Consultants, trainers and leaders of European-American descent -- white people -- who want to strengthen their self awareness and ability to address racism and racial issues -- at the level of individual, group, and systems. It is also intended for whites who want to learn to become better allies with other whites and people of color to work toward a nonracist society. Also encouraged to come are consultants who might think they’ve already "been there, done that" with diversity or feel frustrated by previous experiences in diversity programs. We are our best instruments: the more we do our own work, the better we are able to support our clients.

This workshop differs from traditional diversity offerings in that we will learn about racism from the perspective of our whiteness – to understand what it means to be white in a society where whites and white culture predominate. Some specific outcomes include:

• Learning to recognize the effects of white privilege, and ranking on our attitudes and behavior.

• A better understanding of how our racial history impacts present-day situations – economically, politically, culturally – as well as understanding racial dynamics at the individual, group, and systems levels.

• Self-awareness tools -- to understand our own racial programming and how it affects our belief system and choices today as OD practitioners and leaders.

• Some key definitions and concepts, such as racism, prejudice, multiculturalism, ranking, white privilege, white culture, mainstream and margin.

• Practical skills in recognizing and intervening in racist situations. Constructive confrontation and engagement skills (support/confront).

• Skills to become allies to other whites and people of color.

• Understanding how those of us who think we are already "enlightened" around racism can be the most difficult – the most resistant to feedback and sometimes the worst offenders.

• How to better use our leadership positions to support our clients’ learning around race.

How do Lorraine and Antje know what is important to work on?

To keep the workshop content as effective as possible, we stay in dialogue with colleagues of color about the workshops, including PRODN members of color. In addition, we have worked with white OD practitioners and heard about the things that frustrate and confuse them in interracial situations.

In interviews with OD practitioners of color we learned a gap exists between consultants of different races in terms of how whites are viewed: many of us whites are unaware of the ways we perpetuate racism or our lack of ability to deal effectively with the subject of race (an issue that permeates all systems we work with). We specifically learned that:

We are good people and we have racist programming. As OD practitioners, we care about the people we work with. We want their organizations to be more effective, more humane. We are the "good guys." So it’s hard for us to see that as whites, we are not "neutral." Rather, we are the products and beneficiaries of racist systems, which we unwittingly perpetuate if we don’t become aware of how we do so. It can come as a shock when we are told that we contribute to racism. We can’t reconcile that and also feel we are good people. Yes, we are good people: we can be good people and have prejudices and blindnesses at the same time.

White people need a safe, non-judgmental place to unlearn racism and to develop the skills and capacity for action. Our experience in working with mixed and single race groups has shown that it is very important for whites to have a safe place to deeply explore feelings and experiences, including biases and racist beliefs. We build a safe learning community in this workshop in which we learn to support each other in the process of unlearning racism. Further, many people of color experience pain when white people express their racism. Since people of color experience racism on a daily basis, we don’t want to inflict more pain by working our racism in their presence -- or by making them responsible for teaching, counseling, admonishing, or advising us.

The majority of PRODN members who are people of color have encouraged us to hold this workshop and have provided input to the content.

Note: This workshop -- White People Confronting Racism -- is part of a long-term learning process for all OD practitioners. Parallel to the white people workshops, people of color will look at how racism has affected them. In addition, joint learning and dialogue opportunities will be available after these parallel programs.