Staff Collective for Change: Conversations to Empower Antiracist Action (formerly known as SARAE) is a group welcoming all members of the Carleton staff community to participate in dialogue sparked by selected media that centers issues of racism. The dialogue events will take place in a series each term, and one can choose to attend all or a select number of the events.
Stay Connected
Have you attended any of our dialogues? Please take a couple minutes to fill our our feedback form! We are always looking to improve these discussions and welcome your input. Additionally, join our email list to stay updated on SCC dates and media.
Stay Accountable
At each session, the Collective will institute a Call to Action. This will be a time where attendees will reflect on a specific action they can take to make Carleton or their broader community a more inclusive, equitable, and antiracist space.
The SCC Action Accountability Guide is meant to assist staff in completing action steps through identifying timelines, resources, and challenges associated with the action.
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SCC Action Accountability Guide (735.1KB PDF Document)
Guide Our Sessions
We want to help Carleton staff get what you need out of these dialogues, so we want to know what you’d like to discuss! If you have a theme, topic, or specific piece of media that you think SCC should host a dialogue about, let us know via the form below.
Find the details for each meeting below. Please listen to, watch, or read any identified media before participating in the dialogue, if applicable. ALL Carleton Staff members are welcome to attend these meetings, regardless of experience discussing issues of racism.
Spring 2022 Dialogue Series
Spring Session #1
Rescheduled for Thursday, April 28 from 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM on Zoom
Theme:
Characteristics of White Supremacy
Defensiveness, Sense of Urgency, & Perfectionism
Media to review before the session:
Optional Resources:
- Article: Defensiveness & Denial
- Article & Podcast: Is Urgency Using You as an Agent of White Supremacy?
- Article & Vlog: Privileging the Urgency Over the Process
- Article: Why We Need to Disrupt Perfectionism for More Inclusive Workplaces
- Article: The Bias of ‘Professionalism’ Standards
Spring Session #2
Thursday, May 12 from 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM on Zoom
Media to review before the session:
Optional Resources: Coming Soon!
Resources for Continued Learning & Un-Learning
The following links were suggested by members of SCC as resources they have found helpful in their learning/unlearning journey. Depending on where folks are in their own journey, some resources may be more helpful than others. Please explore them as you see fit, and feel free to suggest the addition of any resources to SARAE leadership.
Instagram Accounts
Starting Out
- Check Your Privilege: @ckyourprivilege
- So.Informed: @so.informed
- Post on Microaggressions from @shiftconsultingco JDEI & Sexual Harassment Prevention
Diving In
- Black Disability Collective: @blackdisabilitycollective
- Kim Saira: @kimsaira
- Seeding Sovereignty: @seedingsovereignty
Articles & Websites
- Unbothered
- “A community celebrating Black voices, Black art, and Black women”
- The Structural Racism Remedies Repository from the Othering & Belonging Institute
Full SARAE Media, Resource, and Discussion Question Archive
Fall 2020 Dialogue Series
Fall Media Theme: Historical context of racism in the US & at Carleton
5th Tuesday, October 13, 12:25 – 1:25PM (Common Time)
Featured Media
Podcast: The Diversity Gap Podcast: Part One: The “R” Word-Racism and Organizational Culture w/Jen Willsea.
Add this event to your calendar to access the zoom link.
Additional resources for this session
- Podcast: Part 2: The “R” Word – Racism and Organizational Culture w/ Danny + Courtnee Wilson: Bethany Wilkinson
- Raising White Kids, by Jennifer Harvey
- The Racial Healing Handbook, by Anneliese Singh
- Dismantling the 4 Dimensions of Racism, by Nicole Bedford
- How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram Kendi
- Be Antiracist: A Journal For Awareness, Reflection, and Action, by Ibram X Kendi
- Me and White Supremacy, by Layla Saad
Free access to these materials (paper or ebook) may be available through Carleton’s Gould Library!
7th Thursday, October 29, 12:25 – 1:25PM (Common Time)
Featured Media
TedX Talk: Let’s get to the root of racial injustice, by Megan Ming Francis, TedXRainier 2016.
Add this event to your calendar to access the zoom link.
Disclaimer: In Megan Francis’s 2016 Tedx Talk, she uses the term “Blacks” to refer to Black people. As times and terms have changed, we would like to be intentional with our language, using race as a descriptive rather than definitive term in our discussions. Therefore, please use language like “Black people” when referring to members of the Black community.
Additional resources for this session
- Documentary: 13th (Netflix)
- Documentary: Guilty Until Proven Guilty
- Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State, by Megan Ming Francis
- When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, by Patrisse Khan-Cullors & Asha Bandele
- The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander
- White Rage, by Carol Anderson, Ph.D.
Free access to these materials (paper or ebook) may be available through Carleton’s Gould Library!
9th Thursday, November 12, 12:25 – 1:25PM (Common Time)
Featured Media
Article: America Wasn’t a Democracy, Until Black Americans Made It One by Nikole Hannah-Jones of the New York Times.
Add this event to your calendar to access the zoom link.
Access the discussion questions for this dialogue here.
Additional resources for this session
- New York Times 1619 project
- 1619 Podcast series
- TED-Ed: “The Atlantic Slave Trade: What Too Few Textbooks Told You” by Anthony Hazard
- Movie: 12 Years a Slave by Steve McQueen (on Netflix)
- Book: Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi
- Video: “Deported F**king Vets” by Klepper
- Book: The Door of No Return: The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade, by William St. Clair
Free access to these materials (paper or ebook) may be available through Carleton’s Gould Library!
Get free New York Times access via the Carleton Library.
Winter 2021 Dialogue Series (attend any or all)
Winter Media Theme: Understanding internal biases and perceptions and how they influence interactions with difference
3rd Tuesday, January 19th, 12:25 – 1:25 pm (common time)
Featured Media
Podcast: The Code Switch Podcast: Can We Talk About Whiteness?
Add this event to your calendar to access the zoom link.
Access the discussion questions for this dialogue here.
Additional resources for this session
- White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh (mentioned in the podcast)
- Code Switch Podcast, June 16, 2020: Why Now, White People?
- Book: Some of My Best Friends are Black by Tanner Colby (guest on the podcast)
- Book: Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do by Jennifer L Eberhardt
- Podcast: The Mind of the Village: Understanding Our Implicit Biases on The Hidden Brain
Free access to these materials (paper or ebook) may be available through Carleton’s Gould Library!
5th Tuesday, February 2nd, 12:25 – 1:25 pm (common time)
Featured Media
TEDx Talk: How to overcome our biases? Walk boldly toward them, by Vernā Myers.
Add this event to your calendar to access the zoom link.
Access the discussion questions for this dialogue here.
Additional resources for this session
Activities and Tests
Books
- The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
- Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block
- Kate Berardo, Cultural Consultant, and her book, Building Cultural Competence
- Blindspot: The Hidden Biases of Good People, by Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald (developers of the Implicit Association Test)
- Becoming an Ally by Anne Bishop
Free access to these materials (paper or ebook) may be available through Carleton’s Gould Library!
Podcasts and Videos
- Video: Carlsberg Commercial about bias
- Podcast: Check Yourself (& Your Bias) by Reachin’
- The hosts took various Harvard implicit bias tests and discuss them
- Also their website, Reaching Beyond Bias
- *Disclosure: Some foul language
- Podcast: reWorked: The Diversity and Inclusion Podcast, S2. Episode 4: How to rework unconscious bias
- Discusses unconscious bias in the workplace
7th Tuesday, February 16th, 12:25 – 1:25 pm (common time)
Featured Media
2 VIDEOS:
1: Where are you from? by Ken Tanaka and David Neptune
2: TED Talk by Taiye Selasi, Don’t ask where I’m from, ask where I’m a local.
Add this event to your calendar to access the zoom link.
Access the discussion questions for this dialogue here.
Additional resources for this session
- Book: Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi
- TED Talk: The danger of a single story, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- We would like to state that while this TED talk is a great resource for delving further into the question of ‘Where are you from?’, we acknowledge that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has expressed problematic transphobic views which we do not support.
Spring 2021 Dialogue Series (attend one or both)
Due to decreased attendance experienced in the later sessions of fall and winter terms, we will be having only two dialogue meetings for Spring term.
Spring Media Theme: Allyship in times of uncertainty
3rd Thursday, April 15th, 12:25 – 1:25 pm (common time)
Featured Media
Podcast: So You Wanna Be An Ally Episode 1: Why Do You Need to Be An Ally In the First Place?
Add this event to your calendar to access the zoom link.
Access the discussion questions for this dialogue here.
Additional resources for this session
- Webpage: Guide to Allyship created by Amélie Lamont
- Short video: Turn Performative Wokeness into Allyship, by Jezebel
- Book: Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillam Cottom
- Book (mentioned in podcast): Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
- Book: Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Kendall Mikki
Free access to these materials (paper or ebook) may be available through Carleton’s Gould Library!
Support Resources for Daunte Wright’s family and Brooklyn Center
- Community Aid Network MN (CANMN)
- Opportunities to donate and volunteer to support the Minneapolis and surrounding communities
- Headwaters Foundation for Justice April Newsletter
- Community support and mutual aid
- Virtual and in person events happening in late April and May
- Donation needs and GoFundMe links from MN Monthly
- Organizations to support from HypeBae
- How you can help people in Brooklyn Center right now from Sahan Journal
- “Sahan Journal is the only independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit digital newsroom fully dedicated to providing authentic news reporting for and about immigrants and communities of color in Minnesota. We aim to chronicle the struggles, successes and transformations of Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color, whose stories are often overlooked by traditional news organizations.” Check it out!
6th Thursday, May 6th, 12:25 – 1:25 pm (common time)
Featured Media
Podcast: From Woke to Work: The Anti-Racist Journey – Why Allyship is Not Enough w/ Kelechi Okafor
Add this event to your calendar to access the zoom link.
Access the discussion questions for this dialogue here.
Additional resources for this session
- Washington Post Article: When black people are in pain, white people just join book clubs
- Book: The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee
Free access to these materials (paper or ebook) may be available through Carleton’s Gould Library!
2020-21 SCC Media List
(Formerly SARAE)
Fall
The Diversity Gap Podcast: Part One: The “R” Word-Racism and Organizational Culture w/Jen Willsea.
TedX Talk: Let’s get to the root of racial injustice, by Megan Ming Francis, TedXRainier 2016.
Article: America Wasn’t a Democracy, Until Black Americans Made It One by Nikole Hannah-Jones of the New York Times.
Winter
Podcast: The Code Switch Podcast: Can We Talk About Whiteness?
TEDx Talk: How to overcome our biases? Walk boldly toward them, by Vernā Myers.
Video: Where are you from? by Ken Tanaka and David Neptune.
TED Talk: Don’t ask where I’m from, ask where I’m a local, by Taiye Selasi.
Spring
Podcast: So You Wanna Be An Ally Episode 1: Why Do You Need to Be An Ally In the First Place?
Podcast: From Woke to Work: The Anti-Racist Journey – Why Allyship is Not Enough w/ Kelechi Okafor
SCC’s Mission
The mission of the Staff Collective for Change (SCC) is to provide intentional, ongoing opportunities for Carleton staff to engage in anti-racism dialogue in order to raise awareness of issues of racism on campus and beyond, expand staff knowledge of disparities within our communities, and equip Carleton staff with the resources necessary to identify, denounce, and reimagine the policies, practices, and personal habits that uphold racism in our society.
SCC’s Vision
Our vision is to empower Carleton staff to engage in the ongoing work of creating an anti-racist community at Carleton. We will provide all Carleton staff several opportunities each year to expand their knowledge of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In pursuit of this vision, we seek to provide safe dialogue spaces to discuss pre-selected media that relates to that term’s theme and provide additional resources so that each person can continue their journey of understanding difference and the importance of an inclusive community.