Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership

Part 1: As the U.S. experiences this latest collective cultural reckoning with systemic racism and racialized violence against Black and brown people, organizations and businesses have been more vocally espousing values of racial diversity, equity, and inclusion. Yet, efforts at creating equity and inclusion aren’t necessarily gaining traction or creating change. That is because things need to change not just at the level of policy but at the cultural level. Organizations may bring more Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) into the organization, but unless there is a shift in culture, they will not be able to retain them. Cultural humility, the life-long process of critical self-reflection to identify personal and systemic biases and address power imbalances, supports this shift in culture. Cultural humility invites and challenges people from the dominant culture to decenter their experience and work to understand and value the cultural context of marginalized communities. People from the dominant culture often do not recognize their own cultural norms and biases. This workshop will help to make what is invisible, visible so that it can be transformed. You cannot have racial equity without cultural humility. Cultural humility paves the way to racial equity. When we have a deeper awareness of a range of ways of being, perceiving, and communicating, we can more consciously choose how to communicate and interact. In this workshop, you will develop the awareness and tools to become more culturally responsive and to actively build bridges of understanding across cultures. Cultural humility and cross-cultural communication are powerful building blocks of racial equity and are often the missing pieces in effective racial equity efforts. Come to this workshop to become better equipped to create cultures that are truly welcoming, inclusive, and equitable.