Unraveling Whiteness: Tools for the Journey
Edition: 1
Copyright: 2009
Pages: 152
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$69.45
Participating in unraveling whiteness is a journey - an arduous, difficult journey with many obstacles, especially for white people.
Designed for emerging diversity courses, Unraveling Whiteness: Tools for the Journey examines what it means to be white instead of examining only the position, history, and experiences of people of color.
The goal of Judy Helfan and Laurie Lippin, Ph.D.’s Unraveling Whiteness: Tools for the Journey is not to place blame, but to better understand the role of white people in the circumstances that surround privilege and oppression.
Unraveling Whiteness: Tools for the Journey makes whiteness and white privilege visible, revealing the cultural and institutional structures that keep white dominance in place. The book is both a workbook and a reader, providing tools for examining what it is to be white in the U.S., for addressing fear and guilt as barriers to dismantling racism, and for identifying the small daily acts and larger organized movements that further the struggle for social justice and equality. It includes analytical essays, narratives, and poems from a variety of diverse perspectives. Numerous experiential exercises integrated within the publication aid the reader in deepening learning through one’s own life experiences.
Unraveling Whiteness: Tools for the Journey is divided into six sections (Whiteness, White Privilege, Voices, Fear, Guilt and Shame, and Actions). Each section has an overview, readings, exercises, and questions for the reader to consider and write about. The workbook is interactive by providing both individual and group/partner activities to enhance the learning experience.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome
About the Workbook
Guidelines for Participation
WHITENESS
What Is Whiteness?
Readings: Thinking About Race
The Funeral Banquet (excerpt)
Postcards from "Home" (excerpt)
- Stop the Lies
The Other Existence
On Being White and Other Lies
Exercises: What's in a White Life?
Social Geography
When Are You White?
WHITE PRIVILEGE
Is Whiteness an Advantage?
Readings: Defining White Privilege
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
The More I Like Flies (excerpt)
Whiteness as a Social Club
Benefits of Unearned Privilege
Reflecting: Making White Privilege Visible
Exercises: Grappling with Privilege
How Do We Talk About White Privilege
Is There a Flip Side to White Privilege?
VOICES
Hearing the Voices of People of Color
Readings: Expanding Our World
Forked Tongues: On Not Speaking Spanish (excerpt)
Short excerpt from La Maravilla
- Notes from a Fragmented Daughter
Poem For The Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, An Intelligent, Well-Read Person, Could Believe In the War Between Races
Reflecting: Challenging Stereotypes
Exercises: Welcoming New Voices
Language
Hearing and Being Heard
Where Are the Voices of People of Color
FEAR
Overcoming the Barrier of Fear
Readings: The Cycle of Fear
Whiteness in the Black Imagination (excerpt)
- Believing in Ourselves
By the Color of Our Skin (excerpt)
- I Give You Back
Reflecting: Creating Fear
Exercises: Confronting Our Fears
Naming Fears
Thinking about the Readings
Strategies for Transcending Fear
GUILT AND SHAME
Acknowledging Guilt and Shame
Readings: Focusing on Guilt and Shame
Rethinking the Role of Guilt and Shame in White Women's Antiracism
Work
Raicism: Rootedness as Spiritual and Political Practice
Breaking Old Patterns, Weaving New Ties: Guilt
Integrating a Burning House
Reflecting: Looking into Our Guilt and Shame
Exercises: Clearing the Way
Stereotypes We Carry
The Burden of Guilt
Strategies for Reparation
Releasing Shame
ACTION
Breaking Through into Action
Readings: Many Paths on the Journey
- Truth Telling
Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Cornel West on Restoring Hope
In a Room with a Bunch of White Guys
I'm Ofay, You're Ofay (excerpt)
What I've Learned About Undoing Racism
Reflecting: Thinking Back and Looking Forward
Exercises: Finding Our Own Path
Barriers to Action
Preparing to Act
Moving Through Barriers
Commitment to Action
Congratulations
REFERENCES
Bibliography
Movies on Video
Training Videos and DVDs
Copyrights and Permissions
About the Authors