The Problem
What happens when we espouse values of equity, diversity and inclusion but still engage in practices that perpetuate inequity, discrimination and harm?
When our cultural education work does not create shifts in changes in everyday conversations and behaviors? When the work of cultural inclusion builds silos and boxes people out of meaningful participation?
White supremacy culture is real and it's really damaging. We need to create emotional capacity to navigate a culture in parallel with our values, and the boundaries in order to be able to succeed in it. Whilst we might believe in values of restorative justice, antiracism, and emotional intelligence, we're not practicing them. Because no matter how intentional we are, it's easy to fall back into old habits.
We often struggle with the idea of never-ending work towards anti-racism and anti-oppression.
The answer is complex, but this much we know. What we need is a transformation – one that goes beyond words or training alone. We need to move from surface-level change to real transformation.
And thus the Transformative Culture Coalition was born.
Create a space where community members are able to explore challenging conversations and identify shared experience.
We firmly believe that cultural competency must be developed within us and between us, if it is going to be practiced out in our communities. By connecting individuals within TCC to each other and with experts in specific areas of cultural competence (i.e antiracism), we hope to enable a multi-layered approach for enacting change.
The Transformative Culture Coalition (TCC) is an 8-week experience that provides habituated tools for individuals to become more aware of and get rid of harmful cultural biases within themselves. TCC participants learn how to critically engage one another in ways that provide emotional intelligence and empathy around racialized language, attitudes, assumptions, stereotypes, social relations including power structures, histories, and expectations while upholding accountability without sacrificing relational trust. Eventually bridging gaps so we can all thrive together.
The Solution
The Roadmap
One Shared Experience
-
Professional Development: lean in to active participation, not passive learning - choose your own adventure; let us know how you’ll grow
-
Relationship Building: build connections within this program that extend beyond the timeline of the cycle, strengthening internal and external relationship-building skills
-
Mutual Mentorship: be connected to 2-3 participants who will be in your breakout rooms during our weekly sessions and serve as your Learning Partners
8
Group Sessions
3
Private Sessions
1
Shared Practice
Antiracism as a Mental Health Practice
By Dāna James,
Empowerment & Engagement Specialist
We speak of racism, sexism, and xenophobia in terms that alienate it from the beliefs and histories that fuel the violence that manifests. The worst part of that being the way it alienates us from seeing the normalized ways that those beliefs encourage folks to behave to this day. Though we often find ourselves agreeing (in most spaces) that we do not want to be complicit in these atrocities, we rarely explore what these patterns look like when physical violence isn’t present. Luckily, those who came before us have done much of the leg work.
In 1999, Dr. Tema Okun worked to distill the extensive knowledge shared by herself and her colleagues in equity workshops into a succinct outline of, seemingly benign, day-to-day characteristics of white supremacy culture. Now, without context and critical analysis, these may not make sense to many folks as the insidious poisons that lead to genocide, erasure, classism, and the overall experience of oppression. And it’s our choice to work toward understanding that context or not, but I advocate for curiosity.
Join us!
Please complete the form to apply
for a spot in an upcoming
Transformative Culture Coalition
program cycle.