UER at the White Privilege Conference (WPC) April, 2006
UER participated in WPC for the third year. The goal of this four-day conference was to assist people to look at the material advantages that accrue to some but not others due to racism, and working to dismantle this system of privilege and oppression. The conference presentations, programs, workshops, and other gatherings facilitate people of color and white people to look at and talk about how racism has affected their lives. Through these presentations, the Conference attempts to create an environment where honest dialogue and understanding can occur rather than one that elicits guilt and shame or attack and blame. As the Conference description says, "No purpose is served through white folks feeling bad about being white."
UER's goal again at the conference was to support this perspective, support the work of the conference and its organizers, and share what we know about how racism is a deep hurt to everyone and how it can be healed. We put greater emphasis this year on building our work in terms of outreach and developing a base for organizing our own conference to further this work in the next few years.
For the last two years, United to End Racism conducted a pre-conference day-long workshop called "Healing the Damage Done by Racism." We also conducted workshops during the conference itself: "Healing the Damage Done by Racism," "The Role of Young People in Ending Racism," "The Role of White People in Ending Racism," and "Healing the Damage of Internalized Racism." In 2004 we facilitated a workshop entitled "Our Experiences in Doing Healing Work within the Prison System" since the prison system as a racist institution was a sub-theme of the conference. In 2005 we conducted several workshops on the intersection of women's liberation and racism since the theme that year was "Women Activists and Their Fight Against Racism". We also organized and led support groups for conference participants.
WPC 7 focused on youth (Youth: A Call to Action) and occurred from April 26-29 at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO.
Michaela Purdue led this yearπs delegation and Dvora Slavin organized UER's participation in the Conference. Barbara Love was one of the keynote speakers this year.
The website of the Conference is: http://www.whiteprivilegeconference.com.