Reflections from Interrupting Bias Workshop

Reflections from Susan Morrison

The Interrupting Bias Workshop was a labyrinth experience. One walks into a labyrinth seeking wisdom. In the center, one reflects on the wisdom that has been found; and then one walks out of the labyrinth taking new learnings into the world.

Reading the insightful assigned materials for the workshop began my labyrinth journey. At the workshop itself, roleplaying situations of microaggressions, interrupting bias, and apologizing in breakout groups continued the journey to the center of the labyrinth. There I paused, reflecting on the new approaches I had learned to address racism. The return labyrinth journey has been rich as I contemplate the possibilities of integrating new learnings and awareness into the life of CWAC Movement as well as my interactions with others on the racial justice journey.

Reflections from J Zirbel

Liberation involves "care, dignity and joy" for all of us (including our community), as was reinforced in my reflections during the Interrupting Bias workshop that I attended. One of the greatest gifts that I have received, to be grounded and focused in my "re-becoming human," remains to be from Wildseed Society with the "Healing from Internalized Whiteness" training guided by Sandra Kim.

Integral to my love and my life is participating in co-creating spaces and places for healing, internally and in relationships with Black, Indigenous, and People from Communities of Color and other white people.

Reflections from Jade Dell

• Community - no one can eliminate bias alone; we need to work together.
• Confrontation - can be an act of love.
• Power - Eula Biss says that the power to punish other people (and defenseless animals) enhances one's social status. So maybe that is why people who feel of low social status want to harm, rape, insult, abuse, kill, shoot, hunt, bully, kick, punch other people of whom they are afraid.
• Caucasian - "is a flimsy and fairly meaningless product of the 18th-century pseudoscience that helped invent a white race" (Eula Biss again).
• Silence - colludes with racism (Robin DiAngelo)
• Safety - What does safety mean from a position of dominance? I think of that every time I go outside my door.