8 Guided Conversations About Whiteness, Racism & Antiracism
This community learning opportunity uses mindfulness to explore whiteness, racism, and antiracism in eight guided conversations.
Mindfulness, which will be taught and practiced at each gathering, encourages a gentle but intentional focusing on the present moment while with steadiness observing our thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness can thus help us deal with difficult emotions and situations. Because racism is such an emotionally charged topic, framing the unwinding of whiteness within mindfulness practice invites a kind, non-shaming approach to conversations while engaged in an honest pursuit of difficult truths about “race” and racism.
Mindfully Unwinding Whiteness 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 in public or educational settings to have to offer both training and emotional support to the white people around them” but 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.”
In Mindfully Unwinding Whiteness’s guided conversations, we will pay particular attention to the invention and sustaining of whiteness, and to anti-Indigenous racism, but will also more briefly consider racisms faced by others. Learning resources include Tovi Scruggs-Hussein’s series of articles Mindfulness for Racial Healing – Mindful, Parasram and Khasnabish’s Frequently Asked White Questions, and Michelle Good’s Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada; individual online readings and videos; and guest speakers/session co-leaders.
When/where
6:45 – 8:45 pm Mondays
Jan 6, Jan 20, Feb 3, Feb 24, Mar 3, Mar 17, Mar 31, Apr 14
Free of charge at the Round Prairie Library.
Registration
Details and registration on the SPL website
https://saskatoonlibrary.ca/events-guide/event/12417287
Facilitators
Jeanne Corrigal is Metis from the Prince Albert area. She has worked as a public educator in reconciliation for 40 years through film, storytelling, and teaching. She originated and has twice taught an Unwinding Whiteness course. She is a certified teacher in Insight Meditation and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and has taught mindfulness for 15 years. One of her first teachers in kind, loving presence was Cree Elder Jim Settee.
Susan Gingell is a Euro-Canadian immigrant to Turtle Island grateful to live on Treaty 6 territory and the homeland of the Métis/Metis. At the University of Saskatchewan, she taught decolonizing & transnational literatures in English and Women’s & Gender Studies. A 10-year member of Iskwewuk E-wichiwitochik/Women Walking Together, she helped resource the first Unwinding Whiteness course; completed the Saskatoon Antiracism Network’s trauma-infused antiracism training; and participates in the peer-led Post-Unwinding Whiteness Project.