White Awareness 2021

Online Study Group

8 Months
April to November, 2022

Meetings
First Meeting: Sunday April 24
Following: every 4th Sunday of the Month
3 - 5 pm ET

Live on Zoom

Who is this program for?

People who self-identify as white or have white privilege and are interested in exploring and dismantling racism in themselves and in society.

Description

A small group of participants will meet monthly to share candidly, honestly and respectfully - with full awareness and caring - about the impressions left in us by the readings we have done and the videos, interviews, shows or podcasts we have listened to or watched in the month before each of our meetings. 

The program we will follow has been developed over several years. It was created by participants in a Dharma program offered by Spirit Rock Meditation Centre in the United States. This version has since been adapted to the Canadian context and then, revised and translated in January 2021-2022. The course now reflects a Québec perspective, and more recently there has been a general update to make the course more current in terms of articles.

We will be guided in our reading, listening, and viewing and will use a simple and supportive form of mindfulness to lead our discussions. 

We would like you to commit to missing no more than 2 of the 8 meetings if you participate. 

12 to 15 participants.

Course curriculum

  • 1

    Welcome and General Orientation

    • Introduction

    • Schedule and Zoom Link

  • 2

    Session One - April

    • Resources

    • Les ressources françaises

  • 3

    Session Two - May

    • Core Resources

    • Core Exercise

    • Optional Resources

    • Les ressources françaises

  • 4

    Session Three - June

    • Core Resources

    • Optional Resources

    • Les ressources françaises

  • 5

    Session Four - July

    • Core Resources

    • Optional Resources

  • 6

    Session Five - August

    • Core Exercises

    • Core Resources

    • Optional Resources

    • Les ressources françaises

  • 7

    Session Six - September

    • Introduction to this session

    • Core Resources

    • Core Exercise

    • Optional Resources

    • Ressource en français

  • 8

    Session Seven - October

    • Core Exercise

    • Core Resource

    • Optional Resource

  • 9

    Session Eight - November

    • Core Resources

    • Core Exercises

Facilitators

Co-facilitators

Coral and twinkle Shacker

Coral Short and Ryan “twinkle” Backer are both white settlers living in the unceded gathering place of the Kanien'kehá:ka, Anishinabe and Haudenosaunee - the island called Tiohtià:ke in Turtle Island, colonially known as Montréal, Québec, Canada. Part of both their ancestries comes from County Mayo in Ireland, and they like to reflect on how their ancestors may have known each other. Although they’ve identified as Irish most of our lives, they’ve been exploring their ancestry. They are actively unlearning their racism by attending workshops, organizing anti-racist book groups and engaging in anti-racist activism.