See SEED at the White Privilege Conference

Going to the White Privilege Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan, April 4 to 7? Several members of our lead team, staff, and other leaders will be there, along with our founder--running workshops, staffing our exhibit table, and hoping to see you!

Please stop by our table to say hello and learn more about SEED and our 2018 New Leaders Weeks or to catch up with us if you are or have been a part of SEED! We'll also be holding an informal gathering for SEED leaders and friends on Friday night. Contact Motoko Maegawa if you are interested so we can share the final details with you.

Here are the sessions SEED folks will be leading--check your schedule for times and locations:

Co-director Jondou Chase Chen, Associate Director Motoko Maegawa, and Staff Members Randall Carpenter and Dan Cohen will be facilitating the workshop "Building the justice we need: From being just nice to actually being just":

Have you learned that being nice is not enough? Have you realized that asking “Why can’t we all just get along?” does little or nothing to shift systems of oppression? Do you feel frustrated that either you or the people around you keep trying these strategies but they don’t work? What do we do? What can we do? Do we give up? No. For people of color, we return to what we have always had to do: survive, resist, and thrive in our communities and our cultures that have kept us alive through centuries of white supremacy even as they too bear the scars of racism. For white people seeking to be in just relationship with us, there is the dual responsibility of dismantling white supremacy and amplifying the resilience of people of color. Undergirding all of these efforts is the question, universally asked but individually answered: What is the racial justice you need to be your whole self? In this session, we will facilitate a set of storytelling exercises that help us develop our own frameworks for the justice that we, our communities, and our institutions need. In being able to clarify this, we will then provide strategies for calling other people into this work, and for growing collective efforts.

SEED Founder Peggy McIntosh will be holding a workshop on "White Control: A Waystation between White Privilege and White Supremacy":

I feel there is a waystation between white privilege and white supremacy. It is a transitional frame of mind and heart, which I call white control. It emerges when white people decide, semiconsciously, to restrict further progress in power sharing. I would like to track this frame of mind, describe some of the examples I have seen, and invite the audience to draw on some of their experiences of seeing or exerting white control. What does it look like? How does it feel? What does it do? What does it cause to happen? Can it be caught and reversed so that progress toward social justice can continue? This will be an interactive session in which people can bring their own experience for self and group examination.

Other workshops led by SEED staff members and SEED leaders (those who have been to SEED New Leaders Week and led SEED seminars in their own institutions), along with other colleagues:

• "Combine the Super Powers of Love and Accountability in a Time of (Seemingly) Little Love and Accountability," Staff Member Christine Saxman and SEED Leader Corrie Wallace, with Jamie Utt
• "Super Communication: Breaking Through to White People for a More Just Future," Staff Member Christine Saxman and Shelly Tochluk
• "How to Respond to Public Opposition without Compromising 'The Work,'" Staff Member Pat Savage-Williams with Tim Hayes, Amy Offenbach, and Jude Eliacin
• "The Guide for White Women Who Teach Black Boys," SEED Leader Jack Hill with Marguerite W. Penick-Parks and Eddie Moore, Jr.
• "Black Women and White Women: Let's have a Conversation," SEED Leaders LeRhonda Greats and Kristina Splawn
• "Since I Laid My Burdens Down: Respite and Rest for Women of Color Actively Dismantling White Privilege, Supremacy and Patriarchy," SEED Leader June Cara Christian
• "Superheroes Overcoming White Supremacy, Privilege and Tears: The Transformative Teaching Blueprint," SEED Leader June Cara Christian
• "Our Unconscious Brain: Keys to understanding and interrupting the impact of implicit bias," SEED Leader Hugh Vasquez
• "Black Girl Magic: Empowering White Moms and Educators," SEED Leader Corrie Wallace

And SEED Leader Elizabeth Denevi along with Jenna Chandler-Ward will offer the all-day pre-conference Institute "Listening to Our Students: How Teacher Expectations Create Anti-Racist Classrooms."

We hope to see you there!