Sessions

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Menu of Sessions

The menu is a mix of educational topics meant to move you and your AROC Learning to Action Circle to further anti-racist action. You can use one of the pre-packaged series formats, which include: 1) Starter Series for those newer to this material, 2) Doing Anti-Racism Work Series, or you can build your own series from our “Create Your Own” menu. Our format always begins with a Foundations session to clarify essential concepts. You will work with a Support Team member to map out what content & how many sessions works best for your Circle, and/or refer to FAQs regarding Sessions.

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#	Session Title	Description
	STAND ALONE SESSIONS	(Choose your own adventure to fit your group needs with help from the Support Team)
1	Building Foundations for your Learning Circle	This session will introduce foundational definitions that will guide the subsequent Learning Circle agendas, build group cohesion and ensure a shared understanding of the Learning Circle goals and process.
2	Beyond Individual Acts: Exploring Racism as a System of Power	This session covers the systemic nature of racism, the role of power, and five ways that racism targets people of color. Participants should come away with an understanding of how racism exists and extends beyond individual thoughts and behavior.
3	Confronting Racist Messaging and Examining our Socialization	This session covers specific messages we’re taught of racism growing up, and how we continue to receive these messages as adults. Participants gain self awareness of how these concepts apply to their own lives and learn possible concrete steps to break the cycle of socialization.
4	Beginning to Un-White-Wash History and Decolonize Your Mind	This session explores some of the (un)intended consequences that result from white-washing history and invites group members to consider their place in decolonizing the historical sources that we rely on.
5	The Role of and Reaction to “Burn it Down” in Social Change Movement	This session invites participants to critically engage with the messages we receive about “nonviolence” and “violence,” interrogate the white-washed legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., and seek to better understand the roles rioting and looting play in creating social change.
6	Building a Practice of Vulnerability and Digging Deep for Resilience	In this session, participants will begin to explore the concept of fragility, reflect on how it shows up in their lives, explore different levels of discomfort, and learn strategies for processing feelings and building resilience.
7	Practical Strategies for Moving Beyond Guilt and into Anti-Racist Action	This sessions allows participants to examine the role of guilt and shame in anti-racism work, to understand how it shows up personally, and to explore ways to move through it for meaningful anti-racist action.
8	Guidance for the Work of Difficult Conversations, From your Racist Uncle to your Liberal Neighbor	This session provides participants an easy-to-remember framework for having difficult conversations about, which will help them manage historically taboo topics and discomfort that arises in discussions of protests, rioting, and BLM movement.
9	Building an Anti-Racist Toolkit for “Whataboutism” and Other Common Pushback	<!–td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}–> This session helps participants identify common distancing behaviors that are used when discussing racism and white supremacy, learn best practices for how to engage, and increase comfort with having difficult conversations.
10	Anti-Racism as a Multigenerational Project: Tools for Talking with Young People About Anti-Racism	This session focuses on strategies adults can use when talking about racism and white supremacy with young people. Participants will be able to apply some lessons from Raising Equity webinar, and should not that this is not a learning circle for families to discuss race, but for adults to learn and discuss tools and strategies.
11	White Supremacy in the Workplace, Examining How Racism Shows up In Organizations	In this session, participants will be invited to think about their work through the lens of anti-racism examining and developing ways to respond to racism and white supremacy in workplace structures.
12	Interrogating the Intersections of Christianity and White Supremacy	Through this session, participants will gain an understanding of the historical and contemporary intersections of white supremacy and Christianity and to explore the role of faith-based anti-racist action.
13	Mutually Assured Destruction – Exploring the Relationship Between Racism and Capitalism	This session invites you to understand our individual role within capitalism, as well as the way that capitalism and racism mutually reinforce one another to create and perpetuate systemic violence and inequality against, particularly, low-income, non-white communities.
14	Exploring How Our Class Background Influences our Anti-Racism Work	This session covers how our class identify fundamentally influences our relationships with racism and white supremacy. Participants will gain an understanding of their class path and how it impacts their relationship to racism.
15	Who is “Karen” and What Does She Have to Do with Anti-Racist Work? Understanding and Dismantling White Feminism	In this session, participants will explore both historical and contemporary examples of white feminism, examining how it reinforces racism, and offering space for participants to consider alternatives.
16	Exploring How Privilege Begets Privilege and What We Can Do About It – Patriarchy and White Supremacy	In this session, participants will explore the interweaving connections that exist between white supremacy, the gender binary and patriarchy, and how one’s relationship to patriarchy influences their anti-racism work.
17	Policing and Prisons, Part 1: Exploring the Racialized History of Policing and what We’re Taught about Crime	This session provides an opportunity to explore the history of US policing and prisons, as well as our individual socialization around “crime” and “public safety” related to the current socio-political moment.
18	Policing and Prisons, Part 2: Understanding Calls to Abolish Police and Working Towards Dismantling the Prison-Industrial Complex	In this session, you will learn about work that is being done locally to reimagine public safety and policing. You will explore the difference between interventions aimed at reforming the system and interventions aimed at abolishing the system and gain understand of the underpinnings of the abolition movement.
19	Policing and Prisons, Part 3: Imagining Alternatives and Exploring Real-Life Examples	This session invites you to imagine a community without police and to use real-life examples as models to think about what steps we would need to take to realize real, systemic change in the movement for police reform/abolition.
20	Examining How Our Identities Relate to Social Power	In this session, participants will explore which aspects of our identities relate to social power, and examine how oppression creates privilege for some groups over others.
21	How Racism Operates: Privileging and Targeting	This session focuses on understanding the specific ways that racism, as a system of power, targets people of color and grants unearned advantage to white people.
22	What is our Work to do? Using our Identities to Dismantle Racism	In this session participants will be invited to think about the specific “lanes” that are most helpful for us to embody according to our specific racial identity, using the Table of Oppression model.
23	Beyond the White Hoods: How White Supremacy Pervades US Society	This session will examine white supremacy as an ideology that influences all aspects of society and unearth the specific ways it affects US culture.
24	The Revolution Does Not Need More Non-Profit Heroes — the Buffer Zone as a Tool of White Supremacy	While non-profits promote missions for public good, this session will provide an opportunity to unpack the (un)intended consequences that arise from our reliance on philanthropy and non-profit/social service organizations. Individuals will learn about the “Buffer Zone,” have a chance to personalize the issue, and be provided with a framework to reconsider social empowerment versus social services.
	DOING THE WORK SERIES	(Only available as a package!)
25	Doing the Work, Part 1: Building Foundations for your Learning Circle	This session will introduce foundational definitions that will guide the subsequent Learning Circle agendas, build group cohesion and ensure a shared understanding of the Learning Circle goals and process.
26	Doing the Work, Part 2: Exploring the Lanes of the Anti-Racist Highway	This session offers folks who are newer to the movement some guidance on taking action at the societal, institutional, and interpersonal level.
27	Doing the Work, Part 3: Getting Back Up After Inevitable Pitfalls of the Process	In this session, participants will identify some of the pitfalls that can get in the way of liberation for people who aren’t targeted by anti-black racism. Participants will explore the idea that mistakes are inevitable and develop resilience for continuing to engage.
28	Doing the Work, Part 4: Moving Beyond Hashtags and Challenging “Performative Allyship”	In this session participants will learn and understand the difference between performative and active allyship and what it means to work toward anti-racism before, during, and after trending movement moments.
29	Doing the Work, Part 5: Finding Empowerment through Authentic Engagement	Using the “Ladder of Empowerment” model of white anti-racist identity development, this session will allow participants to discuss strategies for engaging people at different stages of the work.
30	Doing the Work, Part 6: Risk Taking as Foundational to One’s Anti-Racist Agenda	This session explores the concept of risk taking and solidarity, creating space for participants to explore how to push their own anti-racism work, to take risks, and to be more bold.
	STARTER SERIES	(Packaged Together, though a couple of them are also stand-alone sessions — those sessions that are available as standalones are listed above as well)
SS1	Introduction and Exploring how Racism is Taught	This initial session will provide a starting point for participants to understand the foundational concepts around racism and explore how we are personally socialized around race.
SS2	Examining How Our Identities Relate to Social Power	In this session, participants will explore which aspects of our identities relate to social power, and examine how oppression creates privilege for some groups over others.
SS3	How Racism Operates: Privileging and Targeting	This session focuses on understanding the specific ways that racism, as a system of power, targets people of color and grants unearned advantage to white people.
SS4	What is our Work to do? Using our Identities to Dismantle Racism	In this session participants will be invited to think about the specific “lanes” that are most helpful for us to embody according to our specific racial identity, using the Table of Oppression model.
SS5	Beyond the White Hoods: How White Supremacy Pervades US Society	This session will examine white supremacy as an ideology that influences all aspects of society and unearth the specific ways it affects US culture.
SS6	Prisons, Policing, Defunding, and Abolition	In this session, participants will explore the racialized history of US policing, what messages we are taught about crime, and the current calls for defunding and abolition.