Thinking About Whiteness and Doing Anti-Racism: 4-week course: Toronto

Thinking About Whiteness and Doing Anti-Racism
with Sheila Wilmot

MONDAY evenings in MARCH 2010
MARCH 8, 15, 22 and 29, from 6:30pm to 9pm @ TWB
Fee: $52(No Refunds). Pre-registration and payment required.
* * Please call to register. Enrollment limited to 15 participants.
Limited sliding scale spots available.
We regret our bathroom is not wheelchair accessible.

Contemporary life is rife with economic crises, political struggles and seemingly endlessly multiplying social divisions. This course is meant to open a brief window onto some of the complexity of how whiteness and white racism plays out with other oppressive social relations, particularly focusing on white people's locations in all of this.

Each week there will be readings to discuss and a scenario for us as a group to work through. There are discussion questions provided for the articles for us to explore (in both small and large groups) the foundational relationship of whiteness with homophobia, sexism and class exploitation, all of which are multiply-lived social relations in our current time and place. The idea is to integrate a process of thinking and doing - each week building on the one before - to develop our ideas about and analysis of white racism and domination, for a better understanding and for better anti-racist practice.

It is challenging to have applied discussions with depth in such a short time. For the 10 hours we are together over the four weeks I have tried to select articles that touch on some key issues found within these complex power relations operating in all of our lives. The readings do not of course explore all of them. Since many are written in academic language and some degree of familiarity with the issues is assumed, questions on meanings of terms/issues will be welcomed. Also, participants are encouraged to share not only your thoughts and actions each week but also anything you might have read.

Week 1 - March 8 - Starting to explore the foundations of whiteness and white domination
Week 2 - March 15 - Thoughts on whiteness, racism, sexism & class in our history and our present
Week 3 - March 22 - Whiteness, racism and homophobia
Week 4 - March 29 - Settlers, migrants and Indigenous People

About the Instructor:
Sheila's activism started in the late 1980s, and has included local anti-racist, workers rights, feminist & anti-war organizing, as well as with a number of international solidarity projects. She is the author of Taking Responsibility, Taking Direction: White Anti-Racism in Canada (Arbeiter Ring, 2005). She works as the Equity Officer at CUPE local 3903 and is also a doctoral candidate at OISE/University of Toronto.

MONDAY evenings in MARCH
MARCH 8, 15, 22 and 29, from 6:30pm to 9pm @ TWB
Fee: $52 (No Refunds). Pre-registration and payment required.
* * Please call to register. Enrollment limited to 15 participants.
Limited sliding scale spots available.
We regret our bathroom is not wheelchair accessible.