Understanding Racial Justice
Title Track and We The People – MI are happy to present Understanding Racial Justice (URJ), a five-week course for white people ready to lean into the racial justice movement. URJ was co-created in 2020 by skilled, longtime organizers and facilitators Simon Wolff and Seth Bernard (see full bios below). We are looking forward to welcoming more committed folks into our URJ alumni community this year, now more than 300 strong.
Our final cohort of 2024 just completed. Stay tuned to this page for more details on future cohorts, or send a message to programs {at} titletrackmichigan.org to express your interest in URJ or inquire about how you can bring this programming to your area!!
This course is sure to be a transformative community and capacity building experience that supports your quest to join the movement for racial justice. This course is appropriate for white identified people who have had little to no prior antiracism or anti-oppression training. Themes explored will include race, racism, identity, solidarity, accountability, collective liberation, cultural healing, and embodied antiracism practice. The third week will feature special guest presenters who will share stories and insights from their lived experiences as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) people. This course includes creative and somatic practices that support integration, connectivity, and resilience.
Are you curious to learn more about the importance of caucus or affinity group work as an integral part of the quest for racial equity? “For white people, a caucus provides time and space to work explicitly and intentionally on understanding white culture and white privilege and to increase one’s critical analysis around these concepts. A white caucus also puts the onus on white people to teach each other about these ideas, rather than placing a burden on people of color to teach them.” Read more at racialequitytools.org.
Participation in this course requires attendance at all five two hour sessions except for the case of emergency situations. Due to the high level of interest in this course, please only register if you are able to attend all sessions. There will be an average of one hour of additional work per week that will compliment the live sessions.
The payment structure for this course is sliding scale: $125 – $500 ($25-$100 per week). We have set the pricing as low as we can to make this work accessible to all who are interested, understanding that the upper end of the sliding scale is an excellent value for two hours of live session time per week with experienced facilitators, one session featuring three or four special guest global majority presenters, as well as invitations for deepening and support resources between sessions. We are grateful for your interest and if you are able to contribute beyond the sliding scale, your donation will go into a scholarship fund for this program.
Grant Piering, a recent alumni of Understanding Racial Justice, shares about his URJ experience and why he feels like the course is important. “This cohort was a great stepping stone for me to put some of the tools in place and get a lot of resources to know what to do next.” (video: April 2023)
Logo design by Dani Renwick of Charmellow Design.
“URJ changed the course of my life and ultimately gave me a whole new perspective.”
Many thanks to URJ alumni Taryn Indish for sharing some powerful reflections on their Understanding Racial Justice experience. (video: September 2023)
“I highly recommend it (Understanding Racial Justice) for anyone willing to explore the topic of racism and how it affects all of us, as a way of opening the door to healing on a bigger level and finding a better way forward together.” Many thanks to recent URJ alum Summer Ison for sharing her URJ reflections (October 2023)
Understanding Racial Justice in the news
- Northern Express: Finding “Beloved Community” – The impact of Title Track’s Understanding Racial Justice Program
- Northern Express: The Good Fight: Northern Michigan E3 and Title Track Reflect on Their Efforts for a Safer, More Inclusive Community
- Greater than Code Podcast with featured guest, Mae Beale: Contributing to Humanity and Mutual Aid – Solidarity, Not Charity
- Traverse City Record-Eagle: Erlewine crafts coffee inspired by song to benefit Title Track
- 9&10 News interview: “Understanding Racial Justice with Title Track”
- Traverse Ticker article by Craig Manning: “Bernard and Wolff Aim High With Title Track”
- Title Track receives URJ grant from Cherry Republic: “Opening Hearts and Minds” by Cherry Republic’s Bob Sutherland
- Traverse Ticker article by Beth Milligan: “Antiracism Programs Expand, Including Virtual Book Fair To Support Diverse Authors in TCAPS Libraries”
We recently completed a year long “Train the Trainer” program that will expand our capacity to offer more Understanding Racial Justice cohorts from a skilled and experienced team of white anti-racism leaders.
We have also developed a Global Majority Healing Ourselves space that will promote growth and change offering a safe space for global majority leaders to share stories and experiences. The training will acknowledge trauma and create space for healing from the effects of oppression and explore ways people of color leaders can concretely support one another. The space will also create stronger networks and partnerships within global majority communities to collectively develop strategies for global majority leaders to survive and thrive while navigating spaces rooted in white supremacy.
It is our intention to grow healed and anti-racist white and healed community of color groups side by side so that they may join as a larger community that is actively working towards an inclusive, loving, healing, anti-racist, anti-oppressive, de-colonized society.