WISE Seattle Diversity & Inclusion

The WISE Seattle Diversity & Inclusion committee will encourage you and give you tools to be an anti-racist. Being an anti-racist doesn’t require that you always know the right thing to say or do in any given situation. It asks that you take action and work against racism wherever you find it including, and perhaps most especially, in yourself.

Watch this v​ideo​ that explains that, while race and racism have a real and significant impact on our lives, race is a social construct and one that has changed over time. None of the broad categories that come to mind when we talk about race can capture an individual’s unique story. 

Watch this v​ideo​ about the difference between being non-racist and anti-racist. 

If you are ready for more information, you can listen to the ​podcast​ featuring historian Ibram X. Kendi, author of ​How to be An Antiracist​. 

We encourage everyone to take note of any insights from the daily challenges. Time to reflect and think about your insights will make the challenge and our continued conversations at the end of October more impactful. 

1. What does diversity look like in WISE Seattle?   
2. How can you support diversity?   
3. How can WISE strengthen the organization through diversity?  

​Margarete Daniels writes: Particularly for those of us that are white, understanding the history that has shaped the systemic inequalities we see today can bring a lot up: Anger. Denial. Guilt. Embarrassment. This is all normal. However, it is imperative to our development as active anti-racists that we process our feelings without placing the burden on our BIPOC community. Find some time alone, or reach out to one of us to process it. Please view the following resources for tips on how to mediate what is called ​White Guilt​ that you may be feeling. There are a variety of different ways to feel guilt, so make sure you are processing how you are feeling on all levels.
 

5 Minutes: Read the following ​article​ as an introduction to how to process your emotions as they come up, and show up as a productive ally. 

15 Minutes:​ Read this ​article​ and use it as a resource as different feelings come up while you continue to learn more and do the work. Remember that these feelings are normal, but it is important to process them as they come up. 

The fight for women’s suffrage was not as straightforward as you might think. Today we will examine the intersections of race and gender and how this played out during the fight for the 19th Amendment. Black women were marginalized in the movement and their contributions sidelined by history. Today, we will look back at these pioneering leaders and how they laid the groundwork for universal suffrage and the civil rights movement.

Read this ​article​ about the African American suffragists who fought for the right to vote, while fighting racist backlash from the movement’s white leadership, many of whom did not believe that any Black person should have the right to vote before white women.

We encourage everyone to take note of any insights from the daily challenges. Time to reflect and think about your insights will make the challenge and our continued conversations at the end of October more impactful. 

1. What does diversity look like in WISE Seattle?   
2. How can you support diversity?   
3. How can WISE strengthen the organization through diversity?  

Today, we are looking at the history of voter suppression and how people of color were systemically kept from the ballot box, as well as the challenges they had to overcome in order to exercise their right to vote.

From the 1890’s to the 1960’s literacy tests were designed to disenfranchise people of color from voting (white men were exempt). Read this short ​article​ and try to complete the test within. Be sure to set a timer before you start as you would have been given 10 minutes to finish.

Read this ​article​ and see how the fight for universal suffrage began and how modern voter suppression tactics continue to deny the vote to people of color today.

We encourage everyone to take note of any insights from the daily challenges. Time to reflect and think about your insights will make the challenge and our continued conversations at the end of October more impactful. 

1. What does diversity look like in WISE Seattle?   
2. How can you support diversity?   
3. How can WISE strengthen the organization through diversity?  

If you’ve ever changed schools in the middle of the year, you may be able to recall minor differences in curriculum between districts. However, imagine moving from a predominantly white high school in Texas, to a more diverse school in California. You may not think much about the vast ways in which the exact same material can vary depending on a student’s school, school district, and instructional materials. Today we will examine how textbooks, authors and state legislation, collectively “what we teach,” impacts society’s world view and understanding of history.

​Textbooks are supposed to teach us a common set of facts about who we are as a nation, but the influence of religion and politics in instructional material can skew those facts. Read this ​article​ to see how history textbooks reflect America’s refusal to reckon with slavery.

We encourage everyone to take note of any insights from the daily challenges. Time to reflect and think about your insights will make the challenge and our continued conversations at the end of October more impactful. 

1. What does diversity look like in WISE Seattle?   
2. How can you support diversity?   
3. How can WISE strengthen the organization through diversity?  

As individuals interested in learning more about racial equity, you’ve likely heard of the term “school-to-prison pipeline,” (If you haven’t check out this infographic​ made by the ACLU). Most notably this term is tied to the systems that funnel African American boys out of school and into prison at alarming rates. Today we will learn more about how school disciplinary policies disproportionately affect Black students.

Out of school suspensions have doubled since the 1970s and continue to increase even though juvenile crimes have continued to drop. Watch this quick ​video​ which explains the school-to-prison pipeline.

A​ cross the country, Black girls are six times more likely to be suspended than white girls. Check out this ​study​ to better understand how Black girls are being pushed out of school through “adultification”.

We encourage everyone to take note of any insights from the daily challenges. Time to reflect and think about your insights will make the challenge and our continued conversations at the end of October more impactful. 

1. What does diversity look like in WISE Seattle?   
2. How can you support diversity?   
3. How can WISE strengthen the organization through diversity?  

"​No Pride for some of us without liberation for all of us​" - Micah Bazan

Hanifah McGovern writes: ​Long before Pride was a parade and festival, it was a struggle for equal rights. Today we look more closely at the beginnings of the LGBTQ rights movement, how it intersects other communities, and why Pride today is still both a celebration of belonging and a cry for equal space.

Read this ​article​ about how the LGBTQ and BIPOC communities and their struggles have been interwoven since the beginning.

Read this ​op-ed​ about why we celebrate Pride and why beyond being a rainbow themed party, it is a celebration of belonging and being free to be your authentic self.

We encourage everyone to take note of any insights from the daily challenges. Time to reflect and think about your insights will make the challenge and our continued conversations at the end of October more impactful. 

1. What does diversity look like in WISE Seattle?   
2. How can you support diversity?   
3. How can WISE strengthen the organization through diversity?  

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and inhuman.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People Of Color) suffer worse health outcomes than white people, even when controlling for income and other factors. Learn why these disparities aren't about race, but racism. The impact of toxic stress is caused by daily exposure to discrimination and has adverse outcomes on the health of BIPOC.

Listen to this ​podcast​ about the effect of chronic stress from frequent racist encounters on the health outcomes of BIPOC. The article also features a case study on how a large scale ICE raid in Iowa impacted the health of pregnant Latina/x women across the state.

We encourage everyone to take note of any insights from the daily challenges. Time to reflect and think about your insights will make the challenge and our continued conversations at the end of October more impactful. 

1. What does diversity look like in WISE Seattle?   
2. How can you support diversity?   
3. How can WISE strengthen the organization through diversity?  

Have you ever been to the doctor and have them tell you that the pain or discomfort you are feeling isn't real or isn't serious? Do you worry that, in an emergency, unconscious bias could delay or deny you life-saving care? If you are a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person Of Color) this is an all too common experience. Today we are learning how a history of racism and bigotry in American medicine combined with bias, unconscious or conscious, from health care professionals is impacting the quality of care that BIPOC and LGTBQ receive today. 

Read this a​rticle​ about the dangerous racial and ethnic stereotypes that still exist in medicine today and how they impact the care that BIPOC receive from their healthcare providers.

​Read this ​article​ about how outbreaks of new diseases have historically led to racial scapegoating and why we need to be vigilant against rising anti-Asian racism fueled by fear of Coronavirus.

The LGBTQ also faces discrimination within healthcare. Read this ​article​ to learn some of the ways the community is impacted.

We encourage everyone to take note of any insights from the daily challenges. Time to reflect and think about your insights will make the challenge and our continued conversations at the end of October more impactful. 

1. What does diversity look like in WISE Seattle?   
2. How can you support diversity?   
3. How can WISE strengthen the organization through diversity?