I’m a Good Person! Isn’t That Enough? DEI LWVNY Webinar with Debby Irving
“I’m a Good Person! Isn’t That Enough?”
LWVNY DEI Webinar with Debby Irving
Author of Waking Up White
Part 1: on August 17 — A powerful presentation about racism and inequality
Part 2: on August 19 — Continue the Discussion
Debby examines how she used her white-skewed belief system to interpret the world around her, instead of questioning the racial disparities and tensions she could see and feel. This workshop is designed to support white people in making the paradigm shift from “fixing” and “helping” those believd to be inferior, to focusing on internalized white superiority and its role in perpetuating racism at the individual, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural levels. Learn. DIscuss. Reflect
The League of Women Voters of New York State (LWVNYS) is honored to welcome Debby Irving, author of Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race, to speak to our League Members about race and systemic racism.
Using historical and media images, Debby examines how she used her white-skewed belief system to interpret the world around her. Socialized on a narrow worldview, Debby explores how she spent decades silently reaffirming harmful, archaic racial patterns instead of questioning the racial disparities and tensions she could see and feel. This workshop is designed to support white people in making the paradigm shift from ‘fixing’ and ‘helping’ those believed to be inferior, to focusing on internalized white superiority and its role in perpetuating racism at the individual, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural levels.
Debby Irving brings to racial justice the perspective of working as a community organizer and classroom teacher for 25 years without understanding racism as a systemic issue or her own whiteness as an obstacle to grappling with it. Waking Up White tells the story of how she went from well-meaning to well-doing and how she unpacked her own long-held beliefs about colorblindness, being a good person, and wanting to help people of color.
We look forward to all LWVNYS members attending this, the first of two online workshops with Debby Irving, sponsored by the LWVNYS DEI Task Force and intended for League members to help continue the transformational equity journey for themselves, and for their Leagues. (Hold the date of October 19th for the second workshop!)