Be prepared to be led out of your comfort zones and habituated thinking patterns, when our speaker, Andrea Morisette Grazzini, a Minnesota white liberal, shares what she has learned through her anti-racism work. She’ll share stories that will help us connect to the realities of our Black and brown neighbors, fellow citizens, and communities. She’ll share themes of unfinished business and unexpected challenges that pervade cultural and political realities -- including in suburban and progressive religious environments -- that undermine the promise of collective growth during this unique time of increased awareness of the persistence of racism and the critical need for racial healing, justice, and reparation efforts.
She will then lead and facilitate us in a dialogue that will deepen our inter-racial knowledge and related social-emotional intelligence. We’ll touch on obstacles that prevent well-meaning white people like us from fully embracing and earnestly engaging in missions that can “widen the circle” in constructive ways that nurture the kind of social progress and justice in our communities that our country has long promised, but still struggles to deliver. Included in this discussion will be an effort to acknowledge false perceptions of progress that we as white people tend to, if unintentionally, propagate, and the harm doing so creates. Then we’ll discuss practical tools that we can feel confident in succeeding with.
Andrea Morisette Grazzini is a communicator, consultant, catalyst, and connector. She collaborates with and/or advises organizations and groups, campaigns, initiatives, and leaders and coaches developing professionals. She has founded and led several cross-sector civic engagement groups that have addressed timely issues via regional, national, and international efforts, including DynamicShift, a civil-discourse initiative, and Me to We Racial Healing, an anti-racism organization (links to website https://www.metoweracialhealing.com and Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/369560219915953). She has published numerous articles on political and social issues, communities, and transformative leaders. Her work has been covered by media and cited by peer-reviewed academic papers, and she presented The Other is Among Us on TEDxEd.
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