GETTING STARTED IN ADVOCACY AND ACCOMPLICESHIP
June 9, 2019
Students, counselors, psychologists, and other mental health professionals often ask “What does social justice look like and how can I incorporate it into my work with clients and communities?” This video brings together a culturally and professionally diverse group of emerging, mid-career, and later career counselors and psychologists to share their experiences and insights on how they have integrated advocacy and social action into their work and everyday lives. Each brings different strengths, uses different strategies, and engages in different ways of sustaining their work and personal lives. The world continues to present challenges. This video intends to facilitate counselors, psychologists and other mental health professionals to take action to address these challenges using a framework and inspiring examples of social action.
SOMETIMES WHITE BABY DOES INDEED NEED TO BE PUT IN THE CORNER
June 9, 2019
"Instead of asking what I was getting out of allyship, I began asking what POC were getting out of me as a potential ally. De-centering myself, I went from “How can I make them like me?” to “How can I be better by them?”"
The voices of WOC & Allies write about becoming an ally and the process of what true ally-ship entails.
ACKNOWLEDGING WHITE PRIVILEGE
June 9, 2019
Knowing the definition. Understanding the impact. Becoming aware of where privilege occurs in our own lives.
Where does White Privilege show up in daily life?
How does White Privilege show up on a systemic level?
Criminal Justice System & Incarceration Advocacy
Several areas of society and daily life are impacted by White Privilege. It's crucial to understand how our own majoritized and minoirtized identities dynamically intersect within society.
EQUITY GLOSSARY
June 9, 2019
Words Matter, and we can often face confusion, misunderstanding, and even frustration when we do not communicate in an educated and humble way. It also is important to understand that words themselves are inherently cultural and, therefore, hold meaning that may vary across different groups of people. Therefore, it's important to understand what our words may convey and be open to invite dialogue about the message we may send others.
Social Justice - Social Justice requires resource equity, fairness, and respect for diversity, as well as the eradication of existing forms of social oppression.
Entails a "redistribution" of resources from those who have "unjustly" gained them to individuals who justly deserve them
Creating and "ensuring" the processes of truly democratic participation in decision-making (Feagin, 2001)
Social Oppression - is a relationship of dominance and subordination between categories of people in which one benefits from the systematic abuse, exploitation, and injustice directed toward the other.
Outcome of oppression is that groups in society are sorted into different positions within the social hierarchies of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability.
The dominant group, benefit from the oppression of other groups through privilege greater access to rights and resources, a better quality of life and healthier life, and overall greater life chances (Crossman, 2017)
Read more about the dynamics of Oppression, Power, and Society
Racism - individual, cultural, institutional and systemic ways white beings are advantaged, and groups historically or currently defined as non-white (African, Asian, Hispanic, Native American, etc.) as disadvantaged
Prejudice plus power
Systemic
Important to understand that the definition of Racism goes beyond the dictionary definition due to the bias that
Equity - Creation of opportunities for underrepresented populations to have equal access to and participation in educational programs, growth opportunities and resource networks.
Goal of gaining the demographic disparities in leadership roles in all spheres of institutional and educational functioning.
References
Joe R. Feagin, "Social Justice and Sociology: Agendas for the Twenty-First Century: Presidential Address," American Sociological Review, Vol. 66, No. 1 (February 2001), pp. 1-20.
Crossman, Ashley. (2017, March 2). Definition of Social Oppression. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/social-oppression-3026593
Racial Equity Tools. Retrieved from https://www.racialequitytools.org/home
ABSORBING STORIES
June 9, 2019
A Conversation on Race from the New York Times
Expand your own white spaces and listen to others' stories.
Stories of Identity.
Stories of Family.
Stories of Microaggression
and invalidation.
Stories of Culture.
Stories of Impact.
Scroll through the page below and embrace the words of people's lived experience.
MUST-READ BOOKS
June 9, 2019
One of the best ways to challenge your own spaces, is to read how others' challenge theirs
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt
Educate Yourself & Challenge Vulnerability:
1. "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
2. "The Fire this Time" by Jesmyn Ward
3. "Daring Greatly" by Brene Brown
4. "Dusk of Dawn" by W.E.B. Dubois
5. "Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria" by Beverly Daniel Tatum
6. "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander
7. " White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged" by Tim Wise
Get Inspired
Sometimes our first step is to read. Before we can ask questions, we may need to absorb information. Read about other cultures. Read about social justice. Read about the world from a different lens.
As you read, notice your own reactions. What makes you sad...guilty..shameful.. joyous...or grateful?
1-ON-1 WITH PSYCHOLOGY ADVOCATES FOR SOCIAL CHANGE CEO
June 9, 2019
Add a short summary of a news article or relevant publication with a link to the original. You can also add a video for extra engagement!
WHAT'S WISE?
The Story of Tim Wise - Author, educator, advocate
Author of "White Like Me"
Film "White Like Me"
RESOURCES
Start & Engage in Conversations:
Here's a few resources to initiate momentum
1 Hear others' stories, lives, and perspectives...
2 Follow & listen to those who are doing Accomplice-ship work
3 Listen - To those in your own life and those outside your own circle
4 The Center for Racial Justice Innovation
5 Are you an Educator?
See more under the Resources tab
6 Want to talk to Children about Race? Here are a few resources:
7 Want to start more conversations about Race?
8 Obtain skills and resources to help serve social justice movements
White Tool Kit - Read the statement at the bottom of the page about the work of White Allies: Challenge yourself to identify where you may promote change in your own White Spaces.
9 Understand White Privilege & where it occurs most in your life
Read, Reflect, Discuss