Toronto Women's Bookstore

White Anti-Racism: Working for Change in Our Community Groups, Union Locals
and Workplaces
with Sheila Wilmot

MONDAY evenings (and one WEDNESDAY) in MAY
MAY 5, 12, 21 and 26, from 6:30pm to 9pm @ TWB
Fee: $52 (No Refunds). Enrollment limited to 15 participants.
Pre-registration and payment required. **Please call to register.
Partially wheelchair accessible. Limited sliding scale spots available.

This course is a forum for working together on strategies for anti-racist change in the organizations in which we work, are unionists, carry out our activism and/or volunteer as board or front-line members. Through an integrated process of thinking and doing, we will develop our ideas about white racism/supremacy, as we start/continue to make our anti-racism more effective.

Almost all progressive white people today would not hesitate to say we abhor racism. Yet, after many years of risk-taking, leadership and education on the part of people of colour and Aboriginal people, most whites are still not finding consistent and effective ways to be both an ally and an interested party in anti-racist struggles. A few of us are doing important work in multiracial environments. Others of us are quietly confused or stewing in guilt and uncertainty, while some cast about on our own, unsure of when and how to work with people of colour. And, when it comes to moments of real change, far too many of us end up indignant and resentful about
non-white people realizing hard-won struggles. There are many and complex reasons for this range of progressive white folks' anti-racist (in)activity. The reasons are at the same time historic and ongoing, individual and collective, and have to do with many inner-connected power relations.

With this perspective, the course will be a constructive, challenging & supportive place to look at moving forward on such real-life issues as:
- how do we make employment equity work in practice?
- why are there so few people of colour on our Board even though we've been trying to change it for years?
- when am I "supposed" to step forward on racism and when do I "wait" for direction?
- why don't people see that representation of "women" so often ends up really being representation by "white women"?
- what do we do when a woman of colour tells us an incident/behaviour/policy is racist and the white majority of the group/board doesn't see it that way?
- why are they so many Black women in my union's membership but the leadership continue to be mainly white except for one or two "designated seats"?
- when people I work with complain about "ethnic enclaves" or say things about "over-representation" of Latinos in our organization why don't I say something?
- what do I do when white people I work with think that because our organization is all white it means there is no racism?
- what do I do when white people I work with think that because our organization is multiracial it means there is no racism?
- what do we do when white working-class people are more sympathetic with the boss or government than they are with the working-class people of colour they work with?
- can we effectively challenge racism when our groups don't function
democratically?

While focused on white folks' ideas and actions, the course is open to whoever wants to actively engage in this sort of thinking and strategizing. Participants will be asked at registration to send the course instructor a two to three paragraph summary of the kind of group you are involved with and one form of racism you are or would like to be involved in changing. There is no need to disclose the name of the group, agency, union or organization.

About the Instructor: Sheila's activism started in the late 1980s, and has included local anti-racist, workers rights, feminist & anti-war organizing, as well as with a number of international solidarity projects. She is the author of Taking Responsibility, Taking Direction: White Anti-Racism in Canada (Arbeiter Ring, 2005). She works as an Equity Officer at CUPE 3903 and has recently started a PhD at OISE/University of Toronto.

MONDAY evenings (and one WEDNESDAY) in MAY
MAY 5, 12, 21 and 26, from 6:30pm to 9pm @ TWB
Fee: $52 (No Refunds). Enrollment limited to 15 participants.
Pre-registration and payment required. **Please call to register.
Partially wheelchair accessible. Limited sliding scale spots available.