Slowing Down the Conversation: One Step Toward Cross-Racial Coalition Building

If you have ever been part of a conversation about race (or a racialized topic) that ran off the tracks before it even got started, filled with assumptions, misunderstanding, judgment, and hurt feelings, you are not alone. Through our years of organizing within our local communities and agitating inside of organizations, we’ve learned a number of ways to slow conversations down so that we can clearly and effectively address the urgency of the social justice work in which we are engaged. We will hear a little about your context; share a theoretical framework about the neuroscience of stress; and several tools to apply in group settings.

Trainers:

Imani Romney-Rosa Chapman is the founder and director of imani strategies, llc. She has more than 25 years of experience organizing, educating and developing curriculum for social justice. Mrs. Chapman works for a world in which her children and the young people in your lives can live wholly and safely into their full humanity in an equitable world where race is not a major determinant in health, wealth, legal, and educational outcomes. She is enrolled in the doctoral studies program for Interfaith Clinical Education for Pastoral Ministry at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion.

Franny Silverman is a collaborator, coach, and creator bringing people together to have a shared experience of growth and transformation, whether in the classroom or boardroom, sanctuary, stage, or streets. She is a white Ashkenazi Jew, a lifelong learner and parent, with embedded antiracist practices. All of her work is aimed at building towards greater collective and systemic wholeness and equity, rooted in a deep commitment to possibility and to the ongoing state of becoming.