2015 Association for Women in Psychology Conference

This 4-hour workshop provides in-depth preparation for the AWP IMP-sponsored session during regular conference hours. The workshop, facilitated by White Women in addition to a Woman of Color, uses a combination of psychoeducational and experiential approaches to raise critical awareness around White Women’s privilege. The first step in unlearning racism is to acknowledge that as White Women, we have all internalized racist messages to some degree. Through dialogue, our agenda as facilitators is to help each participant identify where you are in the process of unlearning and challenging racism as White Women. We will also discuss what it means to be White and explore examples of White privilege, distinguish between overt and covert racism, identify the process of racial tokenism, discuss principles of anti-racist action and advocacy, and provide strategies for overcoming racism within our communities and ourselves. As facilitators, we will encourage personal racial self-analysis and awareness with a critical consciousness through multimedia material, handouts, and opportunities for small and large group work. We are aware that White Women attending this workshop may be at different stages in unlearning racism, and recognize this material is inherently intense and oftentimes uncomfortable. Thus, we encourage self-care throughout.

Many feminist scholars strive to create safe classroom environments that deepen students’ awareness, and raise critical consciousness about the ways societies disperse social power within hierarchies across the world. In order to support a community of teaching pedagogy that promotes this awareness, the purpose of this workshop is to share specific tools and techniques that have found to be successful in classrooms when discussing issues such as identity, inequality, social power, oppression, and privilege. This interactive workshop aims to introduce attendees to four teaching tools focused on raising the critical consciousness of undergraduate and graduate students in classrooms. These activities may also be adapted for use with community groups or in workplace settings. Workshop attendees will have an opportunity to participate in each simulated activity. Each experiential learning activity will begin with an exercise that either requires participants to become aware of their power and privilege or simulates a real world experience that replicates systems of privilege and oppression. This will be followed with a facilitated discussion about how the participant’s social identity is implicated within systems of social power; this discussion will model practices that can be used in classrooms and other group settings. The workshop will conclude with a facilitated conversation about the heightened awareness that came as a result of participation in the exercises. Facilitators will provide attendees with materials on how to run the activities, and suggestions about how to use them in different classrooms.

Confronting our areas of ignorance and making mistakes is inevitable and necessary for our growth in activism work. At the same time, many of us have witnessed the “call out culture” of social justice spaces, in which members of our communities are silenced, superficially told to “check their privilege,” or shunned when they have unknowingly enacted a microaggression. As feminist scholars and therapists, we are inspired by writer Ngọc Loan Trần’s practice of “Calling In” – a compassionate, connecting way of inviting people to reflect on the relational and community effects of their words and actions - as a transformational response to microaggressions that occur within activist spaces. Aligned with principles of restorative justice, the focus of calling in is addressing and healing the impact of hurtful acts within a community, rather than on punishing an “offender.” We propose that calling each other in, instead of simply calling out, can facilitate repair and reconnection following a microaggression, promote greater openness and creativity in activist communities, and contribute to building sustainable social justice movements. This experiential workshop will offer participants opportunities to explore ways to be effective allies, activists, and restorative justice workers when working in multiracial coalitions and restorative justice movements. Participants will critically analyze power dynamics and the impact of “call out culture” in social and restorative justice work and communities. Through our explorations, we will learn principles of Ngoc Loan Tran’s practice of “Calling In” and discover ways to create more relational and healing spaces within social change movements. Participants will be invited to apply principles of “Calling In” in pairs and small groups throughout the workshop.