Even if this is your first year hosting a BARWE group, we recommend that you start with this guide and use our previous series as supplemental resources. Our 5th Inquiry Series will be our best and most relevant yet, so we want you to access those resources first.
Don't forget to give us feedback!
Overview:
This year we are exploring accountability. Accountability is an integral part of dismantling white supremacy within ourselves, our relationships, and our communities. Building a practice of accountability brings awareness to how we engage with others and supports us in aligning our actions more closely to our values of equity and anti-racism. As white people committed to living in alignment to anti-racist values, we need to recognize that we still do things that cause harm to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color members of our communities. Accountability requires that we shift how we engage with the mistakes we make and the harm we cause, moving away from perfectionism, avoidance, guilt, and shame (Feminist Accountability by Ann Russo, 2018 and Esteban Kelly in “Obstacles to Accountability” by Project Nia and Barnard Center for Research on Women, 2020).
Our focus this month is to build a shared understanding of accountability and to begin to discuss how it connects to the anti-racist values we explored in September. Next month we will look at obstacles to accountability, how we already hold ourselves accountable, and areas where we can grow. We will work on specific strategies to treat accountability as an active and ongoing process. Later in the year we will look at accountability within our classrooms, schools/organizations, communities, and inquiry groups.
Much of the modern theory and practice around community accountability and transformative justice comes from the work of women, trans and non-binary organizers of color working in the anti-violence movement of the early 2000’s. This work grew out of the need to repair harm in communities that were either not able to participate in state solutions to violence or understood that those systems also cause harm and wanted to explore another way. While the individuals in our primary sources mostly discuss accountability in general ways that are applicable to all relationships, they sometimes dive deeper into their specific context of sexual and other interpersonal violence. Where this occurs, we encourage you to find connections between their reflections, experience, and ideas and the work we do of striving to be anti-racist educators.
In addition to the primary article and guiding questions, we are offering BARWE users this notebook as a place to gather their thoughts and commitments throughout the year. In the past, we have sent various tools and handouts in separate months. This year, we encourage all work to be done in this one document to encourage ongoing attention to commitments and frequent review of previous months’ reflections.
Primary Resource:
Additional Resources
If you feel one of these is better suited to your group, feel free to use it as a primary. We have placed an asterisk next to readings with BIPOC authors.
Guiding Questions:
Before discussing the primary resources, we encourage participants to review and reflect on the values you identified in the previous meeting. These will be an integral part of the discussion of how accountability connects to anti-racism.
From “What is Accountability?”
Don't forget to give us feedback!
Overview:
This year we are exploring accountability. Accountability is an integral part of dismantling white supremacy within ourselves, our relationships, and our communities. Building a practice of accountability brings awareness to how we engage with others and supports us in aligning our actions more closely to our values of equity and anti-racism. As white people committed to living in alignment to anti-racist values, we need to recognize that we still do things that cause harm to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color members of our communities. Accountability requires that we shift how we engage with the mistakes we make and the harm we cause, moving away from perfectionism, avoidance, guilt, and shame (Feminist Accountability by Ann Russo, 2018 and Esteban Kelly in “Obstacles to Accountability” by Project Nia and Barnard Center for Research on Women, 2020).
Our focus this month is to build a shared understanding of accountability and to begin to discuss how it connects to the anti-racist values we explored in September. Next month we will look at obstacles to accountability, how we already hold ourselves accountable, and areas where we can grow. We will work on specific strategies to treat accountability as an active and ongoing process. Later in the year we will look at accountability within our classrooms, schools/organizations, communities, and inquiry groups.
Much of the modern theory and practice around community accountability and transformative justice comes from the work of women, trans and non-binary organizers of color working in the anti-violence movement of the early 2000’s. This work grew out of the need to repair harm in communities that were either not able to participate in state solutions to violence or understood that those systems also cause harm and wanted to explore another way. While the individuals in our primary sources mostly discuss accountability in general ways that are applicable to all relationships, they sometimes dive deeper into their specific context of sexual and other interpersonal violence. Where this occurs, we encourage you to find connections between their reflections, experience, and ideas and the work we do of striving to be anti-racist educators.
In addition to the primary article and guiding questions, we are offering BARWE users this notebook as a place to gather their thoughts and commitments throughout the year. In the past, we have sent various tools and handouts in separate months. This year, we encourage all work to be done in this one document to encourage ongoing attention to commitments and frequent review of previous months’ reflections.
Primary Resource:
- What is Accountability? By Project Nia and the Barnard Center for Research on Women featuring Mia Mingus, Priya Rai, RJ Maccani, Esteban Kelly, Sonya Shah, Shira Hassan, Elliott Fukui, adrienne maree brown, Stas Schmiedt, Lea Roth, kai lumumba barrow, Martina Kartman, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, nuri nusrat, and Mimi Kim.
Additional Resources
- New Year Intentions and Practicing Accountability by Mia Mingus, Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective*
- The Modern Roots of Transformative Justice by Barnard Center for Research on Women featuring Mimi Kim and Shira Hassan*
- The Story of INCITE! by INCITE! Women, Gender Non-Conforming, and Trans people of Color Against Violence*
- Chapter 1: Building Communities in Feminist Accountability by Ann Russo, 2019
- All About Love by Bell Hooks, 1999*
- Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope by Bell Hooks, 2003*
If you feel one of these is better suited to your group, feel free to use it as a primary. We have placed an asterisk next to readings with BIPOC authors.
Guiding Questions:
Before discussing the primary resources, we encourage participants to review and reflect on the values you identified in the previous meeting. These will be an integral part of the discussion of how accountability connects to anti-racism.
From “What is Accountability?”
- Which definitions or reflections on accountability resonated with you the most from the video? Why do you think that is?
- After watching the video, how do you now define accountability? How, if at all, is this different from what you thought of accountability in the past?
- Begin to build a working shared definition of accountability that you’d like to use as a group. At this point, what would you like included?
- Think back to the values you discussed last month after reading “How to be an Antiracist Educator” by Dena Simmons. In what ways does a practice of accountability connect to these values? It may also be helpful to think back to the work you’ve done around white supremacy characteristics and their antidotes, Bettina Love’s videos on Black joy and co-conspiratorship, and the Equity Literacy Institute's principles.
- This graphic may help with reflecting on your personal and group definitions of accountability.
Facilitation Reference Guide:
Feedback Form:
As we grow in year five, we hope that one person in your group can take a few minutes to fill out our feedback form to let us know how it went.
Here is a takeaway from previous meetings:
- Set a day and time for your group to meet - Make sure to send reminders.
- Send this month’s Primary Video to your group and encourage folks to prepare for the meeting by watching ahead of time. 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.
- Pass the Hat and collect donations for Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective this month.
- Complete the Feedback Form.
- Prepare yourself for October by setting a date and time, inviting colleagues, and looking out for our next Discussion Guide on October 1st.
Feedback Form:
As we grow in year five, we hope that one person in your group can take a few minutes to fill out our feedback form to let us know how it went.
Here is a takeaway from previous meetings:
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.
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.
This month, we encourage you to donate to Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective, a community group based out of Oakland, CA working to build and support transformative justice responses to child sexual abuse. According to BATJC, “Our work consists of securing safety and intervening in current violence, while also building long term spaces of accountability and strategies for healing and resilience for all survivors, bystanders, and those who have caused harm. We also hold labs, studies, and community spaces where people can learn about transformative justice and build up their skills around various topics that undergird this work. Our goal is to strengthen and support our community’s collective capacity to respond to harm in all the spaces they move within.”
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.
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.
This month, we encourage you to donate to Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective, a community group based out of Oakland, CA working to build and support transformative justice responses to child sexual abuse. According to BATJC, “Our work consists of securing safety and intervening in current violence, while also building long term spaces of accountability and strategies for healing and resilience for all survivors, bystanders, and those who have caused harm. We also hold labs, studies, and community spaces where people can learn about transformative justice and build up their skills around various topics that undergird this work. Our goal is to strengthen and support our community’s collective capacity to respond to harm in all the spaces they move within.”