By: Tiffany Jacobs, AAUW NC DEI Chair
The Illusion of Inclusion program was hosted by the AAUW Greensboro Branch, DEI committee on Saturday, January 8, 2022. Betsy Harrington served as Guest Speaker. Betsy is a retired program specialist for the National Conference for Community and Justice of the Piedmont Triad (NCCJ). The mission of NCCJ is fighting bias, bigotry and racism and building diverse, inclusive communities for everyone. She is an active advocate for social justice and has facilitated many groups in having courageous conversations around difficult issues.
Betsy shared her lived experience and testimonial of understanding the subtle ways that well-intended individuals can appear to adequately address race while at the same time marginalizing it. She discussed how she was able to challenge her own socialization and widen her limited perspective in order to create authentic relationships and interactions. She offered tools on how to better understand race as a social construct, institutional structures of power, and inherited advantage.
Race: The Power of an Illusion
This 3-part documentary is a basic resource for understanding race in the United States, it is important for understanding the history of racialization in America and how racial categories came about (which we often inaccurately equate to biology). This is an excellent resource for understanding structural/systemic racism.
Episode 1– examines the idea of “race” through contemporary science—including genetics
Episode 2—Looks at how the roots of the race concept in North America came about, and how “race” served to rationalize, even justify, American social inequalities as “natural”.
Episode 3—Uncovers how race resides not in nature, but in politics, economics and culture—and reveals how our social institutions “create” race by disproportionally channeling resources, power, status and wealth to white people.
Waking Up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race, by Debby Irving
In this memoir the author shares how she began to question her long held assumptions about race and culture. It is an excellent personal story of her growing awareness and her frequent “ouch” moments along her journey.
Informative Videos
An interview with author Robin DiAngelo with Christiane Amanpour on PBS about her book Nice Racism
TEDTalk with Peggy McIntosh—How to Recognize your White Privilege and use it to Fight Inequality. Prof. McIntosh shares her understanding of her own white privilege as she grew to understand the effects of male privilege.
TEDTalk with Sue Borrego—Understanding My Privilege. University chancellor talks about her life growing up in poverty and how she began to learn about her privilege as a white person.
Phil Vischer—Holy Post: Race in America. This 17-minute YouTube video is a short synopsis of how the history of racism is still affecting us even after the civil rights movement, the election of a black president, and non- discrimination laws.
AAUW Greensboro Website homepage with links to AAUW Greensboro DEI page