Humainologie creative dialogue on Race Equality and Self Awareness this Wednesday April 28

“To know yourself, you must sacrifice the illusion that you already do.” - Veronika Tugaleva

“Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible.” - Maya Angelou

“The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it’s the only way forward.” - Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk about Race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ijeoma_Oluo

Hello again Dialogue Artists!

Our topic for this coming Wednesday April 28 will be Race, Equality, and Self Awareness. Christina McInnis has invited a remarkable group of facilitators to lead this one, including Joy M, Joyia Chakungal, and Rachel Lando. They will tell you about their initiative “For the Love of Equality” and discuss the book So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo. Also joining us will be James Burr, who has provided the orientation appended below this message.

I am at work on my synopsis of the book by James Hoggan, which is also relevant to our topic for Wednesday. For example, it includes the observation that “… in debate we assume we have the right answer, whereas dialogue assumes we all have pieces of the answer and can craft a solution together.” - James Hoggan, I’m Right and You’re an Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean It Up (Second Edition, with Grania Litwin, 2019)

I will send that synopsis before our dialogue.

Here is the link for the Zoom session

Topic: Humainologie creative dialogue Time: April 28, 2021 06:30 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada) Every week on Wed, until Apr 28, 2021, 9 occurrence(s) Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83720756307?pwd=WVU2OGo3ZjMzWVMwdlVZUzY1RVMwdz09 Meeting ID: 837 2075 6307 Passcode: 12345

Think like a bakery and make it fresh every day!

Arthur

How could this image have anything to do with conversation of racism? That would be a great question, and what if I told you that it has EVERYTHING to do with racism. From my point of view, the subject of race and racism is really about perspective. The argument I'm presenting is that when we start off of the presupposition that a certain class of people are redeemed to be an oppressed group and another group of people are seen to be the oppressor group that this creates a perspective which becomes inescapable for all of the people involved who are trying to make a difference inside of this specific narrative. Take the following image.

We can all agree (for the most part) that this is an image of a popular white male from a certain royal family, who is clearly being photographed giving someone the finger. Now if we proceed to explain the possibility that he was NOT giving the finger even while we have visible and irrefutable "proof" in the form of a digital image, the books would surely be closed, judging this person to be wrong in the court of public opinion. Seeing this picture and reading this, would you stand in opposition offering a different viewpoint? If you're anything like myself I would say no. And this is where I'm inviting us to stand and start a conversation inside of. And who knows, maybe after this discussion we might be open to a New Perspective! My name is James Burr, I am a mix raced 45 year old man with a story to tell you. I had the opportunity at the early age of 13 to realize and choose the way I would look at situations inside of the race conversation. At 14 I chose to be in the discovery rather than coming from assumption, and I would like to present my point of view and my experiences. Will you join me? -