To become a more anti-racist campus, we must talk about race, and we must be comfortable doing so with people like ourselves and with those across multiple identities. Advancing the work of anti-racism is a journey we all must participate in, but our work must look different, depending on our identities and our positionality.
When it comes to addressing the different ways in which we address systemic racism at LMU, we have an opportunity to further develop our role in creating change through our different spheres of influence using race-based caucusing. With the Affinity Group Alliance gathering later this month for its inaugural convening, now is a great time to get involved.
Colleagues from across the university recently attended a training – “Facilitating Difficult Conversations: Transforming Campus Climate” – designed to build capacity in facilitating difficult dialogues about race and racism. During our time together, we had an opportunity to practice race-based caucusing. My colleagues, Dr. Edwina Welch and Dr. Shaun Travers, whom I worked closely with at the UC San Diego, co-facilitated the space with me, drawing upon our more than 20 years of experience working together and facilitating groups engaged in efforts designed to promote equity, inclusion, and anti-racism at our institutions and in our communities.
We grounded the two-day training in exploring varying approaches to DEI work and articulated the recent shift in LMU’s paradigm from intercultural to anti-racism. We reflected on Harro’s (2000) framework regarding cycles of socialization and liberation that serve as a powerful theoretical framework to ground efforts to engage in anti-racist work,[1] and discussed Derald Wing Sue’s (2015) research on the difficulties of discussing race in the academy.
We further linked these frameworks and big-picture concepts to LMU’s current strategic plan, especially for Spotlight I: Learning for Justice, Inclusion, and Transformation. We highlighted several critical skills that facilitators need to develop and created space for participants’ differing learning journeys in this work. We also situated LMU within the evolution of DEI work in higher education, reminding us that social justice work is in our DNA, even as we struggle to define what it means to be an anti-racist campus. As part of our two days together we experienced the power of race-based caucusing as a mechanism for creating spaces where we can discern the personal and individual work we need to do as we organize collectively toward an anti-racist institution and society.
The following quote from Racial Equity Tools (2020)[2] outlines the purpose and value of race-based caucusing:
To advance racial equity, there is work for white people and people of color to do separately and together. Caucuses provide spaces for people to work within their own racial/ethnic groups. For white people, a caucus provides time and space to work explicitly and intentionally on understanding white culture and white privilege and to increase one’s critical analysis around these concepts. A white caucus also puts the onus on white people to teach each other about these ideas, rather than placing a burden on people of color to teach them. For people of color, a caucus is a place to work with peers to address the impact of racism, to interrupt experiences of internalized racism, and to create a space for healing and working for individual and collective liberation. At times, people of color may also break into more specific race-based caucuses, sometimes based on experiences with a particular issue, for example police violence, immigration, or land rights. Groups that use caucuses in their organizational racial equity work, especially in workplaces and coalitions, generally meet separately and create a process to rejoin and work together collectively. Accountability is a key principle when implementing this methodology.
Through our brief race-based caucus discussions we collectively learned and grew together. Some were able to have deeper and more vulnerable discussions, and historically minoritized participants were not put in a position to have to educate others who have not been as directly harmed by systemic racism, while sharing deep and personal struggles. We encouraged participants to utilize and connect with LMU’s affinity and networking groups to continue this work and deepen relationships grounded in reciprocity and solidarity.
If you are interested in connecting with affinity groups at LMU and/or experiencing a caucus, please join us at the inaugural retreat of the Affinity Group Alliance, led by the Black Faculty and Staff Association with support from Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. This retreat will provide an opportunity to experience race-based caucusing as part of a gathering designed to forge stronger relationships across multiple differences. This gathering will be held on Feb. 24 at 9 a.m. -1p.m. All faculty and staff are invited. Please RSVP here, as space is limited.
[1] Harro, B. (2000), “Cycle of Socialization.” Readings for Diversity and Social Justice. Routledge.
[2] Racial Equity Tools (2020). “Caucus and Affinity Groups.”