutions.

This workshop will also talk about the challenges associated with stating "white ally" groups and will provide energy, encouragement and examples to those wishing to lead or co-lead groups of their own in their respective communitites, colleges, churches, etc. There will be plently of opportunity for questions...

This workshop will also be helpful for people who are interested in exploring the concept of accountability in greater depth.
Facilitators: Catherine Orland and Rebecca Emerson

Cultural Appropriation or Respectful Sharing?
Participants of this workshop will be asked to examine the play of power and privilege in the "borrowing" of other peoples' cultures, especially by white folks. We will discuss the vague line between cultural theft and sharing using cases such as yoga, dreadlocks, and hip hop in US white culture. The workshop will pay special attention to the use of Native traditions in the New Age Movement. This is an intense and interactive workshop, please come prepared to do hard, compassionate work.
Facilitator: Robin Scott Lea

Examining White Privilege: What Is It and How Does It Show Itself?
This workshop will examine that form of racism known as white privilege--how it began with the institutionalized racism that is woven into the very fabric of this country, and how it operates now in average white US citizens. The workshop will start by looking at some historical facts about the early beginnings of this nation--including how the "white race" was invented--and then proceed to detailed discussion of what white privilege is now and how a white person benefits from it daily, whether he or she wants to or not.
Facilitator: Donna Lamb

Igniting (R)evolution with the Spoken & Written Word
In this workshop we will use writing (poetry, spoken word and stories) to explore issues of race and identity. We will talk about the ability of poetry and performance to ignite personal, political and social change. In order to create change we must tell our stories. We must open our mouths and speak out. We must make sure we are heard. We must ignite the fire of transformation in others.No writing experience needed.
Facilitator: Nadine Wolf Budbill

Making Art and Poetry About Whiteness
Making art and poetry is hard, and creating work about whiteness is even harder. Discussions about whiteness usually take place in intellectual or activist settings. The left brain is at work there, analyzing, thinking, and critiquing. How do we enter the right brain, the place of play and discovery from which we write, paint, or draw, in order to make art about whiteness? How do we experiment and take chances as we explore the presence of whiteness in our lives?

In this workshop we will practice balancing an awareness of whiteness with the unconditional exploration necessary to make art. Emphasis is on producing a rough draft or beginning sketch that you can take home and develop further. Simple art materials provided
Facilitators: Aimée Sands and John Lapham

Spending White (Male) Privilege: using privilege to challenge racism
In this workshop, we’ll share some stories of how white men have “spent” their white male privilege in the service of challenging racism; the stories are part of our forthcoming book, Just Living: White Men Challenging Racism. We want to explore the idea that privilege can be used, positively, for social change. So, we’ll also ask participants to share some of their thoughts about spending whatever privilege they have.
Facilitators: Cooper Thompson and Emmett Schaefer

Taking Action... Defining the Problem and Creating Solutions Within Our
Reach
Taking action on issues of white supremacy (racism) will be the focus of this workshop, oftentimes we struggle to figure out what we can do as white people this workshop will hopefully get folks to think about how and why it is important to think about these issues, not just for others but for ourselves as well.
Facilitator: T. Aaron Hans

Taking it Home and Living It
Now that you've immersed yourself in two days of learning, exploring, deepening and expanding, come to this workshop and spend some time working the practical and contextual question of "How do I integrate changes and opportunities into my own being, my social interactions, and my instutitional/organizational roles and goals?" We'll take this two hour time period to tell each other the most significant things we've heard and learned, and then help each other to concretize action steps and commitments back home. The session will involve some sitting meditation (to ground us), some brainstorming, and some coaching/creating together. We will also use this practical forum to pay attention to how our patterns of power and privilege arise in the very regular, day-to-day experiences of planning, creating and moving toward action. So we'll use is as a lab for on-going self-reflection as well as practical creation. You may well leave with some concrete action steps, personal commitments, and strategies for ally-ship that you can take home.
Facilitator: Diane Dana

The Body/Mind & Race
Thoughts and feelings of justice, privilege, fear and guilt are experienced on a whole body level as well as in the brain. In this workshop, support your efforts for justice with the practice of aligning your body with your thoughts.
Facilitator: Ellen M. Landis

The Intersection of Racism, White Privilege and Classism
This dialogue will explore how white privilege, racism, and classism intersect, focusing on college campuses. We will explore and share our individual experiences with privilege and class and dialogue about campus issues such as financial aid and socio-economic diversity. We hope to challenge everyone to examine their own racial and class background and to better understand how we can work to change the system of inequality within our sphere of influence.
Facilitators: Livia DaSilva and Erin Whitehouse

The Legacy of Slavery on White People
This workshop will include the screening of a 20-minute trailer that shows footage from the documentary, Traces of the Trade, that Browne is currently producing about her ancestors from Rhode Island who were a major slave-trading family. The film will uncover the hidden history of New England’s multi-faceted complicity in slavery, as well as explore the legacy of slavery in the U.S. today, particularly focusing on what white people have inherited, materially and psychically. The screening will then lead into a group exploration of issues of white privilege that is grounded in historical understanding of how whiteness was constructed in the United States. Participants will be invited to think and talk about their own family histories (whatever their background) and about the dynamics of memory and amnesia in families, and in larger groups and regions such as the North. This will also be an opportunity for those who are seeking to explore and understand the current debate over reparations for slavery.
Facilitator: Katrina Browne

U ROC if you Undo Racism
In this workshop we will model and share some of the key principles we have learned in our community building, organizing and caucus work together: following leadership of color, accountability, integrity, building community, taking action, and working effectively in white and people of color caucuses. We will create a healing space where participants can begin to reclaim their humanity; we invite participants to come ready to share deeply of themselves.
Facilitator: UROC (undoing racism organizing committee)

White People Challenging Racism: Moving From Talk to Action
This workshop welcomes everyone, but focuses on white folks committed to racial justice and doing something about it. Those of us who are white may think that we’re not racist, but racism is deeply ingrained in our culture. We need to re-educate ourselves to make explicit the systems that privilege us at the expense of people of color, and then develop ways to stand against such systems.

The workshop centers on action. We'll discuss and practice strategies for challenging racism in ourselves, in our communities, and in the institutions around us.
Facilitators: Barbara Beckwith and Jennifer Yanco

White Privilege: A Spiritual Journey
White Privilege: A Spiritual Journey was initiated seven years ago by
Rhonda Gordon. Ms. Gordon is the Director of Multicultural Learning at
Hope Church, a multicultural, spiritual community in Amherst,
Massachusetts. The inspiration for this work began with a journey she
made to South Africa. With Ms. Gordon’s guidance, the facilitators—who
all benefit materially from white skin privilege—have developed the
training over time. This workshop is intended to assist people in
seeing the relationship between white privilege and their spiritual
path. We have found that being recipients of unearned privileges blocks
us, as white people, from experiencing ourselves fully as spiritual
beings. By acknowledging the impact of white privilege and asking for
help from a spiritual source that inspires and strengthens us, we have
been able to move closer to both people of color and other white
allies. White Privilege work can be difficult and disheartening when
done alone. We have found that working in a spiritual frame takes us to
places we might never have imagined and lifts our hearts when confronted
with darkness—either within us or without. We do believe this is a
journey. We welcome you as fellow travelers and learners.
Facilitators: Kaitie Gallagher, Stephan Rogers, Luke Ryan, and Mary Ellen Shea, Rhonda Gordon

White Privilege in Orgnizing and Activism
This workshop will address how we as white activists often unintentionally perpetuate racism and uphold white privilege in the language and culture of our organizing. How do the ways we go about starting organizations, reaching out to other groups, and planning meetings, events and protests maintain white dominated spaces and undermine the organizing efforts of people of color? Through a series of scenarios and conversations we will share experiences to help us reflect on our own contributions to white dominated activism, and try to imagine ways that white people can support and respectfully participate in anti-racist organizing.
Facilitators: Molly Hein, Dan Griffin, Irit Reinheimer, Kierin Moscowitz

White Supremacy in the Pioneer Valley
There are different forms and degrees of White supremacy, ranging from the Extreme Right neonazis and other hate groups, to White nationalist anti-immigrant groups and Pat Buchanan, to the Patriot Movement and the armed citizens militias, to the milder Eurocentrism of Christian Right groups.

The Extreme Right does not cause racism in this country—it exploits it. What clearly is seen as objectionable bigotry surfacing in Extreme Right
movements is actually the magnified form of oppressions that swim silently in the familiar yet obscured eddies of “mainstream” society. Racism, sexism, heterosexism, and antisemitism are the major forms of supremacy that create oppression, but there are others based on ability, language, ethnicity, immigrant status, size, and more. These exist independent of the Extreme Right in U.S. society, and can be found anywhere in the United States, including the Pioneer Valley and Amherst, MA.
Facilitator: Chip Berlet