Workgroup to Promote Anti-Racism

This poster describes the efforts of a newly formed and informal workgroup of Extension faculty and staff to promote anti-racism.

During summer 2020, a group of FSHD faculty and staff came together to form an informal workgroup. This collaboration was in response to renewed public concern about racism, police violence, and inequity following events such as the brutal murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor among others and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) due to social and health and inequities. We are working to produce resources that Arizonians can use to do anti-racist work in their communities. We see anti-racist work as taking active steps in everyday life to fight racism, promote racial justice, and dismantle systems of oppression. We acknowledge that efforts are needed at multiple levels, including changing the beliefs and behaviors of individuals and dismantling organizational and institutional structures that systematically disadvantage BIPOC.

We see this work as ongoing and long-term. We anticipate that our approach, group membership, and the products that we produce will change over time, but hope that this work will be on-going. We recognize that we are not the only ones doing this work and are interested in collaborating with other groups within Extension, at the University of Arizona, and in the state.

We are currently putting together a series of Extension publications for parents and other caregivers who are interested in raising their children to be anti-racist which is tentatively titled Raising Anti-Racist Children: A Guide for Parents. These publications will address the following topics:

• How parents and caregivers can begin to do anti-racist work themselves (e.g., exploring their privilege and unconscious bias).

• How to think about and use terms to describe BIPOC people and communities.

• How to talk with children of different ages about race and racism.

• How to help children deal with racially charged situations they encounter in person or learn about second hand (e.g., from the news).

• How to use children's and young adult books to promote anti-racism.

In each publication we provide information, offer resources and suggest actions that parents and other caregivers can take.

We have brainstormed the future projects listed below and anticipate that this list will grow as we continue our work. We are also interested in reaching out to communities across the state to learn what resources are needed.

• Develop a series of publications for Extension professionals with information about how to promote anti-racism through delivering programming for the community and applied research and evaluation.

• Facilitate community conversations about race, racism, and equity.

• Offer programming that promotes racial and social equity and anti-racism.

• Develop a place to store and organize resources that promote anti-racism so that they can be easily accessed by UACE faculty and staff.

1. Project Implicit, Harvard University (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/) This website provides simple tests that help individuals learn about their unconscious and implicit biases. The results can be eye-opening and may help you start to identify your biases so that you can actively work to counter them.

2. Racial Equity Tools Glossary (www.racialequitytools.org/glossary#) This glossary can be useful for engaging in discussions about race and racism. It provides nuanced definitions for common terms as well as sources for each definition.

3. Diverse Book Finder (https://diversebookfinder.org/) This list of books for children in kindergarten through third grade was compiled by a research team at Bates College. The books are written in English or are English bi/multilingual. The website includes a search feature that allows users to thoughtfully select books that promote anti-racism and information about how to use the search feature.

If you are interested in joining our workgroup, please contact one of the members listed below.