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!
November Staff Pick: Jenn on Learning from White Anti-Racists of the Past
Essential Question: How can we learn from white anti-racists of the past?
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:
This year’s Inquiry Series invites us to revisit past resources through the lens of 2025. Our topics will include white identity development, white antiracist leadership, and later in the year, discussions on risk, partnership, and joy. These themes help us not only understand this historical moment, but also reflect on our role as white people in this work and sustain our energy and commitment moving forward.
Last month, we returned to the Helms White Identity Model to reflect on our own racial identity and explore how knowing ourselves can help us commit to anti-racist work more deeply. This month, we are looking back at our resources from February of 2024 for stories of other white anti-racists.
In my own anti-racist journey, I have found doubt to be my constant companion. Am I doing enough? Am I doing this wrong? I fear consequences of both my actions and inactions. For me, finding community - friends and partners in the work, but also personal stories from a wider network of anti-racist teachers - has been an antidote to my fears. I am heartened and catalyzed to do more when I am reminded I am not alone. We created a resource in February 2024 with this in mind, and pointed BARWE participants to the stories of many different white anti-racist activists of the past. This month, I am sending readers to an interview with one of these activists, Dorothy Zellner, a former member of SNCC and an active member in the fight for Palestinian liberation. Zellner was interviewed by Mondoweiss in 2014 about her work. We’re providing excerpts from that interview as our primary resource this month.
Primary Resource:
Excerpts from Philip Weiss’s interview with Dorothy Zellner in 2014
Discussion Questions:
Complete Mondoweiss Interview with Dorothy Zellner
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 a local food bank or mutual aid organization supporting those who will lose access to government food assistance this month. In Philly, we suggest donating to The West Philly Bunny Hop. Initially a response to supply chain breakdowns brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, The West Philly Bunny Hop is a mutual aid group providing free food to Philadelphians, no questions asked. Started by Jena Harris & Katie Briggs as a soup pop-up in West Philadelphia’s Malcolm X Park in April 2020, Bunnyhop has grown into a program that provides free food items to over 350 households each week via pop-up style produce distributions in addition to growing and maintaining a citywide Community Fridge Network. We are accountable to our neighbors, constantly pivoting our operations as necessary to meet the community needs and work within our means as an entirely volunteer-run group.
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.
November Staff Pick: Jenn on Learning from White Anti-Racists of the Past
Essential Question: How can we learn from white anti-racists of the past?
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:
This year’s Inquiry Series invites us to revisit past resources through the lens of 2025. Our topics will include white identity development, white antiracist leadership, and later in the year, discussions on risk, partnership, and joy. These themes help us not only understand this historical moment, but also reflect on our role as white people in this work and sustain our energy and commitment moving forward.
Last month, we returned to the Helms White Identity Model to reflect on our own racial identity and explore how knowing ourselves can help us commit to anti-racist work more deeply. This month, we are looking back at our resources from February of 2024 for stories of other white anti-racists.
In my own anti-racist journey, I have found doubt to be my constant companion. Am I doing enough? Am I doing this wrong? I fear consequences of both my actions and inactions. For me, finding community - friends and partners in the work, but also personal stories from a wider network of anti-racist teachers - has been an antidote to my fears. I am heartened and catalyzed to do more when I am reminded I am not alone. We created a resource in February 2024 with this in mind, and pointed BARWE participants to the stories of many different white anti-racist activists of the past. This month, I am sending readers to an interview with one of these activists, Dorothy Zellner, a former member of SNCC and an active member in the fight for Palestinian liberation. Zellner was interviewed by Mondoweiss in 2014 about her work. We’re providing excerpts from that interview as our primary resource this month.
Primary Resource:
Excerpts from Philip Weiss’s interview with Dorothy Zellner in 2014
Discussion Questions:
- What do you feel as you read about Zellner? What specific ideas occur to you?
- What barriers did Zellner overcome to do the work she did? What enabled her to do so?
- How can we apply what we learned from Zellner to our own context?
- How does Zellner see the role of white folks in anti-racist struggles? How can we connect this to 2025?
Complete Mondoweiss Interview with Dorothy Zellner
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 a local food bank or mutual aid organization supporting those who will lose access to government food assistance this month. In Philly, we suggest donating to The West Philly Bunny Hop. Initially a response to supply chain breakdowns brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, The West Philly Bunny Hop is a mutual aid group providing free food to Philadelphians, no questions asked. Started by Jena Harris & Katie Briggs as a soup pop-up in West Philadelphia’s Malcolm X Park in April 2020, Bunnyhop has grown into a program that provides free food items to over 350 households each week via pop-up style produce distributions in addition to growing and maintaining a citywide Community Fridge Network. We are accountable to our neighbors, constantly pivoting our operations as necessary to meet the community needs and work within our means as an entirely volunteer-run group.
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.