Thank you to everyone who joined us for the Single Story-Facilitated Workshops on race and racism, the Game Night in support of local, Black-owned restaurants, and/or the White Fragility Workshop.
We are working towards forming a SEED cohort for our community in the coming school year. (SEED, which stands for Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity, is a series of facilitated monthly seminars designed to help participants create, develop, and implement strategies that foster respect for all people.) In continuation of our 'pre-work' for the SEED seminars, the next sessions in the Diversity Committee's Summer Workshop series are:
Beyond Black & White: Asian-Americans and Racial Justice
Tuesday, July 14th
6:30-8:00pm
If you haven't done so already, sign up here by July 12th to join a facilitated discussion about Asian-American experiences in the United States and the relationship of the Asian-American community to the current movement for anti-Black racial justice. (Attendance at previous or subsequent workshop sessions is welcome but not required.)
Workshop Goals:
- Asian American parents are able to share their experiences of racism
- Participants have a historical and contemporary context for anti-Asian racism
- Participants understand the importance of focusing on anti-Black racism
- Participants are aware of current work being done to address racism and anti-Black racism and ways they can be involved
Dates TBD: 3 sessions from late July through August
We will be reading and discussing Stamped - a remix by Jason Reynolds of the National Book Award-winning book by Ibram X. Kendi. Our Skinner North teachers will be reading the book in parallel, and many of our kids will be reading it in the fall. We want to ensure everyone has access to the book, so please register here by July 12th and let us know if you are interested in getting a copy of the book from the Diversity Committee.
In order to create a space for learning, the summer workshop sessions are for grown-ups only. We do invite all Skinner North parents and community members - including alumni and friends - to join any of these sessions. You do not have to be White to discuss White Fragility. You do not have to identify as Asian-American to seek to better understand how members of that community might be experiencing recent events. And we can all benefit from filling in the gaps in our knowledge of American history and how we got to the current moment.
Our school and others across the country are increasingly putting race and racism back into the curriculum from which it had been erased. Because some of us have not had a chance to grapple with these topics in our formative years, we may feel ill-equipped to support our kids in their learning. Our goal in this work continues to be supporting parents and other family members in preparing our kids to better understand the world around them and to become members of a diverse, global community.
If you have additional input or have another topic you would like to see us address, please reach out to us at sndiversity@gmail.com.