Erika Bernabei

From Symbolic Solidarity to White Accountability: How White Women in Leadership Can and Must Own Our Role in Perpetuating or Actively Dismantling Racism in Service of Antiracist Impact in Our Institutions

How can committed white women in leadership roles meaningfully contribute to and be accountable in service of antiracist organizational impact? And how do white women move from the act of individual learning/unlearning the ways we individually perpetuate racism to active participants in institutional antiracist change? Using stories and other data collected from work with dozens of white or cross racially led organizations, and an applied a root cause centered tool, this session will explore the journey of moving white women past the midpoint of our journeys - where disequilibrium, unraveling and fear of loss become off ramps to inaction. All conference participants are welcome to join this session, but people identified as white women may participate in a fishbowl exercise using root cause analysis to understand the root causes of our own inaction and develop accountable strategies. As well, all participants will learn to use this tool to engage people with in their own organizations for accountable, antiracist strategy design. The session will be led by Equity and Results, a multi-racial, majority BIPOC national cooperative doing antiracist impact work across the country. It will be facilitated by two white women, Erika Bernabei and Elodie Baquerot Lavery who have been doing antiracist organizing and teaching for decades within multiple organizational contexts - they are facilitators, practitioners and are self-implicated in the design and presentation!