Citizens of the Week: 10,000 White Women—Doing the Work

May. 09, 2019

Aurora Archer was tired.

Tired of straightening her hair for work later on existence told she looked dirty, unprofessional.

Tired of having to talk to her joyful, sensitive teen son almost the risks he might incur but by innocently wearing his beloved hoodies, or keeping his hands in his pockets, in public.

Tired of venting her frustration to her many white friends, but to feel like it savage on deaf ears. That her friends—progressive, educated, empathetic, well-pregnant as they were—only didn't go it.

And then she read White Fragility .

"It encapsulated everything that I knew, everything that I felt, that I had experienced, that I had tried to articulate in a multitude of ways," she says.

For Lord, White Fragility was a wake-up call. "I chosen Aurora later the first 2 capacity and went 'Oh my god, I had no idea.' I had no idea [virtually] the bear on of my actions and my words."

Published concluding year, White Fragility: Why It'southward So Difficult For White People To Talk Well-nigh Racism, fabricated headlines and best-seller lists for its direct plea to white people that they wake up to the racist reality of our society—and start doing something nigh it. Written past Robin DiAngelo, a former professor of multicultural instruction at Westfield Country University, it is a cry from a white academic for white people to admit their complicity in racism so that they can work to alter the ubiquitous structures, policies, and practices that keep to oppress and penalize people of color.

Diddled away by the volume'due south sentiments, Archer, a marketing exec and co-founder of Bellatrix Group , bought 10 copies and handed them out to friends. "I shared the book because I was tired of making excuses for my friends' lack of knowing and their complicit behavior in racism," she says. "I shared the volume considering I was aroused that I had to have a chat with my son about hoodies and his hands in his pockets. And I had already seen, as a very little girl, my dad being dragged out of our family unit machine by police and kicked and beaten within inches of his life, merely for being blackness."

Some of Archer's friends read the book immediately; others shelved it. Regardless, Archer  bought and gave away more. And more.

Amidst the recipients of the books: Lisa Lord and Kelly Croce Sorg, both of whom Archer had known, through mutual friends, for nearly a decade. Archer and Croce Sorg, fast and close friends, had always shared a unique artlessness virtually race, and the book only strengthened their bail. For Lord, the volume was a wake-up call. "I called Aurora after the starting time two chapters and went 'Oh my god, I had no idea.' I had no thought [nigh] the touch on of my actions and my words."

Archer had also been speaking most the book with her dear friend, Erica Bleznak, owner of Main Line Yoga Shala in Narberth. The two of them contemplated hosting some kind of workshop. Spurred past the book, they wanted to exercise something most the need for white people—white women, in particular—to help understand and dismantle the racism and racist structures that underlie every aspect of life in the U.S.

They looped in Lord, a lifelong human relations professional, nigh the possibility of her leading a workshop. Croce Sorg joined the conversation so too.

The result is a series of workshops, aptly called 10,000 White Women: Doing the Piece of work , with dual goals: to open white women's eyes to the racism all around, and to become them started on their own journey towards doing something nigh it. The workshop fee is $20, with proceeds going to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) educators and activists nationwide. (The call for x,000 women to sign on is a nod to Malcolm Gladwell's research suggesting that to become truly proficient in annihilation, one must spend ten,000 hours doing it.)

"My goal is less blackness and brown bodies dying. But that goal is and then out hither," Archer says. "So how do I then dorsum up into that? I recall the showtime and foremost step is engaging in the conversation."

Since January, the women have held three workshops, for nearly 100 women in all, at Bleznak'due south studio; they envision hosting them every half dozen to nine weeks—around Philly for now, and perhaps across hither in fourth dimension. The piece of work is purely emotional, not physical, but the choice of yoga studios as the setting is intentional.

"You're in an open up surround that'southward going to breed trust and commitment and truth," says Croce Sorg, a designer at Chairloom . "I've gone on umpteen yoga retreats, and there is a percentage of progressive white women [there] who want to work on themselves. So we figure, while we have that picayune door ajar, let'due south shove something else in there to say 'Accept you thought virtually this? Because it really affects all areas of your life. Little did yous know, you lot're actually harming a lot of people. Piffling did you know. Niggling did I know. Fiddling did we know.'"

While Archer is role of every workshop, Lord leads the sessions. "Everyone wants to outsource [the work] to the black people. But no, no, no—it's your piece of work, and you hear each other better," Archer says. "I am a testament to the fact that I know they dearest me and I love them, simply they were not hearing me."

Lord opens the two-hour workshops by talking virtually her genuine surprise, when the Women's March took place in 2017, that blackness women felt overlooked in the chat, that they didn't desire to be "saved" by white women—significantly more of whom voted for Trump than they did—all of a sudden claiming to exist allies.

"I don't need your damn support," Archer says of the thought of white women seeing themselves as some kind of heroes.

Lord goes on to acknowledge to the group that she never realized how much of the history that'due south taught in schools is told from a white perspective. She laments not having had a meliorate sense of empathy towards her black colleagues in the workplace. She is willing to model the mess.

"If there's non a white owner to this trouble encouraging other white women to ain information technology themselves and exist answerable for it, and so you're just not sending the right bulletin," she says. "I'thousand guilty. I've been there, I've washed that."

But she doesn't wallow in shame: She uses her belated reality check every bit a goad to learn more, to try harder. And throughout the evening, she leads women through their own self-analyses, and has attendees break into modest groups to talk about race and racism in their own lives.

"I've gone on umpteen yoga retreats, and at that place is a per centum of progressive white women [in that location] who want to work on themselves," says Croce Sorg. "So while we have that little door ajar, let's shove something else in in that location. Because this actually affects all areas of your life."

The workshops are not perfect—after one session, Bleznak received a edgeless, six-page critique, which the women took to heart and used to inform subsequent sessions—but they're not meant to be perfect. Considering there's no perfect style to talk about race. What's more important than perfecting the conversation is having it.

When pushed on what'southward next—what action women can have across emoting, what the goal of all of this really is —the women maintain that in that location'southward no 1-size-fits-all respond. Croce Sorg cautions confronting running into action without doing more learning and more than introspection; Lord says she just wants people to exist wearing new lenses on the globe. Archer is the most blunt.

"My goal, what I ultimately want to come across, is less blackness and brown bodies dying. That's my goal. Only that goal is so out here," she says, gesturing with her hand high above her head. "So how practice I and then back up into that? I think the outset and foremost pace is engaging in the conversation."

Earlier wrapping up workshops, Lord asks participants to share one action they'll have to do improve. Some women vow to share White Fragility ; others commit to supporting blackness-owned businesses; some speak of seeking out opportunities to hire and spotlight more than people of color. Women are encouraged to continue to larn, to never stop educating themselves.

Archer and Croce Sorg are too continuing the work through the creation of a production visitor, Affluence Productions, which will be an umbrella for their efforts. The workshops will fall under Affluence's non-profit arm. "We don't believe we should be profiting from trauma and hurting, and hopefully also healing," Archer says. A follow-upwardly curriculum they're developing and a podcast they're launching, The Opt-In Podcast, volition autumn under the for-profit arm.

During their Apr eighth workshop, at that place were but two women of colour in the room. Ane was Archer; the other, the Reverend Rhetta Morgan, a Philly-based ordained Interfaith minister and conservatory-trained professional person musician. As the evening wound down, the twenty-plus women in omnipresence gathered in a circle effectually Morgan, and she led everyone in a song she wrote:

" 1 center, one mind, one body, i

One sound, i voice, one prayer, i

Ane nascency, one death, ane wisdom, ane

One joy, one pain, one healing, ane ," she sang.

Seated on the floor around the room, some women closed their eyes; others nodded forth. Most joined in singing, their voices rising in solidarity. As Morgan's singing wound downwardly, she ended on a notation that resonated with all, that captured the essence of what had merely transpired, and the work that lay alee:

" Ane you, one me, one people, one. "

Photograph by Sheri Resnick

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/citizens-of-the-week-10000-white-women-doing-the-work/

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