Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Speaker Series: Let's Talk about Race: What's Whiteness Got to Do with It?

Join us noon-1 p.m. Sept. 20 in Aderhold Hall Room 119 for the first speaker in the fall College of Education Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Speaker Series!

Let’s Talk about Race: What’s Whiteness Got to Do with It?

Too often in conversations about diversity and racism, whiteness is the unspoken elephant in the room. Why is whiteness a topic we avoid? What is whiteness? At a time when white supremacists are gathering in increasing numbers, we must be honest about white superiority as an idea that continues to shape our communities, institutions, and individual behaviors. In this interactive talk, speaker Jen Willsea will share her experience from more than a decade as a white person doing racial justice work in the U.S. She will invite participants to explore what being conditioned as white is like, and ways white people can participate meaningfully and impactfully in uprooting racism.

{.image_left .max_width_30} Jen Willsea is a facilitator, consultant, trainer, and organizer with the Interaction Institute for Social Change and VISIONS, Inc. Over the past decade, Willsea has led racial equity and network building consulting projects in the fields of education, juvenile justice, oral health, HIV/AIDS, and public health, and co-led a project in 2014-2015 that raised more than $1 million for black-led organizing projects across the U.S. in honor of Mike Brown’s birthday. Willsea is a white, queer, cisgender woman who devotes most of her time to being a new mom, holding space for people to deepen their commitments to and engage in creative strategies for racial and social justice, researching and writing about U.S. racism and white supremacy, cooking and crafting, and exploring the Southeast.

This speaker series can be viewed on the College of Education’s Facebook page.