Act of Resistance

Last weekend I attended an Anti-Racism Analysis training.

There is more to this weekend that anyone should try to explain in a simple blog post. 

I will say that it is worth attending. 

The training was coordinated by the Newton Community for Racial Justice,

and the trainers were from Roots of Justice. 

All of us...participants and trainers

Our incredible trainers...Conrad Moore, Yvonne Platts, and Phil Morice Brubaker

The weekend is so well-organized, and packed full. The trainers take us step by step through the materials. There is more to learn than I could absorb in one weekend, so it is really good that the training includes a manual. The manual has a lot of brief reviews of the topics we covered, as well as plenty of space to take notes, and resources for further study.

Sometimes we just listened and took notes.

Sometimes we worked on tasks together at our tables.

This particular table group discussion was one of my favorites.

One of the themes of the weekend was the iceberg. 

Racism was symbolized by an iceberg.

 The exposed tip represents the most obvious examples of racism. 

Under the surface there is so much more that the untrained white person often misses, but is more harmful than the tip that is visible. 

I'm still absorbing the implications of this, so I know I can't describe it well yet.

However, one of the images that will stay with me from this weekend were the four huge drawings of icebergs in the ocean taped to the walls of the room. Each drawing had dates on it. Inside each iceberg we were to add historical events of racism. On the ocean surrounding the iceberg, we were to write in  historic names and acts of resistance to racism.

The first poster began with 1492 and the last ended with 2018. It was incredibly sobering to just begin to see how deeply ingrained racism is in our country's history. It is just so so much. It has gone on so very long, and is still entrenched in our society, and in ourselves. 

At the end of the training, we gathered around each poster. 

The trainers led us in looking at what had happened in the time period for that poster. We read through the many inhumanities.

Then the question was asked, 

"What gives you hope?"

We would look at the many times 

people resisted the racism, 

protested, 

said "NO".

Beginning with 1492

 In between each poster we would sing a song of resistance as we moved to the next poster.

It seemed an act of hope.

And when we finished, we were reminded of the truth we were told on the very first evening of the weekend:

This training is also an act of resistance.

We have a long way to go.

As I said before, the training was important and valuable. I'd encourage anyone to go. I'll post the dates of the next training when that information becomes available.