Event Description
Dear AWNY Community (men and women), please join AWNY past president Kate Lee to learn together about racism and discrimination in the US and Australia. Facilitated like a book club (over Zoom), we invite you to read designated texts for group discussion.
Our hope, over the course of these sessions, is to explore key texts and authors in the United State and Australia, and that by learning with each other, we may sharpen our insight into the current crisis, and understand more about racism and how it relates to ourselves, our families, communities and our two countries.
RSVP to [email protected] for Zoom and links to articles. Be sure to include which sessions you will attend.
Session 1. Tuesday, July 7, 6-7.30pm (EDT). (8am Sydney, Wednesday July 8) COMPLETED
– Read Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Case for Reparations, The Atlantic, 2014
– Read Aileen Morton-Robinson’s, chapter 1: STILL CALL AUSTRALIA HOME: Indigenous Belonging and Place in a Postcolonizing Society from The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty
– Look up the terms implicit prejudice, symbolic racism, and modern racism, and consider their definitions
– Look up the history of the implicit association test, a psychological measure that’s aim is to measure how implicitly prejudiced a person is. You can take the test here.
Session 2. Tuesday, August 4, 6-7:30 pm (EDT). (8am Sydney, Wednesday August 5) COMPLETED
– Read White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
– Read Aileen Morton-Robinson’s, chapter 2. THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT: Britishness and White Possession from The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty
Session 3. Tuesday, September 1, 6-7:30 pm (EDT). (8am Sydney, Wednesday September 2).
Facilitated like a book club, please read the below texts and reflect on the content. Working on racial bias is not easy work, but in this session we offer a space that we can grapple with these important issues and how they impact our personal, communal and public lives.
All readings are short but require time for personal reflection. Please read the below and come to the meeting with your reflections ready to share with the group.
– Read Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Chapter 3, The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty
– Read Tema Okun’s ‘From White Racist to White Anti-Racist: the Life-long Journey’ and reflect on where you are in your journey and why
– Read The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture From Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups, by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, ChangeWork, 2001, and answer the discussion questions at the end.