White Caucus: Disrupting Biases

This year we’re starting off our day of learning with a BIPOC caucus and a white caucus. As white folks, it is imperative that we learn how to acknowledge our biases, talk about them, and most importantly, how to disrupt them. Facilitated by DEI consultant Cindy Whiston, we’ll work together on how to manage ourselves as white folks, and how to show up for others. Our time together will be a mix of learning, listening, and sharing.

Holding space for Caucuses or affinity groups is an important tool in Racial Equity. There is work for white people and people of color to do separately and together. For people of color, a caucus can be a place to work with peers to address the impact of racism, to interrupt experiences of internalized racism, to hold space for healing, and to work towards individual and collective liberation.

For white people, a caucus can provide space to work intentionally on understanding white supremacy, white privilege, bias and how to disrupt them on an individual level and collectively. A white caucus also puts the onus on white people to teach each other about these ideas, rather than placing a burden on people of color to teach them.

It is our hope to continue this tradition into conferences to come with the opportunity to expand the process and implement deeper programming around affinity groups and accountability.