May 2023: Anti-Racism Practice: Renewing Our Dedication
Spring is here and the budding trees and blooming flowers are reminders of our own potential for growth and renewal. For many of us, the commitment to participating in Constructive White Conversations is about maintaining and continuously renewing our dedication to an anti-racism practice. We remind ourselves of this at the start of every meeting when we read the preamble. A CWC participant recently suggested using the Preamble as a prompt and we realized that May - spring! - would be the perfect time to use this idea as a way to take a closer look at where we are in our antiracism and renew our dedication to liberation for all people. Here’s what one of our people had to say recently: "I found myself in a situation last week where a colleague made a remark that clearly (to me) had some unchecked racism behind it. My immediate thought was to call him out and a few words from the preamble came into my head - ‘humility, vulnerability, curiosity, self-reflection and action.’ I took a breath and asked him what he meant by his remark. We ended up having a meaningful conversation. The preamble went from being a great part of the script to being a tool I can use in life." In this month’s meeting, we will ask everyone to take a closer look at the commitments we make in the beginning of each gathering and assess how they are showing up (or not showing up) in our lives. As white people committed to anti-racism:
We take personal inventory of how white supremacy and racism show up in our lives.
We commit ourselves to interrupting our own racism and finding our sense of usefulness in dismantling white supremacy.
We continuously educate ourselves.
We acknowledge that anti-racist living requires humility, vulnerability, curiosity, self-reflection and action.
We do this work to recognize the full humanity of BIPOC, and ultimately, reach our own full humanity.
We joyously dedicate ourselves to liberation for all people.
Here are some questions to help us focus our thoughts:
How are these commitments showing up in my life?
What commitment am I most struggling with and why?
How am I successfully incorporating these commitments into my life? What am I proud of?
What does it mean to reach our own full humanity?
We hope you are inspired by this month’s prompt, but if not, please join the conversation anyway and come to a gathering ready to share anything that’s on your mind.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
P.S. It’s Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! Check out the link to learn more about the history of AANHPI Heritage Month.
"The beauty of anti-racism is that you don't have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it's the only way forward." — Ijeoma Oluo, self-described writer, speaker and internet yeller; author of the #1 New York Times bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race and most recently, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America.
