Enrich Chicago is excited to offer this Introduction to Race & White Supremacy an exploration of caste, power, and social equity in the workplace. The Pre-workshop exercise will be delivered via short-read articles and infographics, and participant surveys. This learning experience aims to provide a systemic context for exploring the dynamics of caste system oppression through the lens of racism in arts and culture. The workshop will leverage multiple expressive modalities to support the creation of a liberative and brave learning space.

The goal of Enrich Chicago's workshop is to ensure the leaders in Chicago’s arts and culture community are equipped with the tools needed to:

1) Ensure that stakeholders in the arts gain a shared understanding of a core set of definitions and frameworks tied to liberatory practice for understanding and dismantling the source of systemic racism and related oppressions within their organizations. We identify this source point as the American Caste System of Racism (Caste). And;

2) Understand how naturally occurring inequities show up across all facets of institutional life-- from issues of access to artistic praxis, pedagogy, presentation, to organization strategy, policy, and operating system, as a result of the omnipresent culture of oppression we identify as Caste, and;

3) Create and activate plans to dismantle inequity and harm where it exists by way of the interrogation and disruption of the norms and values of organizational culture that serve to reinforce systems of caste oppression within the institution and the programs it delivers, and;

4) Develop themselves as an agent of change using their own learnings and sensibilities to navigate the challenges of work life through the lens of Caste and anti-oppression.

5) Gain the personal power to embody the liberative values and practices that can help to shift the propensity of your institution's culture towards equity, inclusion, and belonging in a way that advances the manifestations of the institution’s purpose and mission.

The idea that oppression, and in particular, racism, is not only a matter of individual prejudice but a systemic, institutional problem of power is foundational to the exploration of Caste, White Supremacy, and intersectional oppression. The workshop is designed for institutions that want their staff as well as their leadership to understand the systemic nature of oppression through the lens of Caste, and the role institutions play in its maintenance.

IN THIS WORKSHOP WE:

1. Introduce a framework for understanding what the American Caste System (the Caste) is; and its relationship to the systemic oppressions that define the power dynamics of dominant and subordinated groups.

2. Explores how the Caste influence on the culture of work is operating through US institutions: chiefly the replication of the Caste in patterns of intersectional oppression that advantage dominant group people (racialized white) disproportionately and that harm subordinated groups (racialized as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color), regardless of intent.

3. Invite participants to consider how they are upholding institutional practices and norms (often in unintentional ways) that are examples of caste system oppression.

4. Begin unpacking what it means for the participant to engage the long-term strategic work of dismantling institutional practices upholding systemic oppression will require of the institution and its stakeholders.

AS A RESULT, PARTICIPANTS WILL:

Participants in this workshop will gain shared language and frameworks with which to reconcile their own unwitting legitimization of Caste system oppressions like racism. They will be introduced to a strategic methodology that can assist them to organize the work of dismantling racism and oppression in the institutions in which they are invested. They will also develop a basis for choosing their own engagement in the work of dismantling intersectional oppressions by cultivating antiracist culture and liberative practice in their institutions.

In doing so, participants will begin to cultivate and strive toward a version of their organization that is fully equitable, accessible, and that shares a multiplicity of voices and perspectives, achieving their mission with the utmost excellence. As a result, individuals will reflect, ideate, and begin creating collective experiences of belonging—growing from and beyond the libreative practice.