Exploring the different aspects of racism

By NICK NGO

Using tools like articles, reports, reasoning based on facts and science, the Understanding Racism sessions are used to help people become aware of hidden biases and aversive racism, according to facilitator Robert Luedtke in an email.

Understanding Racism is a series of six sessions hosted by an organization called Uniting to Understand Racism. They do sessions at law firms, companies, Providence Hospital, St. Vincent Hospital and Portland General Electric. Uniting to Understand Racism is the result of the convergence of the Understanding Racism Foundation and Oregon Uniting.
Mt. Hood Community College has been holding these series for about three years. Three facilitators run the Understanding Racism sessions: Luedtke, Carol Foster, assistant director of Steps to Success, and Lori Lorion, painting/drawing instructor.

“We don’t lecture, there’s no teaching,” Luedtke said. “We facilitate the dialogue of the people participating in the discussions. In other words, we help the discussion move a long.”

Five of the six sessions are an hour and a half long, while the fourth session lasts two hours. There are currently eight participants enrolled, but, Luedtke said there have been 18-20 people enrolled in previous years. Faculty members are not the only who can join, students are able to attend as well. According to Foster, often class schedules get in the way of allowing students to attend the sessions.

Each session presents methods of helping people become aware and understand not only what racism is but also the development of an ethnic person in the United States. Along with exploring other races, the sessions also look into the racial identity and the development of Euro-Americans.

The first session is used for getting acquainted with each other. Luedtke said the people pair up and interview each other. Then you introduce your partner and talk about what’s interesting about the person.

“We also have each person talk about how they identify themselves racially or ethnically,” Luedtke said, “and some experience they have with racism, that was significant for them.”

There are readings given out after the first week of different articles and excerpts from books discussing racial issues. According to Foster, Uniting to Understand Racism has a board that approves all the material.
“It’s strung from a variety of resources, some of it’s cutting edge, and a variety of published book and articles on the Internet,” Foster said.
In one session they do an exploration of the ethnic people’s experiences while growing up in the U.S., along with development of racial identity for those races.
Other readings include an excerpt from Dr. Beverly Tatum’s book “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” and her paper “Talking about Race, Learning about Racism: An Application of Racial Identity Development Theory in the Classroom.” She did work on the development of racial identity and the stages that different ethnic groups go through. Along with readings, they showed a video called “Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes.”
The group also looked at white racial identity, the development of Euro-American identities. For this session they read an article by Peggy MacIntosh called “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.”

The participants also did an exercise asking a series of questions to allow people to think about the many privileges offered to them. Luedtke recommends that people do the exercise with a person of a different ethnic background to “get a picture of a how things maybe different.”

In the same context of the presentation, the attendees also take an online test called “The Implicit Association Test.” According to Foster, the test is for an individual person to understand himself or herself better, to see if they are biased towards an ethnic group .

“They’re not a hundred percent fool proof guarantee. Its just a tool to self identify where we might be at,” Foster said.

According to Luedtke, it’s a test to see if the mind is self-consciously stereotyping other ethnic groups.

“Pictures are flashed and you learn about some hidden implicit associations you make with certain racial identities,” Luedtke said. “Stereotypes that are implicit in a sense. They’re not really conscious.”

The group also comes together to discuss what they have gathered from the readings and videos.

“People come in and they are to have read the materials, and we have them talk about their response,” Luedtke said. “In particular, try to apply what was in the reading to their own lives and their own experiences.”

One of their ground rules is “speak from self,” the idea is to not talk about anybody else but your own feelings and experience. Another rule they have is “what’s said in the room stays in the room.” According to Luedtke, some of the discussions becomes personal and should remain inside the session.

At the end of the series, the facilitators have the attendees talk about their thoughts and feeling, then turn it into some kind of action, and it’s up to them what to do. For example, in January 2005, after going through the series herself, Foster decided to do the facilitator training to help people be aware and reduce racism.

They also write a letter to themselves, saying what they plan to be doing with the experience they picked up in the six weeks. The letter is sealed in an envelope, and the facilitators pick up the envelopes and send it back to them in six months. According to Luedtke, they send it back in six months because that’s a good period of time to do what fulfill their plans and check back to see if they accomplished what they wanted to do.

Even though it’s too late to attend the sessions now, anybody is eligible to attend the next series. Foster said they have not set a date for the next series but anybody who’s interested can sign up by emailing Administrative Assistant Jody Sullivan at [email protected].