On June 12, Cal Shakes held a panel called Direct Address: A Conversation on Allyship and Anti-Racism facilitated by Lauren Spencer and featuring panelists Fresh! Lev White (East Bay Meditation Center and Affirmative Acts), Jasmin Hoo (#Asians4BlackLives, APIENC), Michael Robertson (artEquity), and Meredith Smith (The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond). Throughout the conversation, panelists mentioned a variety of action steps and resources to use when engaging with this work. We’ve compiled them below. This is by no means an exhaustive list.
We’d like to remind everyone to engage in this work with self-compassion, to follow local black leadership, and to see this as long-term work. No one person can fix these deeply imbedded inequities, but together the possibilities are limitless.
3 Immediate Direct Action Steps — Bay Area Specific
- Call Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) board members to demand they pass Black Organizing Project‘s George Floyd Resolution to eliminate police from OUSD to protect Black and Brown youth (James Harris = 510-710-0497, Gary Yee= 510-290-2801, Jumoke Hinton-Hodge= 510-918-4403, Kyla Johnson Trammel = 510-879-8200). And attend the board meeting on June 24th via zoom where they will be voting to put the pressure on!
- Join the Juneteenth West Coast Port Shutdown Protest THIS FRIDAY (June 19)
- Follow Anti Police-Terror Project on Instagram. They are a multiracial group working to protect communities and end police terror in communities of color.
Ways to Donate:
- Pay your Shuumi Land Tax to support indigenous communities in the Bay Area
- Black Organizing Project and follow them on Facebook.
- Anti Police-Terror Project and follow them on Facebook.
- APIENC’s fundraiser for Black Lives via the Give OUT Day platform (all money we raise through Give OUT Day will be donated to Black-led organizations)
On-going Learning Support:
- The Great Unlearn: Black-led resources and critical discourse for unlearning.
- Collective Document of Scaffolded Anti-Racist Resources: This is a working document for scaffolding anti-racism resources that’s been created during the COVID pandemic. The goal is to facilitate growth for white folks to become allies, and eventually accomplices for anti-racist work.
- Podcast: On Being with Resmaa Manekem about working through racial trauma in the body as “white supremacist bodies” (aka white people) and “bodies of culture” (aka BIPOC)
- SURJ (Showing up for Racial Justice) White Supremacy Culture Characteristics
- Dismantling Racism Works (dRworks) Web Workbook
- Read this great article by Natalie Morris about watching white people wake up to racism.
- 10-Week Course: Healing From Internalized Whiteness
- SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) Guide for Calling in White Folks In About Violence and Property Destruction Narratives.
- Community Agreements to support difficult conversations
