Session #2: Identities, Intersectionality, and Interpersonal Exchange: Exploring Individual and Collective Power for Transformation

How can we be healthy if we cannot be whole?

As humans we have multiple social identities seen and unseen that contribute to who we are and influence the power we hold to create change. In exploring our own identities and learning through relationships with others, we shift closer to the transformation we all deserve. As we make connections and build bridges, we learn that race is not a separate dimension but throughlines all aspects of society as historically rooted power imbalance. Any challenge to structural racism, also challenges relations of power within other forms of oppression that uphold this imbalance.

This session will help participants:

1) understand the connections between race and other aspects of identity such as gender, class, sexuality, ability, etc.,
2) explore race and racism’s connections to other aspects of identity and other systems of inequity, thereby building on Session #1 by further encouraging participants to explore their own identities to understand the power they have and
3) learn how cultural humility and relationship building across identities can be a key strategy for anti-racist practice and transformation.