Group Study: "Unlearning" Discussion Group
This Unlearning discussion group provides white folks in Northern New Mexico a space to explore and unpack issues of race and racial justice.
Anti-racist unlearning opportunities
The work of building an anti-racist world is for all of us. Just as it took a lot of white men to help women get the vote, it is going to take a lot of white people to move our country towards justice for all.
A book group to read Witnessing Whiteness, 3rd edition, written by Shelly Tochluk and released last August is going on now, another will start up later in the fall. https://www.shellytochluk.com/announcing-the-3rd-edition/ The book offers a ton of information to help build a community of anti-racist practitioners. Reading the book as a group gives participants an opportunity to not just read, but to digest with other folks the depth and invisibility of white supremacism in our country. If you are interested in participating in the fall, please email Sarah at Sarahcrawfordgrant@ gmail.com or text her at 505-603-0362. (If you visit Shelly’s website, consider signing up for her newsletter, it comes out monthly.)
For those of you who do not have to time to take a class, here are some suggestions for self-study. As you know, there are a ton of resources out there. Here are a couple.
An excellent podcast you may want to check out: The Sum of Us, with Heather McGee who wrote a book with the same name. 8 episodes on Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/show/19VMtc487rqmrb6GC8eRvd
And a workbook: Do the Work!: An Antiracist Activity Book W Kamau Bell and Kate Schatz. It comes highly recommended by NNM SURJ members! https://bookshop.org/p/books/do-the-work-an-antiracist-activity-book-w-kamau-bell/15834072
Anyone is welcome to join!
No previous study of race or racial justice is required. The only thing we ask is that participants read the SURJ National Values and our chapter's local values so that you are aware of that framework coming into the discussion. You can find those under the About tab of this website.
There Are No Experts
While NNM SURJ members will hold the container for the discussion, there are no experts in this space. We strive to create room for open discourse where we can all talk, ask questions, and be together in the struggle for greater understanding. As we discuss issues related to racism, white supremacy culture, police and prison abolition, Indigenous Sovereignty, and climate justice as racial justice, we hope to better understand the pervasiveness of white supremacy, learn to recognize ways we may unconsciously perpetuate it, and strategize together how we can begin to unravel it in ourselves and the systems around us.
We can't wait to see you and learn beside you.
“White people are taught that racism is a personal attribute, an attitude, maybe a set of habits. Anti-racist whites invest too much energy worrying about getting it right; about not slipping up and revealing their racial socialization; about saying the right things and knowing when to say nothing.
"It’s not about that. It’s about putting your shoulder to the wheel of history; about undermining the structural supports of a system of control that grinds us under, that keeps us divided even against ourselves and that extracts wealth, power and life from our communities like an oil company sucks it from the earth.
"The names of the euro-descended anti-racist warriors we remember – John Brown, Anne Braden, Myles Horton – are not those of people who did it right. They are of people who never gave up. They kept their eyes on the prize – not on their anti-racism grade point average. This will also be the measure of your work. Be there. There are things in life we don’t get to do right. But we do get to do them."
-Ricardo Levin Morales, 2015, for Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) work