LGBTQ+ Health Initiative's Antiracism Listening & Learning Series
Series Information
Olajiwon K. McCadney (he/they) is the Chair for Diversity Studies & the Executive Director for Intercultural Student Success & Strategic Partnerships at HACC, Pennsylvania Community Colleges. Additionally, McCadney is a board member for the National Association for African Americans in Human Resources (NAAAHR) as well as serves as a facilitator for the national team with the national team for the Center for Restorative Justice at the University of San Diego. Lastly, McCadney holds an MSEd in Organizational Leadership & Performance Technology from the College at Potsdam, State University of New York as well as certification in Professional Coaching and is a current doctoral candidate at Northeastern University.
Former Co-Creators and Co-Facilitators
The LGBTQ+ Health Initiative put together this Series in response to a recent technical assistance survey of Network organizations in which 45% reported they are interested in additional anti-racism training. Additionally, the events of 2020 and 2021 have highlighted how urgent and crucial it is to understand the history of structural racism in the United States and to think about how structural racism impacts our lives and our work. We have made updates to the structure of this series based on feedback from the previous two Series in Summer 2020 and Winter 2021. Changes include having two BIPOC and two white facilitators, and holding separate spaces for BIPOC and white participants to discuss the book and their learning and perspectives. Additionally, we increased the length of the sessions to 90 minutes to give us time to dive deeper into the conversations.
All meetings will be hosted on Zoom. The link will be sent after registration.
The Summer Series is planned for 2:35-3:55 pm on Fridays. Sessions will be held every other week, in order to give participants adequate time to read and process all of the material. The Summer series spans 10 weeks, from July 16th to September 10th. The meeting time has been chosen as it does not conflict with any of the Network committee meetings. Please see more information about the planned dates and times in the calendar above.
- The “1619” Podcast from New York Times
- Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts
- Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit by Mary-Frances Winters
- We Do This Till We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transformative Justice by Mariame Kaba.
Emergent Strategy Group Agreements:
- Listen from the inside out, or listen from the bottom up (a feeling in your gut matters!);
- Engage Tension, Don’t Indulge Drama;
- W.A.I.T.—Why Am I Talking?
- Make Space, Take Space—a post-ableist adaptation of step up, step back – to help balance the verbose and the reticent
- Confidentiality—take the lessons, leave the details;
- Be open to learning;
- Be open to someone else speaking your truth;
- Building, not selling—when you speak, converse, don’t pitch;
- Yes/and, both/and;
- Value the process as much as, if not more than, you value the outcomes;
- Assume best intent; attend to impact;
- Self care and community care—pay attention to your bladder, pay attention to your neighbors;
- Trauma-Informed Care Guidelines.
* These agreements come from adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy, published in 2017.
Please see the agendas for each meeting in the calendar events above.
Using Gender Pronouns
Consider adding your pronouns in parenthesis after your name! This can be a helpful way to make sure you’re respecting everyone’s pronouns while making it easier for folks to declare theirs.
To add pronouns to your name:
- Tap the Settings icon.
- Choose Edit Profile.
- After your last name, write in your pronouns (e.g. “(she/her)”). Using parenthesis helps separate your pronouns from your name.
Customizing Skin Tone for Reactions
Zoom offers two reaction icons that you can use during a call: a hands’ clap and finger up. You can adjust the skin color on these reactions to better match your own.
To change the reaction skin tone:
- Tap the Settings icon in Zoom.
- Choose Meetings.
- Scroll down, tap Reactive Skin Tone.
- Change the reactive skin tone.
In a meeting:
- Click the ^ arrow next to Video (bottom left corner of screen).
- Select Video Settings.
- Select General.
- Choose reactive skin tone.
FAQ
Please fill out this registration form. We have 25 open spaces for this Series, so we ask that you please register if you plan on joining!
Registration has closed for this series, as we have reached capacity! Thank you for your interest!
For the Summer book club series, we ask that you attend at least 3 of the 5 meetings in order to have the best experience and to create continuity for the group.
We are pleased that you have people in your life that may also be interested in these discussions. This project is funded by the NYS Department of Health’s AIDS Institute to support NYS organizations who are members of the Network to improve their organizational-level LGBTQ+ and racial equity. While we welcome anyone to join us, we want to prioritize our Network organizations.
We chose these days/times because they do not conflict with any of the Network’s committee meetings. If you can’t make any meeting, then please use our materials & agenda to make your own discussion group. And let us know about it!
That’s awesome! Please tag us @lgbtqplushealth
We welcome people at all stages of their learning about how structural racism was built in our country and how it impacts black, indigenous, people of color today. We have a simple agenda for each meeting, which is outlined in the calendar events. Consider writing out your answers to the questions each week to be prepared. Also, we’re operating under shared agreements, so please see the Ground Rules (above in Series Information). We will do our best to be open to learning together, and we have 4 skilled co-facilitators to guide the conversations and help everyone in this process.
Yikes! Please drop us an email and we’ll get back to you.
Presentation from our Summer 2020 Series: antiracism_week1
We will post any PowerPoint presentations, links, or extra material here. If you can’t find something or if something is missing, please let us know!