Anne Braden Anti-Racist Training Program
2015 Session 13: Personal Transformation for Collective Liberation

Required Readings and Video

1. Tema Okun, “From White Racist to White Anti-Racist: The Lifelong Journey”. (16 page PDF*: White_Anti-Racist_Life-Long_Journey_Okun). (bio).
2. Laura van Dernoot Lipsky with Connie Burk, excerpts from Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others. (9 page PDF: Lipsky excerpt_Trauma_Stewardship). (bio).
3. Aurora Levins Morales, “False Memories” from her Medicine Stories. (9 page PDF: Morales False_Memories)
4. Ng’ethe Maina and Staci Haines, “The Transformative Power Of Practice”. (4 page PDF: Maina_Haines Transformative_Power_of_Practice). (Maina bio; Haines bio).
5. Ng’ethe Maina‘s presentation at the Transformative Organizing Panel from the US Social Forum, 2010.  Video (part 3 of 5).  The first 10 min 45 seconds. (On the web at www.thestrategycenter.org/node/5147; also on Youtube). (bio).

Recommended Readings

1. Catherine Jones, “Love Letter to Common Ground Clinic” (4 page PDF: Jones Love_Letter_To_Common_Ground_Clinic). (bio).
2. Dismantling Racism Works, “Giving Feedback” from their Handbook. (2 page PDF: dRworks Giving_Feedback). (bio).
3. Whites Confronting Racism Workshop (Lorraine Marino and Antje Mattheus), “Guidelines for Receiving Feedback” from their workshop manual. (1 page PDF: Marino Guidelines_for_Receiving_Feedback). (bio).
4. Whites Confronting Racism Workshop (Lorraine Marino and Antje Mattheus), “Tips for Addressing Conflict” from their workshop manual. (2 page PDF: Marino Tips_on_Addressing_Conflict). (bio).

Readings are provided free for use by participants studying in the Anne Braden Training Program for Anti-Racist Organizers, a noncommercial, nonprofit educational program. We encourage everyone to buy the works from which excerpts have been taken – please support these authors and publishers.

Author Biographies

Dismantling Racism Works, dRworks, is a collaborative of trainers and organizers who have been facilitating Dismantling Racism work for many years. Using a model developed in the early 1990s by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, what was once a three-day workshop has developed into the multi-year Dismantling Racism process we facilitate today. Under the leadership of all those at dRworks and with the help of literally hundreds of people who have participated in the DR process and are working hard to build anti-racist organizations in communities across the U.S., we continue to develop and strengthen the grounding model that we offer to leaders and organizations who come to us for help and support. DismantlingRacism.org.

Staci Haines is a leading teacher with Generative Somatics.  Staci integrates her extensive study in personal and social change, trauma and recovery and Neuro-Linguistic Programming into this unique and powerful work. Staci is the author of The Survivor’s Guide to Sex, a how-to book offering a somatic approach to recovery from sexual trauma and developing healthy sexual and intimate relationships. Staci is also a founder of Generation Five, a social justice organization whose mission is to end the sexual abuse of children within five generations through survivor leadership, community organizing, transformative justice approaches and movement building. GenerativeSomatics.org. GenerationFive.org.

Catherine Jones was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana and coordinates the Latino Health Outreach Project and is finishing medical school to be a doctor.  She worked in the Common Ground Clinic, the Anti-Racism Working Group of Common Ground and People’s Hurricane Relief Fund.  Catherine worked for many years with San Francisco Food Not Bombs and the Challenging White Supremacy Workshops.  In 2002, Catherine co-founded the Bay Area Childcare Collective, whose mission is “We are committed to providing grassroots organizations and movements composed of and led by immigrant women, low-income women, and women of color with trained, competent, patient, and politicized childcare providers for one-time events or ongoing meetings.”

Laura van Dernoot Lipsky has been working with trauma survivors for two decades. After regularly spending nights volunteering in a homeless shelter at age 18, she went on to work with survivors of child abuse, domestic violence, acute trauma and natural disasters. Also active in community organizing and social-justice movements, she has acquired an intimate knowledge of the toll that trauma can take on those who are called to help.  …  She was worked with community organizers and health care workers in Japan to zookeepers and reconstruction volunteers in the post Katrina New Orleans, from U.S. Air Force pilots to Canadian fire fighters, from public school teachers to private practice doctors. TraumaStewardship.com.

Ng’ethe Maina worked for AGENDA, a grassroots  organization in Los Angeles, from its inception in 1993 …  he helped lead successful economic justice campaigns to win jobs and training for poor people … In 2003, Ng’ethe moved to New York City, where he served as the Training Director for New York Jobs with Justice, and launched the Social Justice Leadership Collaborative with Simon Greer.

Aurora Levins Morales writes, “I’m a writer, an artist, a historian. I’m a also an activist, a healer, a revolutionary. I tell stories with medicinal powers. Herbalists who collect wild plants to make medicine call it wildcrafting.   I wildcraft the details of the world, of history, of people’s lives, and concentrate them through art in order to shift consciousness, to change how we think about ourselves, each other and the world. I am a woman with chronic illness and disability, because my body is unable to handle the toxic load of 21st century capitalism. I can’t crank out books, go on speaking tours, teach at a university, attend conferences, go to meetings and marches, or work an eight hour day. I’ve had to invent other ways to engage with the world. I call what I do homeopathic activism.” – AuroraLevinsMorales.com.

Tema Okun “has spent many years working for and in the social justice movement. An experienced teacher, she facilitates anti-racism, anti-oppression work as a member of the DRworks collaborative. She is an Assistant Professor in the Educational Leadership Department at National Louis University in Chicago and is also active in Middle East peace and justice work with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-USA.” – Tema Okun on Facebook.

Whites Confronting Racism: this anti-racism workshop was designed in the early 1990s as a response to requests made by activists of color involved in Training for Change (a multi-racial social justice training institute based in Philadelphia) that white people work with other white people around racism.  Lorraine Marino and Antje Mattheus created and facilitated the experiential workshop for over a decade and have now passed the torch to other facilitators.  More info at WhitesConfrontingRacism.org.

* Note: number of pages refers to pages within the PDF file to provide a sense of the download size, not the number of pages of readings included. Links to external web sites open in a new page.

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About the Anne Braden Anti-Racist Training
Program for white social justice activists