At the end of June we ran an anti-racist workshop, entitled White is not a neutral colour (originally the title of a Navigate workshop), at SOAS in London.
In the workshop we explored our identities, experiences of race and racism, and feelings of belonging. These are tricky topics and at times the workshop was uncomfortable, with people sharing personal histories or challenging each other respectfully. We are really grateful for everyone who came and contributed to such a learning environment where things could get that little bit uncomfortable to help us all to learn. As one participant said ‘I felt there was an effort to make people safe enough to be uncomfortable’, and that effort was made by everyone, not just the facilitators.
As facilitators we were certainly learning too!
A consistent bit of feedback we got was ‘I wish there was more time!’ – us too! Unfortunately, unpicking racism is a huge task and not one that you can even begin to scratch the surface of in a couple of hours. However, we’ll keep experimenting with our shorter and longer workshop formats to get as much out of the time as possible.
If you’re interested in us running a workshop like this for your group – then please get in touch. Or if you want to hear about future workshops like this in the future sign up to our mailing list below or like us on Facebook.
Finally, we’d like to say a big thank you to London Black Atheists for inviting us to run this workshop and we hope to see you again soon!