To the Facilitator or Group Leader

The purpose of working with these vignettes is to lead white participants through a process of discovering and challenging their racially based assumptions.  This process can help them better understand the experience of people of color as they interact with whites.  It will hopefully also lead participants to consider how they might want to interact with people of color differently in the future.
     
The idea isn’t to have participants come up with the ‘right response’ but to allow them to start from where they are in a safe environment where everyone is respected and listened to.  To this end, ground rules should be set and discussed before beginning vignette work. (See list of ground rules) What is desired here is that participants authentically engage with the vignettes and with each other in lively group discussions.  What is desired is a safe but dynamic atmosphere where transformation can begin to occur.
     
Cultural competency may be a helpful concept to introduce to participants before starting to work with the vignettes.  Cultural competency has two aspects.  The first is increasing awareness and knowledge of other ethnicities and cultures.  Sometimes this may begin with just acknowledging to ourselves that we don’t know that much about a particular culture.  Acknowledging that we don’t know can help us adopt a less judgmental and more curious attitude toward a behavior that doesn’t exactly meet the standards of, for example, middle-class white culture.  This leads to the other aspect of cultural competence, which is learning to see our own biases and stereotypes as we interact with people from a different culture.
     

The term “cultural competence” is much less loaded than the term “racism”. The later is often associated with the mean spirited bigotry of groups like the Ku Klux Klan.  Becoming more cultural competent may be an easier process to embrace than becoming less racist.  That said, I don’t think it’s possible to delve into this area without also using the terms “racism” or “racist” at times.
     
The vignettes are organized according to racial or ethnic groups.  I suggest that the facilitator quickly read through all the vignettes before selecting the ones that would be most suitable for his or her particular group.

I have included a list of sample questions to help get the discussion going. You can select from the list whichever questions are the most relevant for the particular vignettes you have chosen.  I think the question “In what ways can you empathize with the white person and with the person of color in the vignette?” will help set the tone of the discussion - leading it away from the categories of good and bad or right and wrong.

The commentary is set apart from the vignette on purpose.  It is important that people have the opportunity to see what feelings and thoughts emerge on their own before consulting the commentary.  After reading the commentary they can then be asked in what ways they agree or disagree with the commentary and what they might like to add to it.  The commentary is not meant to comprehensively cover the issues brought up in the vignette; it leaves room for other points and perspectives.

I strongly recommend that this work be done in all-white groups. Historically, white people have relied on people of color to educate them about racism.  What I have heard over and over from people of color is their desire for whites to take on the responsibility for educating themselves about the toxic effects of racism.  It can also be quite painful for many people of color to witness whites as they go through the process of identifying their negative or demeaning racial stereotypes.  Moreover, white people are likely to be more honest about their racial beliefs if they are not in a group with people who will be directly offended by them.

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