REI’s two-day Phase 1 training is designed to develop the capacity of participants to better understand racism in its institutional and structural forms. Moving away from a focus on personal bigotry and bias, this workshop presents a historical, cultural, and structural analysis of racism in the United States. Participants will engage in discussion and personal reflection about their own experiences with race & racism. Topics covered include a fish/lake/groundwater analysis of structural racism; understanding and controlling implicit bias; race, poverty, and place; markedness theory; institutional power arrangements and power brokers; importance of definitions of race and racism; history and legacy of race in American economic and policy development; racial identity and its interaction with institutional culture. With shared language and a clearer understanding of how institutions and systems are producing unjust and inequitable outcomes, participants will leave the training better equipped to begin to work for change.
