Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed: Unpacking Race

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Unpacking Race • Fall 2017 Workshop Series

5 Tuesdays: Nov 7–Dec 5, 2017

Each session 6:30–9:00 PMat the Rotunda • 4014 Walnut St.

Tuition: $45–$125 sliding scale

REGISTRATION CLOSED

On Tuesday nights this fall we bring back our popular series on race and interrupting racism. Over the course of five weeks we'll excavate this topic through exercises, discussions, and techniques from the Theatre of the Oppressed, and equip participants with things to read and do between sessions. Our aim is to unlearn systemic racism we’ve been taught throughout our lives, to heal from racial privilege and oppression, and to offer starting points for structural and personal change for ourselves, our communities, and our world.

REGISTRATION IS CLOSED for the Fall 2017 Unpacking Race Series To inquire about or book a future series, email "tophilly@gmail.com" or leave a message at 267-282-1057.

Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed has run the Unpacking Race curriculum for Widener University, the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, the Philadelphia Theatre Company, Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, Circle of Hope, and at the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference, as well as several times as a public workshop in Philadelphia.

Unpacking Race March 2017
Week 1: Learning to Love Discussing Race

In March 2017 T.O. Philly held its popular workshop series about race and undoing racism. Between sessions we posted videos, articles, radio pieces, and writing prompts for participants. These are archived here, along with a few terms and activities shared in each session:

WEEK 1: Learning to Love Discussing Race
WEEK 2: Courageous Conversation
WEEK 3: Mapping Racism
WEEK 4: Intersectional Solidarity
WEEK 5: Images of Transition

Prior to our first session, watch Jay Smooth's short talk, "How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Discussing Race". Jay is the host of Underground Railroad, New York's longest running hip-hop show, and also has a video blogger about race. This video sets the tone for how we'll be approaching our own process in Unpacking Race:

Unpacking Race March 2017
Week 2: Courageous Conversation

WEEK 1: Learning to Love Discussing Race
WEEK 2: Courageous Conversation
WEEK 3: Mapping Racism
WEEK 4: Intersectional Solidarity
WEEK 5: Images of Transition

In Week One of our Fall 2016 Unpacking Race workshop series, we got to know each other, defined race and ethnicity and shared some of our experiences through movement and discussion. The definitions we used:

Race: A social construct that artificially divides people into distinct groups based on characteristics such as physical appearance (particularly skin color), ancestral heritage, cultural affiliation or history, ethnic classification, and/or the social, economic, and political needs of a society at a given period of time. Scientists agree that there is no biological or genetic basis for racial categories.

Ethnicity: A social construct that divides people into social groups based on characteristics such as shared sense of group membership, values, behavioral patterns, language, political and economic interests, history, and ancestral geographical location. Members of an ethnic group are often presumed to be culturally or biologically similar, although this is not in fact necessarily the case. Examples of ethnic groups identified in the U.S. are: Cape Verdean, Haitian, African American; Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese; Cherokee, Mohawk, Navajo; Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican; Nepali, Indian, Pakistani; Polish, Irish, and French.

Racial and Ethnic Identity: An individual's awareness and experience of being a member of a racial and ethnic group; the racial and ethnic categories that an individual chooses to describe themselves based on such factors as genealogical or ancestral heritage, physical appearance, cultural affiliation, early socialization, and personal experience. Puerto Ricans, for example, may be racially European, African, indigenous, or various blends, yet they refer to themselves collectively as Boricuas. Despite color differences, Puerto Ricans share a culture which shapes food, language, music and customs.

These are adapted from Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook by Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat Griffin, (Routledge, 2007).

HOMEWORK
As we move the discussion of unpacking race into unpacking racism, here are a few things to watch, read, write, and reflect upon:

1. WATCH this clip from comedian Aamer Rahman:

2. READ Audrey Smedley's short essay, "The History of the Idea of Race...and Why it Matters", detailing the history of race in the United States.

3. ALSO SEE this history of race in the U.S. as covered by the documentary, Race: The Power of an Illusion. Watch the first part here. Seeing the first part may compel you to watch the rest, so here are links for Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4.

4. JOURNAL about race. When you notice something in your life that relates to race, write about it. While we can learn lots from reading, talking, performing, and engaging in workshops about race and racism, making time for self-reflection is also essential. Your journal could be a daily practice, or a few times a week, or maybe you've always got it with you, ready to jot down your thoughts about race as they occur. No matter how you do it or how often, keep a race journal.

AND FINALLY, Here are the Four Agreements of Courageous Conversation that T.O. Philly uses when doing this work:

Stay engaged: Staying engaged means “remaining morally, emotionally, intellectually, and socially involved in the dialogue.”

Experience discomfort: This norm acknowledges that discomfort is inevitable, especially, in dialogue about race, and that participants make a commitment to bring issues into the open. It is not talking about these issues that create divisiveness. The divisiveness already exists in the society and in our schools. It is through dialogue, even when uncomfortable, the healing and change begin.

Speak your truth: This means being open about thoughts and feelings and not just saying what you think others want to hear.

Expect and accept non-closure: This agreement asks participants to “hang out in uncertainty” and not rush to quick solutions, especially in relation to racial understanding, which requires ongoing dialogue.

Adapted from Glenn E. Singleton & Curtis Linton, Courageous Conversations about Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools. 2006. pp.58-65. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Unpacking Race March 2017
Week 3: Mapping Racism

WEEK 1: Learning to Love Discussing Race
WEEK 2: Courageous Conversation
WEEK 3: Mapping Racism
WEEK 4: Intersectional Solidarity
WEEK 5: Images of Transition

After defining race and ethnicity in last week's Unpacking Race workshop, we talked about racism and shared the following definitions:

Institutional Racism: A system of advantage based on race and supported by institutional structures, policies and practices that create and sustain advantages for the dominant white group while systematically subordinating members of targeted racial groups. This relative advantage for Whites and subordination for people of color is supported by the actions of individuals, cultural norms, and values, and the institutional structures and practices of society.

Individual Racism: The beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individuals that support or perpetuate institutional racism. Individual racism can occur at both unconscious and conscious levels, and can be both active and passive. Examples include telling a racist joke, using a racial epithet, or believing in the inherent superiority of Whites.

Active Racism: Actions that have as their stated or explicit goal the maintenance of the system of racism and the oppression of those in targeted racial groups. People who participate in active racism advocate the continued subjugation of members of targeted groups and protection of “the rights” of members of the advantaged group. These goals are often supported by a belief in the inferiority of people of color and the superiority of white people, culture, and values.

Passive Racism: Conscious and unconscious beliefs, attitudes, and actions that support the system of racism, racial prejudice, and racial dominance and contribute to the maintenance of racism, without openly advocating violence, discrimination, or an ideology of white supremacy.

These terms are from Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook by Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat Griffin, (Routledge, 2007).

We posted these four definitions on each side of the room to create an intersectional map of racism, marked with an active-passive X-axis and an individual-institutional Y-axis. We then mapped examples of racism that we'd experienced in the media and our own lives, both currently and historically, by putting our bodies on the grid. Sometimes we walked or stood, other times we sat in chairs, and then used the chairs to add a Z-axis to show visible racism (standing high on the chair) to invisible racism (ducking underneath the chair) and everything in between. The question arose, "For whom is this passive and invisible? And for whom is this visible and active?" We then worked in small groups to create theatrical sculptures and human machines that illustrated these systems of racism.

HOMEWORK

Longtime activist Judy Vaughn has said, "You don’t think your way into a different way of acting; you act your way into a different way of thinking." This is the spirit of Theatre of the Oppressed, and the spirit of this week's media materials:

1. HEAR Ericka Hart's speech from the Philadelphia Women's March. GO Magazine describes Hart as, "a Black femme, breast cancer survivor and sex educator who spoke about who this march was for and how we can all learn to create more intersectionality in our feminist movements." Be sure to read the first paragraph of the transcript, as it didn't make it onto the audio here.

2. LOOK AT "The Problem with 'Privilege'" by activist scholar Andrea Smith. In this essay, Smith explores "the structuring logics of the politics of privilege. In particular, the logics of privilege rest on an individualized self that relies on the raw material of other beings to constitute itself." Read through the first section, and then journal about it before moving on.

3. READ Michelle Chen's article about race, disability, and public education, published by Al Jazeera. Chen's short editorial intersects these strata with those of age, class, family status, language, access to healthcare, eligibility for employment, and a cycle of disciplinary action that escalates from school suspensions to arrests and prison sentences.

4. GIVE A LISTEN to this first part of the "Who Is This Restaurant For?" radio series, in which journalists Kat Chow and Dan Pashman discuss race, food, and neighborhood socioeconomics with proprietors and customers at three Washington DC restaurants:

5. DRAW AN INTERSECTIONAL MAP in your race journal. When you notice something in your life that relates to race, plot it on the map, and then write about it. You can plot things as they occur and then write a little about each, or choose a few incidents to expand upon more extensively. What does placing a situation on this map reveal? What's left out? What would you add or change to the structure of this map? No matter how you do it or how often, add mapping to your race journal.

Unpacking Race March 2017
Week 4: Intersectional Solidarity

WEEK 1: Learning to Love Discussing Race
WEEK 2: Courageous Conversation
WEEK 3: Mapping Racism
WEEK 4: Intersectional Solidarity
WEEK 5: Images of Transition

After unpacking various systems of racism in last week's Unpacking Race workshop, we talked more about intersectionality and solidarity via these definitions:

Intersectionality: “Various ways in which race and gender and other identity markers—such as language, age, class, national origin, sexual preference, ability—interact to shape people’s individual and collective experiences... The intersection of racism and sexism—and other structural oppressions—factor into people’s lives in a way that cannot be captured wholly by looking at the race or gender dimensions of those experiences separately.” — Kimberle Crenshaw

Solidarity: “Meaningful resistance to dominator culture that demands in all of us a willingness to accurately identify the various systems that work together to promote injustice, exploitation and oppression... There can be no love where there is domination. And any time we do the work of ending domination, we are doing the work of love.” — bell hooks

Some exercises we used to explore intersectionality and solidarity included Person to Person, Gravity Statements, and The Three Wishes in which Images of Oppression can be modified toward becoming Images of Liberation. These techniques lead us into this week's journaling assignment.

HOMEWORK

1. WATCH this short animation about microaggressions:

2. LOOK AT this video "Stop Being An Ally" recently published by This Matters. What are ways that this video challenges you? What are ways that you rise to these challenges?

3. READ the articles about some spaces and communities to which people can bring anti-racist dialogue and organizing:

"How to Tackle Anti-Blackness as a Non-Black POC" by Almass Badat fro gal-dem magazine.
"Rural White Folks Need to Speak Out against Racism in our Communities" written by Rachel for the website Country Queers.
"What 'White Folks Who Teach in the Hood' Get Wrong About Public Education" written by and Kenya Downs for PBS,

4. JOURNAL about race. Additionally, try following one or more of these prompts:

REFLECT on the Image Theatre we made. Which scenes or characters were familiar to you? How realistic or fantastic (fantastic meaning "in the realm of fantasy") were the edits that people tried? How could these dynamizations be applied to the real intersectionalities of race in the wider world?
INTERSECT race and another stratum. Write about each as it relates to you. How are these similar? How are these different?
GRAVITATE a statement or idea by writing it in the middle of the page, and then draw a circle around it. Where are you in relation to it? Where have you been in the past? Where would you like to be? Where do you see others? Plot these as points nearer or further from the initial idea and write about each. Do your words fall toward the idea? Away from it? Do they circle around it? Do they form new ideas that have their own gravity?

Unpacking Race March 2017
Week 5: Image of Transition

WEEK 1: Learning to Love Discussing Race
WEEK 2: Courageous Conversation
WEEK 3: Mapping Racism
WEEK 4: Intersectional Solidarity
WEEK 5: Images of Transition

In our fourth and final session of this season's Unpacking Race series, participants honed in on a dozen strategies for interrupting racism, defined what these strategies were, and then created a room-sized map pinpointing each strategy in relation to the others. We then put forth encounters with racism from our own experiences and moved ourselves in relation to these strategies.

Our final Image Theatre technique worked with individual stories. Each author sculpted their group into an "Image of the Real" and then tried moving toward an "Image of the Ideal" three times. The author of each image was free to take steps in any direction, but the other characters had to move from the impulse of that particular character, accounting for any chain reactions caused by the image's author. This is Augusto Boal's "Image of Transition" technique.

HOMEWORK

Thought our series is over, our work unpacking race and undoing racism is not. Here are some ongoing assignments for race-unpackers to keep up with:

1. KEEP A RACE JOURNAL: When you notice something in your life that relates to race, write about it. While we can learn lots from reading, talking, performing, and engaging in workshops about race and racism, making time for self-reflection is also essential. Your journal can be a daily practice, or something you do a few times a week, or maybe you've always got it with you, ready to jot down your thoughts about race as they occur. No matter how you do it or how often, keep a race journal.

2. MAINTAIN A MAPPING PRACTICE: By spatializing narratives and ideas, we can draw connections (literally!) between things we might not have noticed were connected. In addition to past weeks' mapping techniques, try the one from the workshop notes above by placing anti-racist strategies on a map. When a racist incident happens, figure out where on the map it can go, and then try applying any strategies that may be nearby.

3. SEEK OUT MEDIA MATERIALS ABOUT RACE: Share your links in the comment section below!

Unpacking Race • March 2017

A 4-Part Workshop Series

Tuesdays in March • 6:30-9:00 PM

The Rotunda • 4014 Walnut St.

WORKSHOP FULL

On Tuesday nights this March we bring back our popular series on race and racism. Over the course of four weeks we'll explore this topic through a variety of exercises, discussions, and techniques from the Theatre of the Oppressed, supplemented by things to read and do between sessions. Our aim is to unlearn the systemic racism we’ve been taught throughout our lives, to heal from racial privilege and oppression, and to offer starting points for structural and personal change in ourselves, our communities, and our world.

The March 2017 Unpacking Race Series is open to anyone who can attend all four sessions. Tuition is sliding scale: $45-$125, payable at the first session. To sign up, email "tophilly@gmail.com" or leave a message at 267-282-1057. If you are interested in worktrade or childcare, please confirm with us by February 24.

White Fragility: A 2-Part Performance Workshop

February 20+21, 2017

The Rotunda • 4014 Walnut St.
with Hariprasad Kowtha,
Morgan FitzPatrick Andrews
and Natasha Cohen-Carroll

*Follow-up showing on April 3
at FringeArts • 140 N. Columbus

“White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.”

—Robin DiAngelo

For two evenings in February 2017 two dozen people joined Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed's first public workshop on White Fragility. In part one, popular education and theatre games built group solidarity before chipping away at the iceberg of whiteness—that which we see manifests as white fragility, white beneath the surface lie dense systems of white supremacy. We shared Robin DiAngelo's definition (above) before unpacking ten manifestations of white fragility through discussion and Image Theatre:

White Objectivity: Belief suggesting that a white person’s viewpoint is objective; that it does not come from a racialized frame of reference
White Racial Comfort/White Racial Expectations: Expectation that People of Color protect white racial perspectives/white racial feelings
White Racial Codes: Belief that People of Color may not talk directly about their racial perspective; they may only talk about it vis-a-vis whiteness
White Solidarity: Belief and Experience that fellow whites will agree to one’s racial perspective and racialized interpretations.
White Appropriation and Colonialism: Belief that People of Color will tell whites their stories or answer questions about their racial experiences when asked.
White Liberalism: Inability for whites to receive feedback that their well-intentioned behavior had a racist impact.
Individualism: Belief that white people do not belong to a racial group
Meritocracy: Belief that hard work alone is responsible for one’s success or one’s wealth and that racial inequality can be overcome through hard work.
White Authority: Belief that whites alone should occupy positions of leadership
White Centrality: Belief that stories are automatically about white characters when characters’ skin color is not mentioned and People of Color play stereotypical roles within these stories, but do not drive the action

In part two we flipped over the coin of white fragility to unpack forms of internalized oppression that sometimes uphold white supremacy. We used this working definition:

Internalized Racism: The conscious or unconscious assimilation of racist attitudes or beliefs by people in the subordinate or dominant group towards members of their own ethnic group, including themselves. This can include the belief in ethnic stereotypes relating to their own group.

The group then created the beginnings of little vignettes that made the invisible visible (and sometimes even comical) as tools for interrupting and dismantling racism. T.O. Philly will be condensing these into a short overview of things generated from this workshop as part of Scratch Night on April 3 at FringeArts, 140 Columbus Boulevard. This event is free. See FringeArts' website for more info.

White Fragility is an ideal companion to our Unpacking Race series, both for people who will be joining T.O. Philly for Unpacking Race in March, as well as those who have Unpacked Race with us in the past. Part of our White Fragility workshop was filmed to document the ongoing work of Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed.

Unpacking Race Fall 2016
Week 5: Because Your Liberation Is Bound Up With Mine

In the Fall of 2016, T.O. Philly hosted a workshop series on race and undoing racism. Each week we posted material here for folks both in and outside of the workshop to use. Links:

"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

—Lilla Watson, Indigenous Australian activist and academic

In our final Unpacking Race session we combined all of our theatrical tools to make scenes highlighting instances of oppression that intersected race with education, class, health care, and other social strata. To build these scenes, we worked with a scale of archetypes that play various roles onstage and off:

Oppressed (Potential) Ally Bystander Passive Oppressor Oppressor
—————————————————————————————————————
Protagonist (Deuteragonists, Tritagonists, Tetratagonists, etc.) Antagonist

In making these scenes, we noted how acts of allyship often shift the the focus of the story away from the person who is oppressed and shine the spotlight on the ally. The work of Theatre of the Oppressed is to make those experiencing oppression the protagonists of the story. Two terms that are helpful in understanding these dynamics in relation to race:

White Fragility: A state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.
Solidarity: Unity or agreement of feeling or action, especially among individuals with a common interest; mutual support within a group.

Here are two quotes about solidarity that were critical in the early development of Theatre of the Oppressed:

"Solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is in solidarity; it is a radical posture" —Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

"Solidarity means running the same risks." —Ernesto "Che" Guevara

ONGOING ASSIGNMENT: Keep journaling about race. When you write about an instance of race or racism in your life, ask yourself:

What role did I play? Oppressed? Ally? Bystander? Oppressor? Was my role active or passive? Did my role change and who changed it?
For those who identify as people of color: Was I affected by internalized or horizontal racism? How can I empower myrself and others to deal with racism in our lives and take action to end racism?
For those you benefit from white privilege: How did my white privilege play into this situation? How can I move from feelings of guilt and shame about racism to taking responsibility for my role as an agent of racism?
For everyone: What are the costs and benefits of actively confronting racism, and doing anti-racism work?

Unpacking Race Fall 2016
Week 4: What Does Solidarity Look Like?

In the Fall of 2016, T.O. Philly hosted a workshop series on race and undoing racism. Each week we posted material here for folks both in and outside of the workshop to use. Links:

Right after last week's session, a majority of U.S. voters elected a president who ran his campaign on several racist platforms. As we move into our final session together, we reflect on lessons learned from other recent incidents of mass racism.

1. WATCH this short video responding to the increase in overt racism in Britain after their vote to exit the European Union (a.k.a. "Brexit"). Note that this video contains actual cellphone footage of racist aggression. Also note that some prefer the word "target" in place of "victim" to describe being on the receiving end of oppressor aggression.

2. READ Mia McKenzie's short essay, "How to Tell the Difference Between Real Solidarity and 'Ally Theater'" on Black Girl Dangerous.

3. WATCH this short promo from White Squad, a spoof company created by MTV's Look Different initiative in 2015. Learn more about that at this link, where you can also watch a longer video about whiteness and white advantage.

4. READ the short essay, "Rural White Folks Need to Speak Out Against Racism in Our Communities" published by Country Queers..

5. WRITE in your race journal about the above videos and essays, the election, and/or your own experiences.

Unpacking Race Fall 2016
Week 3: What Are Microaggressions?

In the Fall of 2016, T.O. Philly hosted a workshop series on race and undoing racism. Each week we posted material here for folks both in and outside of the workshop to use. Links:

This week instead of meeting as a whole group, we buddied up and had a couple of check-ins with that buddy about our race journals and last week's videos and essays. This week we have another short video and chart detailing different sorts of racial microaggressions. First, some definitions:

Racial Microaggressions: Brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults towards people of color.
Internalized Racism: The conscious or unconscious assimilation of racist attitudes or beliefs by people in the subordinate or dominant group towards members of their own ethnic group, including themselves. This can include the belief in ethnic stereotypes relating to their own group.

Next, this week's assignments:

1. WATCH this short animation about microaggressions:

2. READ through this chart, which lists 10 common themes of racial microaggressions with examples and the messages that these microaggressions transmit.

3. WRITE in your Race Journal!

4. CHECK IN with your buddy about what you've been reading, writing, and experiencing.