Recording

The Trust Black Women* Webinar with Desiree Adaway and Marisol Jiménez, was held August 13, 2019. 
​Click here for the recording - download in order to see the whole video. 

Resources

Further study for the Trust Black Women webinar.

Readings

Breaking Up with Intersectional Feminism
By Tamela J. Gordon (April 26, 2018)
 
“Black feminism gives me everything I need. Removal of any and all environments that hold no space for me and my Sisters, a Sisterhood bonded in dedication towards the progress and liberation of all of us, and freedom from the respectability politics that strangle us.
 
When I live life as a Black feminist who’s dedicated to a Black feminist agenda, I’m doing all the things that I did before, only, I’m centered inside the collective goal. I can hold space for all my marginalized Sisters, rather than feel as though I have to compete with them for the few vacant ‘minority’ slots reserved at intersectional functions. In the words of Gabrielle Union, ‘I don’t want to be at your table at all. I built a house over there.’
 
We can’t all be Black feminists. It’s something you’re born into, it isn’t acquired. However, we can all and we should all adopt a Black feminist agenda. When Black women wins, mankind wins.”
 
“Uncommon Bonds” Explores What It Takes for Women to Have Real Friendships Across Race
By Catherine Lizette Gonzalez (April 4, 2018)
 
According to a study published by the American Psychological Association, friendship patterns in the United States remain largely segregated due to personal choices that are shaped by bias and systemic racism. In a survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, 75 percent of White people reported that their core social network is entirely of their own race. ”Uncommon Bonds” takes this scholarship further by elevating women’s personal stories through poems, essays and letters. 
 
“How Can White Women Include Women of Color in Feminism?” Is A Bad Question. Here’s Why.
By Mia McKenzie (September 30, 2015)
 
“Our voices, our analyses, push feminist conversation forward to places where it would never be equipped to go without us. Our experiences, and our ability to articulate those experiences in ways that only we can, makes those conversations exponentially more valuable and useful to feminism and its goals of equality and equity for all women. To be able to fully benefit from these analyses, they must be centered, not simply “included”. “Including” them, as an afterthought of a much less robust mainstream, white feminism, misses the entire point.
 
A next-level feminism, a game-changing feminism, is a feminism that centers women of color.”
 
White Women Doing White Supremacy in Nonprofit Culture
By Heather Laine Talley (August 12, 2019)
 
“Since the violent Charlottesville protests, images of white nationalists are a daily part of our media landscape, but these pictures are dominated by the faces of white men, who unapologetically display their violence, rage, contempt. But white supremacy culture is gendered. White women do white supremacy…differently. White supremacy and patriarchal gender norms converge to create a toxic slurry of behaviors that impact what white women’s racism looks like. Oftentimes, the racism white women perpetuate is less visible, but it is dangerous to think that it is less pernicious.”
 
“Willing to be Transformed: A nine-year queer, cross-race work marriage”
by Caitlin Breedlove and Paulina Helms-Hernandez (September 24, 2015)
 
“I think white people in movement building need to make a call about whether they will be individual activists or if they are really ready to commit to collective organizing. The latter means that you don’t have to always be the final vote on the strategy, pace, timing, tone and approach. Put another way, it means you have to learn how to share political imagination, power and work without having to always be in charge. We have some great humble, hard-working, politicized and brave emerging leaders in SONG right now, and many of them are white. Personally, I don’t want them to go to those anti-racist trainings where they get de-clawed and told that they should just sit quietly in meetings and then follow people of color around asking them what to do. (Laughs) I want them to have their claws. They need them because we are in a region, a moment, a country — where those claws are needed for the enemies who are killing us. Doing workshops with other white people is not enough. You need backbone. You need practice, you need to take risks, be uncomfortable, and stand side by side with leaders of color and do what needs to be done. You have to be willing to trust leaders of color who have the track record, integrity, and vision to get things done. That’s what I think in terms of big picture.” (Paulina Helms-Hernandez, Former Co-Director of Southerners on New Ground)
 
“White people assume niceness is the answer to racial inequality. It’s not.”
by Robin diAngelo (January 16, 2019)
 
“The default of the current system is the reproduction of racial inequality. To continue reproducing racial inequality, the system only needs for white people to be really nice and carry on – to smile at people of color, to go to lunch with them on occasion. To be clear, being nice is generally a better policy than being mean. But niceness does not bring racism to the table and will not keep it on the table when so many of us who are white want it off. Niceness does not break with white solidarity and white silence. In fact, naming racism is often seen as not nice, triggering white fragility.”
 
Videos
 
Light in the Shadows
World Trust Films
 
Light in the Shadows is a frank conversation about race among ten women who participated in the ground-breaking film World Trust film, The Way Home. These American women of Indigenous, African, Arab/Middle Eastern, European, Jewish, Asian, Latina and Mixed-Race descent, use authentic dialogue to crack open a critical door of consciousness. What lies behind it is a perspective on race that is often unseen/ unnoticed within the dominant culture. With clear language, open hearts and a willingness to engage – even when it gets hard – these women travel over roads that demonstrate why valuable discourse on race is so laden with emotion, distrust and misunderstanding.
 
Cracking the Codes: Unconscious Bias
 
Featuring Barbie-Danielle DeCarlo, Rinku Sen, Suzanne LePeintre, Tilman Smith, Tim Wise, Robin Parker, and Yuko Kodama, this video clip discusses how unconscious bias influences all of our relationships and how we respond to people around us.
 
The Promise: A Lesson in White Privilege
By Storyteller Phyllis Unterschuetz
 
Phyllis Unterschuetz shares a true story of loving a black woman and breaking her heart. What happens when the warm connection between a black woman and a white woman is broken by insensitivity and unconscious white privilege? Are courage, honesty, forgiveness, and hope enough to heal the separation?

​*On the origins of “Trust Black Women” from SisterSong:
 
SisterSong created the national Trust Black Women partnership in 2010 when racist and sexist anti-abortion billboards actually accused black women of genocide for obtaining abortions. The organization responded by convening a partnership of black women-led organizations to form Trust Black Women and defeat both the billboards and the proposed legislation to restrict abortion. The organization is now building the national Trust Black Women partnership to bring together black women-led organization members and individual black women members across the US who are working together to transform how the country views and treats black women. We are using powerful communications and events to eradicate stereotype and uplift black women’s voices… Joining forces with the Movement for Black Lives, we are spotlighting and addressing all of the intersecting oppressions in black women’s lives, and showing the country that we will be heard, that Black Lives Matter, and that it is past time for the US. to honor and Trust Black Women to lead our own free lives.

Visit trustblackwomen.org/our-roots for more.