March 2025: The Transformative Power of Storytelling

As nature starts to bloom and grow all around us, we want to take a moment to thank everyone who has joined a recent gathering. Your presence helps create a space where new ideas, feelings, and understandings can take root—a space that counters the shame, guilt, and discomfort that can sometimes arise as we reflect on and unpack our racial conditioning.

Before diving into this month’s prompt, we want to share a story that stood out from a recent gathering:

"Two months ago, if someone told me they didn’t believe racism was real, I would’ve responded with theories, data, and definitions—doing everything I could to prove them wrong. But recently, when someone expressed skepticism about racism, I shared a story instead. I told them about a client I worked with who admitted she, a woman of color, had a bias against people with dark skin. Later, a dark-skinned woman she managed came up to me and said, ‘I don’t know what you did, but things have completely turned around.’ Instead of arguing, the person I was speaking with just took in the story. And the best part? I think it left the door open for future conversations.”

We love this story! And it’s the perfect lead-in to CWC’s third Element of Antiracism Practice (and this month’s prompt): sharing stories.For many of us, self-reflection and storytelling have been game-changers in our anti-racism journeys. That’s why storytelling is a key part of the CWC framework. But it’s not just about speaking—it’s also about deep listening. Hearing each other’s stories helps us practice empathy, connect the dots in our own personal histories, and expand our perspectives.

To get us thinking about storytelling, here are three quotes:

“There’s a kind of medicine to which we all have access: our own story.” – Edgar Villenueva, Decolonizing Wealth

“We believe that the most profound and potentially the most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.” – Loretta Ross, as quoted in The Persuaders by Anand Giridharadas

“The willingness to own up to the fictional nature of our story is where the healing begins.” – Peter Block, The Community: The Structure of Belonging

Here are a few questions to help guide our reflections:

• What stands out to you when you read these quotes?

• Has a particular story ever deeply inspired you? What made it resonate—was it the content, the delivery, the connection to the storyteller?

• In what ways might your own story be “fictional in nature”?

• Can you recall a time when sharing your story helped you connect with someone?

There’s so much research showing how storytelling impacts individuals and communities. When we see ourselves in each other’s stories, we open the door to rethinking long-held beliefs and acknowledging the ways we’ve all been shaped by a culture of oppression and hierarchy.

So, come share your stories—about stories! And if storytelling doesn’t speak to you this month, come anyway and tell us why. That’s a story, too. 🙂

“In the work of racial healing, we soon discover that we have inherited what’s unfinished from our parents and ancestors. The meaning of our practice is deepened when we remember that we are not just doing this inquiry for ourselves. Bringing an ancestor with us can support our mindfulness of racial inquiry and healing.” – Ruth King, Mindful of Race