UWSA August 2022 Unlearning Circle

We invite you to join us for our upcoming Unlearning Circle on Sat, August 13, 2022, where we will continue to explore our role in building accountable communities.

In previous Unlearning Circles we have explored safety and policing, the policing that is (or is not) happening in our communities, its historical roots, and some alternatives to calling the police. As white people, we are conditioned to believe that the police can both protect us from unsafe situations and from having to see and engage with people’s suffering (e.g. homelessness, untreated mental illness, poverty, etc). We can be so deeply conditioned to avoid others’ suffering that we may not even realize the suffering that exists in our neighborhoods and the communities we are a part of. Addressing the root causes of suffering in our communities would involve building community and working together to address these uncomfortable, messy realities.

Yet we are not taught how to build these relationships in our own communities, and are even encouraged to prioritize individualism, which in part is “a belief that you are responsible for and are qualified to solve problems on your own” (https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/individualism.html). In our August Unlearning Circle we will discuss our comfort levels with the idea of building and strengthening relationships within our various communities, what barriers exist to creating more belonging in those communities, and what opportunities lie in working through those barriers.

This Unlearning Circle is for anyone interested–you do not need to have come to prior Unlearning Circles in order to join us on August 13.

We encourage you to review these resources in advance:

White Supremacy Culture – Individualism

UWSA’s first Unlearning Circle in the winter of 2017 was created as a place for white people to do the work of reflection and community self-education. As we continue to gather to critically examine our own participation in cultures of dominance, we build our capacity to show up as individuals and as a city-wide community network for Black, Indigenous and people of color-led anti-racist efforts in a positive and accountable way. The Unlearning Circles are an opportunity for white identifying people to explore white supremacy culture and our role and responsibilities in undoing racism. We welcome and recognize the gift of the presence of any People of Color who choose to join us.