SPECIAL COHORT FOR DISRUPTING OUR WHITENESS AND FACILITATOR TRAINING ALUMNI!
DOW EMBODIED: Role Play Cohort
4 month program
Tuesdays 10-12 pm PST
-begins January 25th, 2022
White people are often more emotionally impacted by the idea of speaking up than by racism itself.
When we are stuck in fear, white supremacy wins.
Our fear of interrupting or saying the wrong thing makes more harm and labor fall on People of Color.
This cohort rewrites that narrative and builds a world where disrupting whiteness can be subtle or big, and take many different forms... but it is something that we practice daily.
Practice is a CRITICAL part of getting our anti-racism in our bodies. Take some pressure off by getting practice. In this cohort, we will be focusing on practicing scenarios - both ours and yours - in EVERY session. It's not about performance, it's about ending racism.
This program is for you if:
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You've found yourself freezing while witnessing racism and want more practice showing up skillfully
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You'd like more support navigating the complexities of gender, disability, class, and sexuality and how that impacts your ability to reach for people in racialized scenarios
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You are ready to build your capacity IN YOUR BODY to be put on the spot and respond to situations with care
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You find yourself in real-life scenarios in your life and are ready to slow them down in community and try out different strategies
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Perfectionism is still getting in the way of interrupting racism - you're still finding yourself wanting to prove a point and you feel like you don't have the words to back up what you're seeing as being racist
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You want practice tracking your tone and body language when reaching for others around race
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You want to build your capacity around giving and receiving constructive feedback
What kind of scenarios?
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Practice working with scenarios from Holistic Resistance facilitators
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Bring in your own situations from your life to role play out, or see your peers role play what they would do in your situation
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Practice role playing in small groups or pairs
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Practice role playing with the whole cohort supporting
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Build skills and resilience around giving and getting feedback
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Group role plays to collaborate with each other live
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Holding complex positionalities
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Address real-life challenges and how to work them into a role play in groups or pairs
Feeling Nervous? Notice your tight stomach or heartbeat racing? It's critical to get practice and support WHILE activated in this work. The more you are able to challenged yourself in SUPPORTED environments around racism, the more tools and capacity you will have IN REAL TIME as it is happening in your life.
Program Details
This program takes place over the course of 4 months for 16 sessions, with an integration week partway through.
*This Cohort is capped at 12 participants*
16 Zoom Calls
with the Full Group
Mondays 1:00-3:00 PST
Relationship building & white supremacy culture curriculum as we outlined above, plus whatever needs & processes are present in the group that day.
Support Reaches
with other Participants in the Group
This is the space where you will process, scratch counsel, and support each other in between calls. Build capacity live for reaching for folks with different positionalities and stay focused on dsirupting racism together.
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:
Starting January 25th, we will meet for 16 Tuesdays, 10-12 PM Pacific Time. We may need to occasionally reschedule if an emergency comes up, so please leave the following two Wednesdays after the end of the program free if possible.
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.
We are committed to offering a sliding scale, particularly for LGBTQIA folks, people with disabilities, & people with low income. 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. For more info visit www.dylanwilderquinn.com/poc-solidarity.
Jennie Pearl
"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
"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.