Design Curriculum, Tools and Training Manuals on Structural Racism,
White Privilege and Culture, and Change Processes

Transforming White Privilege: A 21st Century Leadership Capacity project (TWP)

Developed with Center for Assessment and Policy Development and World Trust Educational Services on the Transforming White Privilege: A 21st Century Leadership Capacity project (TWP), funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, to create modules that leadership development groups can embed into their training programs.  The modules are designed to help current and emerging leaders from a variety of sectors better identify, talk about and intervene to address white privilege and its consequences.  We assume that supporting leaders to be confident and skilled at identifying how white privilege operates will help them better understand root causes of racial inequities and entry points for change within their spheres of influence.  

​The curriculum includes lessons plans, handouts, PowerPoint slides and video clips covering a number of key concepts, tools and strategies for change. For example, the curriculum helps groups explore dominant cultural assumptions and perspectives about what is considered normal, appropriate, desirable and/or valid. Dominant culture narratives or norms – e.g. what constitutes a “family,”’ who is considered dangerous, intelligent, acceptable and whose perspectives are valid – are codified in customs, laws, institutions, policies, and practices. They reinforce stereotypes and limit fair access in terms of who belongs inside and who remains outside circles of human concern (as the concept is used by john powell and others). In addition, cultural assumptions are part of what continue to advantage some groups and disadvantage others. And, even when those inequities are persistent and obvious, the history and current policies and practices that drive them often may not be. The deep investigation and chance to “work with” these ideas can help build participants’ capacity to identify, talk productively about and act to address white culture, white privilege and their consequences in their spheres of influence.
The curriculum is organized into a series of topic-specific learning modules, each 30 minutes to two hours in length. The full curriculum can be delivered over a single two-day workshop, 2 one-day workshops or in other configurations that work for a given program, keeping in mind the cumulative nature of the learning and design. The curriculum uses small and large group discussion and exercise, roleplay, videos, movement and other transformative learning strategies. Learn more about what is included in the TWP curriculum.
Major topics introduced, reinforced and “worked” over time include:

• Understanding how white privilege operates and is maintained within a system of inequity
  
• How “whiteness” itself was created
  
• Ways in which specific history, culture, laws and policies, economics and power helped to create and maintain a set of accumulated advantages for groups labeled “white” and a set of accumulating disadvantages for groups not considered “white” at various points in U.S. history
  
• Tools for change, including: strategic questioning, entry points, mental checklists, framing
  
• Processes for going within and for reaching across the group to build confidence and tap into the group’s individual and collective strengths, and their willingness to act for racial justice.
  

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Developed the Transforming Organizational Culture Assessment Tool to assess how white culture manifests in organizations, and includes examples of organizational practices to address white culture and racial inequities. 

This tool is designed to help organizations identify various ways in which white dominant culture manifests in their organizations’ decision-making, recruitment and hiring, communication, evaluation and current equity practices. 

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Developed Consulting with Racial Equity Lens Tool developed for internal and external consultants to support their process in working with clients and sponsors.


Impact Silver Spring
Designed and co-facilitated with John Landesman a workshop series, Being White in a Multiracial Society, for white teachers and administrators from three elementary schools in Montgomery County, MD,  to learn how to work more effectively in a multicultural multiracial community.


Past  Work Experience
Director of Volunteer Services St. Louis Effort for AIDS (EFA), St. Louis, MO, 1993-95.
Revamped and coordinated eight different training programs to support 280 volunteers per year, including supervising 20 trainers, writing curriculum and developing a training manual. Area AIDS service organizations reviewed the training program and requested a collaborative training effort because of the program’s quality.