Reckoning with White Femininity and Anti-Blackness: Towards Humanizing Relationships and Solidarity
A collaboration between Ellen Tuzzolo & Jen Willsea
New dates coming soon!
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New dates coming soon! 〰️
“While the content itself was both powerful and deeply relevant, what most impressed me was the skillfulness of the facilitation, and the relational way we were invited to deepen our understanding of these interconnected themes through small group breakouts and 1:1 conversation. In this way the facilitators modeled the ongoing learning while holding space for authenticity, vulnerability, and learning in community. Highly recommend to anyone looking to deepen their journey as powerful accomplices in liberation of Black women and gender expansive folks. ”
A workshop for white people of all gender identities who have personally experienced dominant culture's expectations of white girlhood/womanhood and/or white femininity
Our Intentions for the Series
To deepen our shared understanding of anti-Blackness & toxic white femininity
To explore current patterns in our relationships with Black GEP and Black women as they relate to anti-Blackness & toxic white femininity
To nurture seeds of self & systems awareness that continue to grow & support our healing and transformation
To co-create an experience that emphasizes the emotional & embodied experience of learning, reflecting, and relating, as a direct challenge to the individualism, competition, and perfectionism that is characteristic of toxic white femininity
Why are we creating this space?
Since 2022, alongside the more than 100 people who have participated in the virtual version of this workshop, we have been…
getting curious about embodied patterns in our relationships with Black women and Black gender expansive people; pivoting to more authenticity and honesty about these patterns as a foundational practice toward solidarity
building vulnerable, transparent, risk-taking relationships in which we examine our own toxic white femininity and how that is impacting our relationships
continuing to grieve the ways that white femininity has been shaped with anti-Blackness at its core…and learning from how the unraveling of this feels in our own bodies
Affirmed by the transformation and motivation previous participants have shared with us, we are super excited about the possibilities that open up when we do this work in person.
We see, as best we can, the pain and dehumanization that Black women and Black gender expansive people experience in relationships with white women and white gender expansive people. We understand the ways white femininity is and has long been used to terrorize Black people of all genders. We have felt shame and despair when we have not shown up as powerful reliable co-conspirators alongside Black women and Black gender expansive folks. We deeply long for more ways of being and doing that allow us to be in authentic relationship with Black women and Black gender expansive people. We see possibility in ourselves, and in our white siblings/peers to be powerful forces of solidarity and mutuality in our work to support the liberation of Black women and Black gender expansive people - which in turn will be the liberation of all us, together.
To give you a sense for the experience, we put together a montage from previous virtual sessions.
Practice Circle: Continuing to Reckon with White Femininity and Anti-Blackness
If you have previously completed our virtual workshop, you are invited to attend this intimate monthly Practice Circle co-facilitated by Ellen Tuzzolo and Jen Willsea. You are welcome to attend as few or as many sessions as you like.
The Practice Circle is a space for connection, nourishment, and application.
Please register and complete payment for each session you plan to attend, using the links below. Our aim is to make these sessions as accessible as possible, so we trust that you will contribute $25-$125 per session, based on your access to financial resources.
We look forward to practicing with you!
May 2
Taking Responsibility for our Emotions in Relationships with Black Women and Gender Expansive People
12-2 pm Eastern
September 5
Releasing our Descendents from the Constraints of the Gender Binary
12-2 pm Eastern
Reckoning with White Femininity and Anti-Blackness: Towards Humanizing Relationships and Solidarity
A four-part virtual workshop for white people of all gender identities who have personally experienced dominant culture's expectations of white girlhood/womanhood and/or white femininity.
This workshop is best suited for those who have been practicing antiracism for some time.
Facilitated by Ellen Tuzzolo and Jen Willsea; Produced by Rachael Reichenbach
What Is My Story? A Narrative Approach to Building Anti-racist Skill
Examining the stories we hold is an essential practice for white people.
The stories we hold about ourselves and others can be a tool in service of white supremacy, or they can be a powerful force for exposing the myths of white superiority and breaking allegiance to whiteness.
Open to all white-identified people, at all levels of antiracism experience.
Facilitated by Roan Coughtry and Jen Willsea.
“From the day I was born... I learned it is possible to be a Christian and a white southerner simultaneously; to be a gentlewoman and an arrogant callous creature in the same moment; to pray at night and ride a Jim Crow car the next morning and to feel comfortable in doing both. I learned to believe in freedom, to glow when the word democracy was used, and to practice slavery from morning to night. I learned it the way all my southern people learn it: by closing door after door until one's mind and heart and conscience are blocked off from each other and from reality.”