Photo & design by Eileen Kurkoski.

By
Eileen Kurkoski, Coordinator of the Anti-Racism Team
Joan Goddard & Janice Hawkins, Anti-Racism Team members    

April 2021

Starting Saturday, May 1 at 12 noon ET, 9 am PT, WILPF is offering a 7-week study and discussion group about personal and systemic racism based on Paul Kivel’s book, Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice, 4th edition. This is a great opportunity to learn and grow for racial justice.

WILPF US members have a long tradition of opposing injustice. Uprooting Racism provides a supportive, practical, go-to guide for helping white people understand their own bias and work with others for equal opportunity, democracy, and justice in these divisive and turbulent times.  This guide for serious self-study will change you and your WILPF work. Are you ready?

Paul Kivel’s broad coverage of many aspects of personal and systemic racism and his self-study exercises offer those in our group much to ponder and discuss. For more information, here is a review of the book from Real Change News.

To get the most out of the experience, please try to commit to attending all the sessions. Most of the 1 1/2 – 2 hour discussion sessions over seven weeks will cover one of the six sections in Kivel’s book. Depending on the interest of the group, other materials may be offered or included; the WILPF Anti-Racism team can draw from a resource list we’ve been compiling.

Our understanding of the myriad expressions and effects of racism is deepening with the help of thinkers like Kivel, Carol Anderson, Isabel Wilkerson, Ibram X. Kendi, and others. You can find Kivel’s Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice, 4th edition in libraries, order it from your local brick-and-mortar bookstores or from Kivel’s website (at a discount). Or – with a quick web search – choose from a variety of smaller online sellers.

Of course, you can read the book without joining the study group – and we hope you will! This book will give you a valuable background for WILPF’s upcoming nationwide Unpacking Racism program, for both branches and individual members.

Here is the application to join the group starting May 1.

Apply now to be included in WILPF’s book study group and to get the most out of this experience. Email your application to Eileen Kurkoski, eileen4wilpf@gmail.comor call for more information (617-928-0958).