Whiteness workshop: Getting ready for holiday discussions

From Tina McKim

​White folks, let’s talk about whiteness and white supremacy.* Let’s talk about how it shapes our lives and the lives of people of color every day. Let’s talk about whiteness in Bellingham, in our homes, in our communities, in our nation.

Let’s talk about how to speak up for racial justice loudly in white spaces. And let’s learn how to be better listeners when people of color (POC) are speaking and leading.

Let’s take responsibility to dismantle white supremacy in our white communities, while centering people of color and supporting POC-led movements.

This workshop will be held on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 7-8:30 p.m., at the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center (1220 Bay Street).

We plan to host regular meetings for white folks to work together to educate ourselves about whiteness, white supremacy, and the work we need to do to dismantle systems of oppression and race privilege. These meetings are a response to calls from people of color for white people to take on the work of educating ourselves and each other – and to stop relying solely on their emotional and intellectual labor to teach us.

For some people, meeting in the final weeks of December will be challenging, so we’re holding a more informal space to reflect on our challenges and opportunities for disrupting white supremacy in our daily lives. Specifically, we’ll practice addressing white supremacy when talking with our white family and friends as we prepare for the holidays and the New Year.

In the upcoming months, we will be planning events to work together to build everyday practices toward:

• Questioning and disrupting the workings of whiteness
• Breaking white silence
• Centering the voices and efforts of people of color
• Creating systems of accountability and responsibility
• Building a local network of informed white people who are committed to racial justice

*White supremacy is a complex system of oppression that has been supported by processes of colonialism, antiblackness, and xenophobia. Our meetings aim to open our awareness to how these processes play out locally, so that we can better understand our responsibilities to work toward racial justice here in relation to broader, nationwide struggles. This workshop is not a place to debate existence of white supremacy and systemic racism.