A Space for Us A Guide for Leading Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Affinity Groups

by Johnson, Michelle Cassandra

• ISBN13: 9780807007860
• ISBN10: 0807007862
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780807007877
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2023-08-08
• Publisher: Beacon Press
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

“A helpful introduction to facilitating affinity spaces in an inclusive, emergent, and trauma-informed way to foster the communal healing spaces that in turn ignite community action and liberation.”—Resmaa Menakem, best-selling author of My Grandmother’s Hands and Monsters in Love

The first comprehensive guide for leading BIPOC affinity groups for challenging white supremacy, healing racial trauma, and taking collective action

Meeting in racial affinity groups is a common practice in anti-racist, social justice, diversity, and similar forms of educational endeavors. These groups provide a structured space in which participants can explore how racism personally impacts them, process specific experiences of racism, receive validation and support from their peers, heal, and strategize next steps for challenging racism, white supremacy, and internalized racial oppression.

In A Space for Us, Michelle Cassandra Johnson brings her over 20 years of experience leading dismantling racism work to provide the first affinity groups guide made for BIPOC communities. This essential guide will:

• Provide an understanding of the racial hierarchy and how it has impacted Black, Indigenous, and People of Color differently.
• Define and share common manifestations of internalized racial oppression.
• Define anti-Blackness and provide skills to interrupt and address it.
• Share rituals, practices, and sample agendas for affinity groups.
• Explain when it is useful to meet as one BIPOC group and when it is useful to meet based on one’s specific racial identity.
• Provide rituals and tools for healing in BIPOC affinity groups.
• Provide information about how to come back together as BIPOC and white people to strategize and take collective action.

Comprehensive and accessible, A Space for Us offers practical guidance for facilitating effective BIPOC racial affinity groups and will be an important resource for BIPOC communities.

Author Biography

Michelle Cassandra Johnson has over 20 years of experience leading dismantling racism work and working with clients as a licensed clinical social worker and has a deep understanding of how trauma impacts the mind, body, spirit, and heart. She has a Bachelors of Arts degree from the College of William and Mary and a Masters degree in Social Work from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She publishedSkill in Action: Radicalizing Your Yoga Practice to Create a Just World in 2017; her new bookFinding Refuge: Heart Work for Healing Collective Grief, published by Shambhala Publications, was published in July 2021.

Table of Contents

Foreword, by Erin Trent Johnson

INTRODUCTION
My Favorite Part

CHAPTER 1
White Supremacy, Racism, and the Four Foundations

CHAPTER 2
A Place Where We Can Be

CHAPTER 3
Every Child’s Treasure

CHAPTER 4
Anti-Blackness and the Myth of Race

CHAPTER 5
How We Begin

CHAPTER 6
Skillful Facilitation

CHAPTER 7
Use Your Magic

CHAPTER 8
Facilitating Affinity Groups in Organizations and Communities

CHAPTER 9
Everything Is Not Perfect

CHAPTER 10
The Role of Rituals

CHAPTER 11
Collective Liberation and Accountability

Appendix
Sample Agendas
Body-Scan Scripts
Supplemental Activities
Interviewees
Additional Resources

Acknowledgments
Notes