The City of Seattle held a segregated training session for white staffers last month in which they instructed workers on how to ‘undo thei...
The City of Seattle held a segregated training session for white staffers last month in which they instructed workers on how to ‘undo their whiteness’ and affirm their ‘complicity in racism’, reports suggest.
Titled ‘Interrupting Internalized Racial Superiority and Whiteness’, the training session was reportedly held by the Office of Civil Rights on June 12, the same day protesters took part in the CHOP zone demonstrations in the Capitol Hill district.
Christopher F. Rufo, an editor for City Journal and director of the Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth and Poverty, unearthed the session’s existence after filing a Freedom of Information request last week, which was approved Monday.
One handout distributed in the two-and-a-half hour session reportedly read that ‘racism is not our fault but we are responsible.’
Another said white staffers must give up ‘the land’ and their ‘guaranteed physical safety’ in order to be an ‘accomplice’ for racial justice.
Titled ‘Interrupting Internalized Racial Superiority and Whiteness’, the training session was reportedly held by the Office of Civil Rights (above) on June 12
The session took place on the same day that protesters took part in the CHOP demonstrations in the Capitol Hill district
In an email inviting employees to the event, the office asked ‘city employees who identify as white to join this training to learn, reflect, challenge ourselves, and build skills and relationships that help us show up more fully as allies and accomplices for racial justice.’
‘We’ll examine our complicity in the system of white supremacy – how we internalize and reinforce it – and begin to cultivate practices that enable us to interrupt racism in ways to be accountable to Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) folks within our community,’ the email continued.
The name of the email's author was redacted, Rufo said, as the City of Seattle ‘refused to provide the names of the diversity trainers, the budget for the program, or the video of the session’.
In a thread posted to his Twitter account, Rufo outlined the various stages of the training session.
He said that first of all ‘diversity trainers informed white participants that “objectivity,” “individualism,” “intellectualization,” and “comfort” are all vestiges of internalized racial oppression.’
In an email inviting employees to the event, the office asked ‘city employees who identify as white to join this training to learn, reflect, challenge ourselves, and build skills and relationships that help us show up more fully as allies and accomplices for racial justice.’
Rufo outlined the various stages of the training session. He said that first of all ‘diversity trainers informed white participants that “objectivity,” “individualism,” “intellectualization,” and “comfort” are all vestiges of internalized racial oppression'
According to Rufo, the goal of the session was to teach white workers how they have been 'complicity in the system of white supremacy’ and must be held ‘accountable to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color'
Diversity trainers also encouraged staffers to cultivate ‘networks with other white people who are practicing antiracist accomplicehood so you can talk through your struggles in the work of undoing your own whiteness.’
In such networks, the trainers urged participants to practice ‘self-talk that affirms our complicity in racism.’ They were also instructed to give up ‘niceties from neighbors and colleagues’, ‘the certainty of your job,’ and ‘accepting jobs and promotions when we are not qualified, including racial equity jobs.’
White employees were also issued a flowchart outlining the cycle of racism that whites perpetuate through ‘superior’ justification, ‘self-righteousness,’ ‘fear, shame and guilt’ over ‘harmful actions’ toward ‘people of color,’ and ‘smallness and inauthenticity.’
White people are unable to ‘imagine a way forward’ that stems from a ‘place of humanity and empowerment.’ Thus, the ‘status quo is reinforced’, the chart concluded.
For any employees questioning their ethnicity, the instructors handed out an information sheet titled ‘Assimilation to Whiteness’, which noted those of Arab, Jewish, Finnish, German, Italian, Armenian or Irish descent identify as white.
White employees were also issued a flowchart outlining the cycle of racism that whites perpetuate through ‘superior’ justification, ‘self-righteousness,’ ‘fear, shame and guilt’ over ‘harmful actions’ toward ‘people of color,’ and ‘smallness and inauthenticity'
For any employees questioning their ethnicity, the instructors handed out an information sheet titled ‘Assimilation to Whiteness’, which noted those of Arab, Jewish, Finnish, German, Italian, Armenian or Irish descent still identify as white.
'Other white people may be angry,' but white accomplices must let go of 'operating as individuals' to adapt to this collective mindset, one handout says
Employees were also taught how to ‘interrupt’ their whiteness by being ‘honest and implicate yourself either in the moment or in past experiences in which you acted or thought similarly.'
‘Don’t blame others. Don’t distance. Don’t make yourself seem “better.” None of us is,’ a handout said. ‘You are also white and what someone else did today you may do tomorrow.’
According to Rufo, the goal of the session was to teach white workers how they have been 'complicit in the system of white supremacy’ and must be held ‘accountable to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.’
The Seattle's Office of Civil Rights has not yet returned a DailyMail.com request for comment on the alleged training program. It’s unclear if the training was mandatory or optional.
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