Do you identify as a white leader in a nonprofit or philanthropic organization? Are you managing or engaging in DEI/race equity initiatives, or interested in learning more about how this work connects to your identity and role as an ally for racial justice in your organization/community? If so, we hope you will join us for a workshop with Heather Hackman, of Hackman Consulting Group, who spoke at the 2018 EiC Summit. “More than Fragility: A Deep Dive into Understanding and Dismantling Whiteness” is a learning experience designed for white leaders to explore how their identity connects to their capacity to lead and engage in racial justice work.

While the history of White people’s use of fragility as a tool for deflection, denial and erasure of whiteness is important to understand, there are other deeply fixed dynamics in play regarding white engagement with racial issues that must be understood if we are to achieve racial justice. Knowing that Whiteness resides in the mind, body and spirit, it follows that Whiteness must be understood and dismantled on all of those levels. And, while many White people have been open to addressing the “mind” aspect of this work, very few have been willing to make the turn into the somatic and the “spirit” levels of racial justice work. This session examines Whiteness in this holistic manner, and through this lens offers touchpoints for more embodied, liberatory action on the part of White participants. The session is best suited to those who already have a solid knowledge of race, racism and whiteness, and asks that participants come ready to engage and lean hard into racial justice work.

DATES/TIMES

Thursday, April 15, 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm ET

and

Thursday, May 20, 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm ET

If you have any questions or concerns, please email workshops@equityinthecenter.org.

FACILITATOR

Dr. Heather W. Hackman

Dr. Hackman has been teaching and training on social justice issues since 1992 and was a professor in the Department of Human Relations and Multicultural Education at St. Cloud State University in St Cloud, Minnesota for 12 years before she began focusing full time on consulting. She has taught courses in social justice and multicultural education (pre-service and in-service teachers), race and racism, heterosexism and homophobia, social justice education (higher education leadership), oppression and social change, sexism and gender oppression, class oppression, and Jewish oppression. She received her doctorate in Social Justice Education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2000 and has taught at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Westfield State College, Springfield College, St Cloud State University, Hamline University, and the University of St Thomas. In 2005 she founded Hackman Consulting group and consults nationally on issues of deep diversity, equity and social justice and has focused most of her recent training work on issues of racism and white privilege, gender oppression, heterosexism and homophobia, and classism. She has published in the area of social justice education theory and practice, racism in health care (with Stephen Nelson), and is currently working on a book examining issues of race, racism and whiteness in education through a model she calls “cellular wisdom”. In 2009, she was awarded a Research Fellowship with the Great Place to Work Institute and has developed corporate training rubrics that combine her social justice content with GPTWI’s “trust” frameworks. She has sat on the board of Minnesota NAME as president, the board of Rainbow Families, has served on numerous committees committed to multicultural and social justice work, and since 2012 has served as a member of the Advisory Council for the White Privilege Conference. Her most recent research and conference presentations have focused on climate change and its intersections with issues of race, class and gender.

More than Fragility: A Deep Dive into Understanding & Dismantling Whiteness