United to End Racism (UER) at the United States Social Forum 2010, 2007, and 2004
UER brought a delegation to the Second U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, Michigan, in June 2010. The U.S. Social Forum is part of a growing global justice movement that is developing as an alternative to neoliberal capitalism.
Alysia Tate led the delegation of sixteen RC leaders who presented three well-attended workshops. The first workshop was "Putting Ourselves in the Movement: Facing Discouragement and Finding Real Hope in Midwest Activism." Participants answered three questions in mini-sessions: What is your vision for the world? Where have things gone well in your activism? What has been challenging, hard, discouraging about being an activist and actualizing your vision? The second workshop was a four-hour workshop "Healing the Hurts of Racism in Detroit and the Midwest: Ending Oppression and Undoing Its Effects." Many people showed an interest in continuing to learn about RC. A third workshop, on young adult activism, was entitled "Our Role in the Midwest Movement: Facing Discouragement and Finding Real Hope as Young Adult Activists." The UER delegation also did listening projects that gathered crowds of people to answer the question, "Tell us how your story of racism has affected you. We want to listen."
United to End Racism (UER) at the United States Social Forum, July 2007
In July 2007 a United to End Racism (UER) delegation of 21 RC leaders participated in the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The delegation was diverse in age, race, class; Jews and gentiles; men and women. All of UER materials were translated into Spanish as were our presentations. We also had a listening project conducted in Spanish. UER's goals at the USSF were to:
- make one-on-one contact with many people,
- expose them to UER and RC through our workshops, support groups, and mini-sessions, and
- stay in touch with them after the USSF and help them make contact with UER and RC in their part of the US.
The UER delegation worked together to bring to progressive activists the understandings UER has about the nature of human beings, our vulnerability to storing emotional hurts as distress recordings, the relationship of distress recordings to oppression, and how to recover from the internal damage left by oppression through discharge.
The central piece of what UER did was four two-hour workshops. The delegates worked hard to encourage USSF participants to attend these workshops. Each of the workshops was very different and each was excellent in communicating some aspect of UER/RC and reaching a good number of people. All were attended by between 50 and 100 people. One of the major changes in the delegations communication of our understandings was to deliberately talk more fully about the depth of the damage done by oppression and recorded in distress recordings, and the necessity of extensive emotional discharge to free ourselves from the effects of oppression and patterned behavior.
UER at the Boston Social Forum, July, 2004
Over the weekend of July 23-25,2004, RCers from Boston, Massachusetts, USA took turns staffing a United to End Racism table and presenting two workshops at the Boston Social Forum. RCers listened to and talked with large numbers of people from all backgrounds about issues related to race, and about the work of UER. We collected names and contact information from about 100 people at the Forum.
Social Forums are a grassroots, international process designed to bring progressive groups together to share, network, and build alliances. The Boston Social Forum, under its slogan "Another World is Possible," was attended by over 5,000 people, sponsored over 600 workshops and cultural events, and provided space for 125 organizational display tables, including UER. Because it took place near to and just before the Democratic National Convention (and was organized in part as an alternative to it), there were many out-of-town participants and press. However, many people came from far away simply for the event itself.
UER had a visible and eye-catching table, with a large banner and UER posters high on the wall behind us. We proposed and led two successful workshops: "For Activists of Color: Combatting Burnout and Healing from the Damage Caused by Racism," and "The Role of White People in Ending Racism."