Program
Overview
Join Dylan Wilder Quinn & Jennie Pearl for a 4-month relational program on building resistance & resilience for white people working on undoing our racism.
We will focus on relationship building, sharing strategies for working with other white people in our lives, processing our whiteness present in the room, & moving through the elements of White Supremacy Culture, compiled by Kenneth Jones & Tema Okun and their collaborators, over the course of the 4 months.
Undoing Our Whiteness
In Holistic Resistance, we believe that building long-term relationships & deep, real connections are key to doing anti-racism work.
Specifically, we've discovered the critical importance of white people learning to build long-term community with each other while normalizing conflict & undoing our whiteness together.
We cannot do anti-racism work without a deep understanding of our relationship to other white people & our own internalized whiteness.
Part of a Larger Vision
This is one part of a larger series of workshops, creative work, & actions co-created with Aaron Johnson & Porsha Beed that focus on Black liberation called Holistic Resistance, & we are accountable to Aaron & Porsha in this program.
Holistic Resistance offers programming for both POC & white people. Some of the programming is directly facilitated by POC leadership & some of it is accountable to POC leadership but guided by white facilitators.
In This Program We Will:
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Foster community to dismantle the myth that we can do this work alone or in isolation.
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Practice reaching for white people using strategies that connect us in long-term community, as opposed to shaming and blaming people out of the movement.
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Delve into the power of questions and real-life scenarios to deepen your BODY's (not just your mind's) analysis of anti-racism.
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Explore how our own and others’ trauma and oppression are ultimately linked to white supremacy culture.
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Practice centering POC in a room even when POC are not present - a necessary part of our long-term work.
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Practice undoing white supremacy culture in the room, like naming perfectionism and practicing being in conflict together, so that we don’t put the burden of this work on POC.
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Use mindfulness and embodiment to create long term resilience and anti-racist patterns in our bodies.
Program Details
This program takes place over the course of 4 months
*Cohorts are typically 8-12 participants*
16 Zoom Calls
with the Full Group
Relationship building & white supremacy culture curriculum as we outlined above, plus whatever needs & processes are present in the group that day.
2:1 Coaching Sessions with Jennie and Dylan
Each participant will have a 2:1 with Jennie and Dylan to more deeply explore the themes of our program, your own individual growth, & how to support you in your anti-racism work in your community.
Monthly Buddy Calls
with another Participant in the Group
Practice reaching for other white folks in this work, get support & accountability around your anti-racism work in your community, & deepen relationships & your sense of connection to our community.
Important Note from Aaron and Porsha
Holistic Resistance believes there needs to be a place for white folks
to be with each other & work on our material.
AND...it does not erase our work with POC-led leadership & movements.
We should respect this process as a portion of our work, not the complete picture.
White people working with accountability is an essential piece
of not putting the burden exclusively on POC to help white folks unlearn our racism.
We invite you to not leave it to People of Color to ask you
important questions about your whiteness.
We also invite you to recognize questions & feelings
that are better kept to yourself & harmful when in the presence of POC.
We have been asked by POC to ask better questions of our white peers
& really listen to the answers we hear in our communities. This series is an opportunity for white folks
to practice that in real time and to cultivate deep, long lasting relationships along the way
DATES
of the Group Zoom Calls:
Sundays, 4-6 PM Pacific Time
July 9th-November 19th
INTEGRATION WEEKS (NO MEETING): 1st Sundays of each month: August 6th, September 3rd., October 1st, November 5th
Dates of program:
July 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th
August 13th, 20th, 27th
September 10th, 17th, 24th
October 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th
November 12th, 19th
Dates of the 2:1 coaching sessions & participant calls are flexible.
***All Group Sessions will be Recorded.***
Since this is relationship-based, and learning how to process this material live in community is part of our work as white people, we encourage you to participate live as much as possible.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY
DOW gives me a firm grounding in a community where I can be vulnerable and practice building new skills in anti-racism that disrupt not only white supremacy within myself, but in the people around me and in wider systems and structures as well. Since starting the group, I have begun to notice and shift the ways my whiteness manifests as well as a transforming the ways I approach fellow white folks to call them into this work. A valuable and necessary use of your time.
DOW offers a glimpse beyond white supremacy culture. Dylan and Jennie work well together to slow things down with deep questions and thoughtful groundings. This group offered a container where I felt my edges of bringing more of my full self into a space and navigating how to track and care for folks in community. This longer series of community building provided a solid place to return to to hold the complexities of both loving white people and holding one another accountable.
When I came into the program I knew I had whiteness written all over me. But Jennie and Dylan helped me realize two key things: first, that white supremacy is not only expressed in my thinking, but also in my emotions and in my body. Second, the scenarios of human interactions we worked through as a team showed me how to be curious about a person's actions, rather than assuming, blaming or shaming. Big time, powerful learning.
Payment Options:
$400/month for 4 months ($1,600 total)
Accessibility is a top priority for us in anti-racism work.
Choose your payment for this 4-month program: we suggest a sliding scale of $200-$600/month.
Pay more if you are able, as it directly allows us to offer this work at accessible rates & funds our other work that we do for free.
Please get in touch with us if you are also in need of further scholarship. We want you in this work! Payment plans are always available - email holisticresistanceinfo@gmail.com to share your payment plan needs.
All workshops that focus on working with white folks on our anti-racism involve a 10% donation to organizations & individuals whose lives are marginalized by racism every day.
Jennie Pearl
(she/her)
"What are our responsibilities as white folks in anti-racism? How do we deepen our devotion to creating another way of being? White supremacy culture will constantly try to suck us back into the ways we’ve been socialized to not pay attention - and definitely don’t rock the boat.
We absolutely have a responsibility to step up as white folks in this work, but how we step up makes all the difference. Transformation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. For so long I was going at my anti-racism work alone. These systems of oppression, like racism, are huge, and they thrive when we are isolated. It wasn’t until I began deeply connecting with other white folks and building lasting relationships that I started to feel my resiliency growing and long-term strategy actually moving into action. And this work can be healing - connection and relationship cultivate another way of being.
Social justice is not just hard work - it is hard work, but when we do it community, it’s also connective. Undoing the notion we can do this by ourselves is healing, and the connection we experience in community generates more capacity for work.
Dylan Wilder Quinn
(they/them)
"I've been in white anti-racist communities where we were so focused on being 'the good anti-racist' that we tore each other apart with our criticism and our perfectionism, got afraid to speak up and be in conflict, and eventually burned ourselves and each other out.
Literally, in so many spaces, our own white supremacy culture keeps us from participating in anti-racism. It pushes us and other white people out of the work, which is literally the opposite of what we need to be doing as white people. It's time for something different - something that's relational and connective, and coming from a place where we ALL as white people have work to do.
It's time to support each other, to share strategies and create a sense of community based in ending racism. White people, we've got work to do.