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Current Year: '25-'26 School Year
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- September: What is keeping us together, focused, and motivated to do this work in 2025?
- October: Revisiting the Helms White Identity Model
- November: Learning from White Anti-Racists of the Past
- December: How can we identify and challenge white supremacy culture in ourselves and our institutions?
- January: How can we create classroom culture that resists white supremacy and that nourishes Black joy?
- February: How can we co-create joy with students?
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Current Year: '25-'26 School Year
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December Staff Pick: Charlie on White Supremacy Culture (September 2020)
Essential Question: How can we identify and challenge white supremacy culture in ourselves and our institutions?
If this is your first year doing this series, you might consider using our Inquiry Series 3 material for the year or hosting an orientation meeting using our September material before moving on to the current month.
Don't forget to give us feedback!
Overview:
Last month, Jenn looked back at our February 2024 resource, and recommended an interview with Dorothy Zellner, a former member of SNCC and an active member in the fight for Palestinian liberation. We hope that last month’s resource gave you an opportunity to connect to a visionary white anti-racist from the past.
As I have looked back through our past discussion guides, I find myself revisiting frameworks that we have used in the past. Brendan had you revisit one of those in October with the Helms White Racial Identity Development Model. This month, I want to direct you back to another of those frameworks - the concept of white supremacy culture. Since we first published this discussion guide in September 2020, Tema Okun has updated her work as a fantastic website, complete with graphics and illustrations. We recommend that you take some time to look through this website - first orienting yourself with the home page, and then diving into some of the characteristics. Okun encourages us to use this website as a reflective tool, and to help us envision the culture we want to see. I found these resources as relevant now as when we first published this guide in 2020.
Primary Resource:
White Supremacy Culture website by Tema Okun
Discussion Questions:
Facilitation Reference Guide:
Feedback Form:
Please check out our NEW feedback form! We are asking readers to respond to a SINGLE question based on your reading, reflecting, and discussion this month. Please talk back to us. We'd love to hear from you!
Thank you all for your feedback so far, please keep it coming!
Pass The Hat:
In addition to being accountable to our colleagues and students of color, we believe it is important to be financially accountable to people of color who are doing this work on a daily basis. Each month, we will recommend an organization led by people of color, in education and beyond, doing the work of pushing for justice.
This month, we are recommending that you donate to Juntos, a community-led, Latine immigrant organization in South Philadelphia. They have been the frontline of defense for immigrant communities in Philadelphia in the face of ongoing kidnappings by your federal government. They manage a local ICE Watch hotline, and have been providing invaluable support to families, communities, and individuals who have been impacted. Now, they are fundraising with an eye towards long-term movement building. You can donate to support their current fundraising here.
At the end of each monthly discussion, pass a hat (or a box) and collect donations for the designated organization. You can then have one group member go online and donate in the name of your school. If you want, you can add “Building Anti-Racist White Educators” after your school name.
Essential Question: How can we identify and challenge white supremacy culture in ourselves and our institutions?
If this is your first year doing this series, you might consider using our Inquiry Series 3 material for the year or hosting an orientation meeting using our September material before moving on to the current month.
Don't forget to give us feedback!
Overview:
Last month, Jenn looked back at our February 2024 resource, and recommended an interview with Dorothy Zellner, a former member of SNCC and an active member in the fight for Palestinian liberation. We hope that last month’s resource gave you an opportunity to connect to a visionary white anti-racist from the past.
As I have looked back through our past discussion guides, I find myself revisiting frameworks that we have used in the past. Brendan had you revisit one of those in October with the Helms White Racial Identity Development Model. This month, I want to direct you back to another of those frameworks - the concept of white supremacy culture. Since we first published this discussion guide in September 2020, Tema Okun has updated her work as a fantastic website, complete with graphics and illustrations. We recommend that you take some time to look through this website - first orienting yourself with the home page, and then diving into some of the characteristics. Okun encourages us to use this website as a reflective tool, and to help us envision the culture we want to see. I found these resources as relevant now as when we first published this guide in 2020.
Primary Resource:
White Supremacy Culture website by Tema Okun
Discussion Questions:
- How do specific aspects of white supremacy culture named in the article show up in your teaching practice, curriculum, and relationships with students and colleagues?
- How do specific aspects of white supremacy culture show up in your school culture and the power/leadership structures within your institution?
- How can you challenge yourself to maintain awareness and actively disrupt the patterns of white supremacy culture within your thoughts, actions and surroundings as we move into the school year? Consider using one of these tools to help you notice and disrupt white supremacy.
- The Bias of ‘Professionalism Standards’*
- white supremacy and anti-blackness: a covert and overt beast*
- Dear White Teachers: You Can’t Love Your Black Students If You Don’t Know Them*
- Nice White Parents
- Dismantling Racism: White Supremacy Culture
- Dismantling Racism: Analysis Tools
- NMAAHC Talking about Race: Whiteness
Facilitation Reference Guide:
- Set a day and time for your group to meet - Make sure to send reminders. If you’re meeting in person, snacks are always a good idea!
- Send this month’s journal prompt to your group. Look through the additional readings to see if there is another reading that might be better suited to your group and its interests.
- Prepare yourself to facilitate by reading through our Norms and Discussion Protocol.
Feedback Form:
Please check out our NEW feedback form! We are asking readers to respond to a SINGLE question based on your reading, reflecting, and discussion this month. Please talk back to us. We'd love to hear from you!
Thank you all for your feedback so far, please keep it coming!
Pass The Hat:
In addition to being accountable to our colleagues and students of color, we believe it is important to be financially accountable to people of color who are doing this work on a daily basis. Each month, we will recommend an organization led by people of color, in education and beyond, doing the work of pushing for justice.
This month, we are recommending that you donate to Juntos, a community-led, Latine immigrant organization in South Philadelphia. They have been the frontline of defense for immigrant communities in Philadelphia in the face of ongoing kidnappings by your federal government. They manage a local ICE Watch hotline, and have been providing invaluable support to families, communities, and individuals who have been impacted. Now, they are fundraising with an eye towards long-term movement building. You can donate to support their current fundraising here.
At the end of each monthly discussion, pass a hat (or a box) and collect donations for the designated organization. You can then have one group member go online and donate in the name of your school. If you want, you can add “Building Anti-Racist White Educators” after your school name.