Compiled on February 21, 2021
Our decision to initiate a Discussion Group came from our workshops with the Anti-racist Educators–Corrie Wallace, Sarah Dennis, Yvonnie Dubose and Jena Doolas.
We had been helping The Institute for Non-Violence by giving them Christmas presents and working in their Christmas shop. We wanted to have more interactions with them; but realized, as we learned more, that, before we engaged further with them and other helping agencies, we needed to be aware of our own racist biases and to study the history of racism.
Here’s a list of all of the things we’ve done to reach our current place of evaluating and planning for the future of the Discussion Group:
- April 2019—Corrie Wallace, an anti-racist consultant with numerous area school systems, including in Evanston and here at D207, led us in an interactive workshop to explore racism.
- Summer 2019—Jena Doolas led a book discussion of What It Means to be White.
- November 14, 2019—We held a panel Discussion with Sarah Dennis, Yvonnie Dubose, Letesha Dickerson and Jena Doolas to teach us how unconscious bias affects us all.
- Sarah Dennis led a book discussion of Showing Up for Racial Justice.
- During the winter we conducted discussions led by Nan. We read:
- So You Want to Talk About Race—Ijeoma Oluo
- Just Mercy—Bryan Stevenson (Some of us also saw the movie.)
- Home Going—Yaa Gyasi
- Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race—Debby Irving
- How To Be Anti-racist—Ibram Kendi
- We saw:
- “When They See Us”—film
- “The Hate You Give”—film
- “The Long Shadow”—film.
- Shame of Chicago” and “The Color Tax” and “No Place to Live” by Bruce Orenstein
- On June 6th we participated in the Prayer/Peace Vigil organized by the Ministerial Association and in a Black Lives Matter rally on June 27th.
- In November we participated in the library presentation with Ibram Kendi.
- In December Sarah Dennis and Yvonnie Dubose conducted a Healing Circle with several Discussion members.
- In January and February, we combined the Discussion Group and the General Meeting by hosting Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and Jerry Kellman to discuss “Building the Beloved Community”.
- In March, we are planning to once more combine the Discussion Group and the General Meeting with a training with the Institute for Non-violence.
actionridgepr.com 