Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. ~ James Baldwin

The late Vaclav Havel—playwright, dissident, prisoner, and president of the Czech Republic once said,

“(T)he salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart…. Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better.”

Though the horrors of American racism can be seen in the media, on our streets, and in our institutions, this course will help us to take a cold, hard look at our interior lives and at the heart-stuff from which racism flows. How can what we face about the heart heal our nation? How can we, with a revolution of human consciousness, fix American racism?

With James Baldwin as inspiration; on the eve of the Vice Presidential debate; on the way to the most important election of our lives—this will be both a theoretical and practical course for people of all ethnicities about how to dismantle racism from the inside out.

If you are able, please watch I Am Not Your Negro and/or Read Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time before we meet.

The class will take place at 7:00 – 8:30 p.m. on both Wednesday, October 7th and Thursday, October 8th. Indigenous authors and leaders Kaitlin Curtice and Mark Charles will guide our conversation Wednesday. On Thursday, author and activist V, formerly Eve Ensler, and documentary filmmaker Macky Alston will be our guests. If you are not available to attend on those dates, recordings of the workshop will be sent afterward to all ticket holders.

Why this event:

Though race is a social construct, American racism is the very real and toxic context in which all of our interactions occur. We who want a more just and loving world must acquire the tools to be anti-racist leaders whether we are parents, teachers, students, social workers, artists, activists, or part of the corporate world. This is a workshop for ANYONE who wants to contribute to healing our country in large and small ways; attendance at the previous two workshops is not required.