Hey, so here’s the website!
Why now?
Well, this has been on our radar for years now. We have been facilitating Witnessing Whiteness in the Madison area since 2015. We did it at first, as an experiment.
This was shortly after the murder of Michael Brown and the Black Lives Matter protests. Amy Hunter recommended this curriculum (http://witnessingwhiteness.com/workshop-series/) and book by Shelly Tochluk, that the YWCA Metro St. Louis uses. We got a few local Madison folks to commit to the 11-week series: 6 of us total. It was important, personal, and consistent – which fueled the flames of action for all of us.
We kept offering the series, and we encouraged others to offer the series, and now there are dozens of people who have also used Witnessing Whiteness to fuel their anti-racist practices. Rather than a class fee, we ask that participants tangibly support organizations that are led by, and for, People of Color.
But the work isn’t about the book. It’s not about the classes. It’s about doing the personal, internal work so that we white folks readily step aside, share the mic, invest in all of our community members. We are here to break down this white default culture, norms, and language.
We devote this work to our community, our educators, our families, our teams. We devote this work to the full lives by Black People, Indigenous People, and People of Color. We fully support the call for abolition and the Breathe Act.
This website is simply a means to purposefully shift minds and hearts toward healing, harmonizing, abolition, and solidarity.
-LKO