The first comprehensive guide for leading BIPOC affinity groups for
challenging white supremacy, healing racial trauma, and taking
collective action
Meeting in racial affinity groups is a common practice in anti-racist,
social justice, diversity, and similar educational endeavors. These
groups provide a structured space in which participants can explore how
racism personally impacts them, process specific experiences of racism,
receive validation and support from their peers, heal, and strategize
next steps for challenging racism, white supremacy, and internalized
racial oppression.
In A Space for Us, Michelle Cassandra Johnson brings her over 20 years
of experience leading dismantling-racism work to provide the first
affinity-group guide made for BIPOC communities. This essential guide
will:
-provide an understanding of the racial hierarchy and how it has
impacted Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color
differently
-define and share common manifestations of internalized racial
oppression
-define anti-Blackness and provide skills to interrupt and address it
-share rituals, practices, and sample agendas for affinity groups
-explain when it is useful to meet as one BIPOC group and when it is
useful to meet based on one's specific racial identity
-provide rituals and tools for healing in BIPOC affinity groups
-provide information about how to come back together as BIPOC and white
people to strategize and take collective action
Comprehensive and accessible, A Space for Us offers practical guidance
for facilitating effective BIPOC racial affinity groups and will be an
important resource for BIPOC communities.
