Eight Guided Community Conversations about Whiteness, Racism, and Antiracism
When/where
Day/time: Sundays, 1:30-3:45 pm
Dates: Jan 11 & 25, Feb 8 & 22, Mar 8 & 22, Apr 5 & 19, 2026
Location: Round Prairie Library, 250 Hunter Road #170, Saskatoon.
Registration
Registration required through the Events portal Saskatoon Public Library (SPL).
https://saskatoonlibrary.ca/events-guide/event/13830
Mindfully Unwinding Whiteness (MUW) is intended for “white”/Euro-Canadian participants because, as Ajay Parasram and Alex Khasnabish explain in Frequently Asked White Questions, it would be “unfair to non-white participants to have to offer . . . training and support” to white participants and also “unfair to expect white people to understand the politics of race when the very operation of racial politics in Canada has encouraged them to not think or talk about race lest they appear to be racist.” Please be prepared to answer when registering why you want to participate.
MUW will be offered free of charge thanks to partners the SPL, the Saskatoon Foundation, and the Saskatoon Insight Meditation Community.
Program Description
MUW invites participants to mindfully explore their educations in race and whiteness, and to cultivate understanding of the inevitable internalizing of racism in racist cultures. We’ll focus mostly on the invention of race and whiteness at the outset of European imperialism and colonialism, on interpersonal and systemic racisms, and on anti-Indigenous racism and antiracism. Conversations will, however, attend to a range of racialized identities and invite consideration of racism’s intersections with other oppressions. MUW aims to both foster reconciliation understood as relational repair and build support for Indigenous resurgence. Our sessions will familiarize participants with antiracist strategies, practicing interventions when observing interpersonal racism or systemic protection of the racialized status quo.
Mindfulness will be taught and practiced at each gathering, encouraging a gentle but intentional focussing on the present moment while with steadiness observing our thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness can thus help us regulate our emotions while discussing emotionally charged topics like racism and other oppressions. Framing the unwinding of whiteness within mindfulness and compassion practice invites a kind, non-shaming approach to such discussions while consciously pursuing difficult truths about race and racism.
Facilitator
Susan Gingell is a Euro-Canadian immigrant to Turtle Island/North America, grateful to live on Treaty 6 territory and the homeland of the Métis/Metis.