2022 Program:
General

The opening plenary panel will set the stage for Facing Race 2022. Coming just weeks after the midterms, our political context requires our movement to be strategic, rigorous, and disciplined. This panel will discuss the just, multiracial, democratic society that is possible when racial justice is a fundamental principle of our society. The panel will focus on building collective power and strategy to root out systemic racism, to challenge and put an end to political violence and the rapid march towards white authoritarianism. Key questions will include:

• Given the midterms, what is our analysis, what do we need to be doing going into 2023-24?
• What in the last two years have we done well? What do we need to strengthen?
• What do we need to do to win? And how do we do it?

“Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?… Just so’s you're sure, sweetheart, and ready to be healed, cause wholeness is no trifling matter. A lot of weight when you’re well.”― Toni Cade Bambara, The Salt Eaters. What do just liberating practices of healing look like? What are the curiosities as well as the contradictions we bring to this question? Can we foster the psychological safety of having these conversations honestly and foster collective healing? Moments in our history of struggle have given us an inkling of what might be needed as well as the danger to our community if we do not answer these questions. Join us as we work together to explore what is needed today as well as for future generations.

In school districts across the United States, we have seen the results of the far-right’s relentless attacks on public education - whether through the proliferation of educational gag orders on race, gender, and sexual orientation in our public schools, the harassment of teachers who refuse to be silent on matters of equity and inclusion, or the banning of books that represent the full spectrum of experience that is essential to understanding our pluralistic world. Attacks on public education are not new; they are part of a long-term strategy to dismantle public schools (and public systems, writ large) and ultimately, undermine democracy. In this plenary, we are joined by movement leaders who are not just countering the far-right's attack on public education but are also fighting for a more just, multiracial democracy through organizing and narrative change.

This panel will look at the evolution of the racial justice movement with a focus on current trends. The objective is to understand how the racial justice movement is evolving, what new frameworks and analyses are being posited, and what promising practices and bright spots are informing the work of Race Forward moving forward.