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- Discussing Whiteness
- Whiteness Accountability Space
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This online meeting gathers on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays every month from 12:05 to 12:55.
All are welcome, though it is specifically designed for white people. In these practice sessions we will:
White people have been socialized to repeat behaviors that favor white people and harm Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Because of this, it will take regular practice to turn learning and understanding into habit change and action that will cause less harm to BIPOC community members.
This practice group is different from training or a workshop. A workshop or training has a beginning and end and delivers new ideas or approaches. The focus of this group is to engage and actively apply that learning in an ongoing way in your life. You can attend whenever and as often as you are able. The facilitators will prepare a flexible structure for each meeting to engage participants in personal reflection, practice, and accountability.
In the Whiteness Accountability Space, we invite vulnerability, self-reflection, and confidentiality for the purpose of taking courageous personal action to confront racism.
As we practice, you can expect to experience discomfort. This will not just be an intellectual exercise; we also focus on deepening awareness of our feelings as we practice. Getting used to the discomfort of talking about whiteness as we notice it in ourselves, relationships, and systems is central to the process.
We value and will learn from all the intersections of identity, ancestry, and culture you bring. However, the focus during our time together will be on how whiteness shows up in our lives.
The skills we will practice to deconstruct and confront whiteness will also help in efforts to confront all other forms of oppression, exclusion, and supremacy (such as ableism, capitalism, cis-heteropatriarchy, and classism, etc.)
The facilitators are: Loren Collins (loren.collins@humboldt.edu), Tim Miller (tim.miller@humboldt.edu), Rachel Montgomery (rachelm@hafoundation.org), Meridith Oram (meridith.oram@humboldt.edu), Chuck Powell (chuckjpowell@gmail.com), Sarah Peters Gonzalez (sarahpg@humboldt.edu), and Len Wolff (riverwolf1951@gmail.com). If you have questions, please feel free to reach out to any of us directly.
Dr. Tema Okun’s webpage is a resource that we reference to support our practice. To get an idea of topics we address in the group, please refer to White Supremacy Culture.
Below is a list of resources that have been shared and/or used during the Whiteness Accountability Space sessions. Familiarity of these is not required for people to attend future sessions.
Dr. Bettina Love
Small Groups
Whole Group
We Want to Do More Than Survive by Ibram X. Kendi
How to Be an Antiracist by Ijeoma Oluo (author of So You Want to Talk about Race)
So You Want to Talk about Race by PBS News Hour interview with Ibram X Kendi (How to be an Antiracist) and Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility).
White Fragility by 
Stamped from the Beginning by with john a. powell, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley
What resonated with you?
What did you hear that was new to you?
What are the implications of your understanding of the function of whiteness?
How does this impact your perception of who benefits from the existence of racial categories?
Racing to Justice by The Fall 2020 Big Read was held in Humboldt County (virtually) during October and November of 2020.
"The National Endowment for the Arts Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. The main feature of the NEA Big Read is a grants program, managed by Arts Midwest, which annually supports community reading programs, each designed around a single NEA Big Read book."
Several events occurred during the Big Read around Claudia Rankine's book, Citizen: an American lyric.
Citizen by 
Blackballed by