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White Awake's annual foundations course
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Roots Deeper Than Whiteness
- building emotional strength & political clarity for collective liberation -
Online Course with White Awake
Facilitators: Eleanor Hancock and David Dean
FIRST SESSION IS NEXT SUNDAY, OCT 10 and homework for the session is posted. If you're thinking of attending, and want to attend the first session live, register and begin to prepare today!
If you're already registered, we hope you'll share this invitation with others! Participating alongside friends, family and colleagues is a great way to integrate the material.
“If you don’t know who you are, society will tell you, and then you are lost.”
– Emilio Guerrera
In the current historical moment, with multiple crises coming to a head, white people have a pressing need to connect with our basic humanity and separate ourselves from the status-quo-supporting roles we are socialized and manipulated to play.
Roots Deeper than Whiteness is White Awake’s annual foundations course, designed to help white people reject the role we have been groomed to fill and build a healthy sense of self rooted in liberatory knowledge and practice. Many of our other online courses expand on the three essential themes that are covered in the Roots Deeper curriculum: developing emotional resilience and an innate, political wisdom; connecting personal and family stories to a broader historical and political analysis; and familiarization with basic elements of solidarity-based action for positive social change.
This is a good course for white folks at all stages of political development, whether you are new to anti-racism or have years of experience in activism, organizing, and/or working class politics. It is also a great introduction to White Awake’s work, and can be a powerful curriculum for group engagement.
The goal of the class is to support your (or your group’s) engagement in multiracial, solidarity-based organizing for a world where everyone thrives. In service of this goal, the course offers:
- A broad political analysis that prioritizes solidarity (i.e., “we are all in this together”) and uncovers the centuries-long use of racism as a tool of the most powerful to divide and control the rest of us
- Historical understanding of the creation of white racial identity, and the opportunity to reflect on what was lost when our families assimilated into it (including the loss of ethnic identity and radical political tradition)
- Hidden histories of resistance, self-determination and multi-racial movements for social change that we can claim and carry forward
- Tools to help understand and care for your emotions so that you can respond rather than react in emotionally charged situations
- Support for creating an action plan to build on the work of this class and personally engage in the work of social change
~✵~
* Because "Roots Deeper than Whiteness" focuses on the legacy and socialization of white identity as it is experienced by people socially categorized as white, live sessions of this course will be held as a white identity caucus. For more information, see our ground rules for live session participation.*
✵Supplemental Mindfulness Training✵ with meditation instructor Byron Wild will be offered as an optional component of the course. Emphasis will be placed on mindfulness as a practice for resilience and transformation within the context of collective struggle for an equitable society.
Training consists of two separate meetings between live sessions of the course and half an hour of mindfulness instruction before each live session. All registered participants will be invited to attend.
Live sessions: Oct 10, Oct 24, Nov 7 & Nov 21
4-6:30pm ET (1-3:30pm PT)
Sliding scale $80 - $280 fee for course
No one turned away for lack of funds
Click here to register on our site
Sessions will be recorded. Live attendance is not mandatory.
Please note: White Awake is a US based organization. While we often have participants join us from other parts of the world (which is a delight and an honor!), if you join from outside the US you will need to do some translating between the work of this course and its application to your location.
Meet the Facilitators:
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Eleanor Hancock
Eleanor Hancock is the founder and director of White Awake: a project that brings contemplative spiritual practice to anti-racism materials specifically designed for people socially classified as white.
Eleanor’s leadership grows out of years of experience as an activist, academic, artist, educator, and mother of a biracial child. She has trained directly with Joanna Macy in the Work that Reconnects, and integrates this experiential, deep ecology practice into her facilitation of race-based group work.
Building White Awake from a small website to an organization of national and international significance has put Eleanor in a position to learn from a wide variety of leadership in a concentrated period of time. For more on how Eleanor frames her work, you can listen to this recent interview on the 10% Happier Podcast with Dan Harris.
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David Dean
David Dean is Associate Director of White Awake and is passionate about supporting activists to build the powerful alliances our movements need to win. Since joining the organization in 2017, he has taught courses for more than 3000 participants. His message is grounded in rich historical analysis and personal experience.
David is author of the essay Roots Deeper Than Whiteness, a companion piece to this course, and is currently writing a book that expands upon it. He has spent much of his life supporting community-led efforts for racial justice and indigenous sovereignty.
David was shaped most by his parents' love and his upbringing in Quaker communities. He loves to facilitate others' discovery of their own inherent goodness and power to create social change. Learn more about him at davidbfdean.com.
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To read more about White Awake's mission and organizational oversight, see our About page. You can also reach out directly to: in...@whiteawake.org
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Sometimes we are asked "why do you charge for your work?"
White Awake focuses on education. We help promote a clear understanding of how global, corporate capitalism is the driving force behind the structural inequity of these times. We shed light on how white supremacy perpetuates inequity by dividing those of us with common interests, making it difficult to replace capitalism with a system that serves our mutual well being.
White Awake and our instructors support a transition away from global, corporate capitalism; we support reparations to historically targeted groups, communities and Peoples; and we make our work available to all regardless of financial means.
We believe the work that we do is significant, and we want to do it well. To this end, we charge a modest fee for our online workshops, and solicit donations from our participants and supporters, in order to meet our financial needs. This allows White Awake staff and instructors to focus their time and energy on the educational work this project promotes, for the benefit of all.
If you have further questions, please contact: in...@whiteawake.org
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Photo credits
Ellis Island immigrant photos are by Augustus Sherman, chief registry clerk at Ellis Island from 1892 – 1925 / photo of The National Welfare Rights Organization marching to end hunger as part of the Poor Peoples Campaign in 1968 is from the Jack Rottier photograph collection courtesy of George Mason University Libraries
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Copyright © 2021 White Awake, All rights reserved.
White Awake combats white supremacy by focusing on educational resources and spiritual practices designed to engage people who've been socially categorized as "white" in the creation of a just and sustainable society.
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