ACT's Racial Equity Learning Series Winter Cohort Program

The winter cohort is designed for individuals who want to learn more about allyship, white supremacy, bias and microaggressions, and furthering racial equity.

Allyship will be held on Thursday & Friday, November 12 & 13 (2-day session) from 9:30am – noon.

White Supremacy will be held on Friday, December 11 from 9:30am-noon.

Bias & Microaggressions will be held on Friday, January 8 from 9:30am-noon.

Building Equity will be held on Thursday & Friday, February 4 & 5 (2-day session) from 9:30am-noon.

By registering for this cohort program, you are committing to attending all workshops. A link to the Zoom meeting will be sent before the November date.

About the workshops:

Allyship: This workshop is led from a racial equity lens, usually as the initial component of race-equity partnerships. We begin with this training as an empowering way to promote racial equity and justice as a lifestyle. The workshop helps participants identify their areas of privilege and apply tools to be effective allies through manners of centering the marginalized, self/mirror work, and influencing others. It sets a critical foundation for the organization’s approach moving forward. This training is executed in two 2.5-hour sessions.

White Supremacy: Leveraging the Allyship workshop as a foundation, this training outlines white supremacy as an institution, its persistence in present day, and its common forms in organizations. The interactive session will guide participants to understand white supremacy as a construct of dominance and culture and will also facilitate active unpacking and identifying of white supremacy culture in participants’ own lives and work. Additionally, this training will guide participants to understand racism as a structural upholding of white supremacy through systemic means. Tools will also be provided to actively identify and unlearn white supremacy moving forward. This is executed in one 2.5-hour session.

Bias & Microaggressions: This this training focuses on the Individual and Interpersonal aspects of racism. The half-day training helps participants understand how our mental processes condition unconscious stereotypes that affect conclusions we draw and actions we take. Participants will be trained to understand microaggressions as common and painful ways that implicit bias, systems, and stereotypes manifest through society’s culture, particularly through individual comments and actions. The training includes common examples and drivers of microaggressions, with steps for catching bias and limiting such harmful language and behavior, to prevent the compounding of immense harm. This is executed in one 2.5-hour session.

Building Equity: Leveraging the past three trainings as fundamental bases, this final training helps participants understand the meaning of racial equity and provides tools for envisioning and constructing equity in the workspace and other environments. It centers the Institutional aspect of structural racism, and helps participants examine their workspaces’ current infrastructure relative to racial equity. The interactive day long training provides frameworks and active working sessions to develop paths forward for individual and organizational journeys, and their organizations’ commitments to the work. Participants will leave with collective group outputs, along with individualized action steps for their respective proceeding phases of racial equity capacity-building. This is executed in two 2.5-hour sessions.

If you have any questions or if you have a scholarship need, please contact Brandi Yee at brandi.yee@actforalexandria.org. Registration is non-refundable.