Training for Change: Whites Confronting Racism
Breaking the Bonds of Racism
By Desda Moss, Special to AOL BlackVoices
Following the example of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who strived to create a world where his children – and all black children – would be judged by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin, a Philadelphia-based group called Training for Change is tackling racism by helping people unlearn its harmful lessons.
Founded on MLK’s birthday in 1992 – symbolic of its mission to seek nonviolent social change through education -- the group offers workshops designed to get people to confront racism, their own, as well as society’s, and to learn strategies intended to reduce its damaging effects on the psyche.
The workshops are aimed at reaching people on both sides of the color line.
"Whites Confronting Racism," designed for white people "who don’t want to be racist anymore," has drawn more than 250 participants since 1997.
A new workshop launched in May, "Say It Loud: I’m Black and I’m Proud," was developed for black people who want to work on healing the wounds of racism by "breaking through the self-limiting beliefs" racism feeds.
It affords participants a rare opportunity to examine the impact of internalized oppression, says program director Daniel Hunter, who leads the workshop with Dr. Judith Jones.
"There are messages that tell us we are not powerful enough, smart enough, or good enough," says Hunter. "They are self-limiting beliefs, and they limit one’s ability to effect change and be fully creative and powerful. The goal of the workshop is to support people in examining and challenging their self-limiting beliefs, without getting stuck in the swamp of despair."
Hunter believes there’s never been a more critical time for African Americans to work on becoming better allies to one another. "Our community is more diverse than it’s ever been. We have generational differences, economic differences, divisions in ways that we haven’t seen before. Look at the controversy that things like Bill Cosby’s comments generated. How do we address these divisions, which white racism strongly supports, without papering over them, without being fake?"
During a recent workshop, participants used the characters from a movie to discuss racial stereotypes and how they reinforce self-limiting behavior and survival skills.
"Some people may have learned a survival strategy to stay out of leadership and hide one’s brilliance; another person might pick the opposite strategy of always proving one’s intelligence as a way of gaining respect in a white-dominated culture. Each strategy makes sense, depending on context," says Hunter.
Not having whites in the workshop makes participants more comfortable acknowledging their differences and their destructive assumptions about other African Americans, says Hunter.
"As African Americans, we tend to want to show unity. There is a fear of acknowledging differences. We give people a safe place to notice these patterns and recognize their survival skills."
Beandrea Davis, 23, a Philadelphia researcher, writer and photographer, says she took the workshop for her own personal growth "because you have to change yourself before you can inspire change in others."
"For me, as a woman, as a person of color, as someone whose politics are radical, I often feel like my life is pretty marginalized. I feel like our society eats people, and I can’t get behind that."
Davis, who does yoga, meditation and therapy, says the workshop allowed her to deepen her connections to the larger community.
"It was kind of sad when it was time to leave. One of the things that has stayed with me was the storytelling we did around race. People were encouraged to share the moment when they first realized race was a force to be reckoned with. It was pretty powerful."