Community Conversations
Staff and faculty are invited to come together across departments and discuss anti-racist texts in small groups. Our hope with these groups is to empower the community to learn about systemic racism in an intentional manner, and through respectful conversation with colleagues over time gain skills to disrupt racism in themselves and in their spheres of influence.
Format
Conversations are hosted by volunteer facilitators from the UP community. Facilitators are not trainers. In these peer-to-peer conversations, facilitators help manage conversation flow and remind the groups of community standards if appropriate. Structure, brave space standards, and discussion questions are provided to all participants and facilitators ahead of the conversations and facilitators are invited to optional check-in and debrief sessions hosted by OIEDI. All conversations have been hosted online.
Upcoming
Fall 21 Community Conversation—Disability Justice
Wednesday, November 3rd 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
email oiedi@up.edu for Zoom link
We can’t wait to come together this fall for our Community Conversation! We will learn and share about disability justice and disability as an identity that intersects with other core identities.
For this Community Conversation, we hope you will choose two or three options from the list below. To fully engage in the conversation, please read or watch at least one before attending.
When we meet virtually on November 3rd we will start the conversation by each sharing what pieces we chose and why, and we will offer one takeaway from each.
- The Smithsonian exhibit on disability history: Everybody: An Artifact History of Disability in America.
- Finding Dory, Disability Access, and Collective Access by Alice Wong
- 30 year anniversary of ADA conversation: ADA in Color Panel Discussion
- Does Dis/ability Now Sit at the Table(s) of Social Justice and Multicultural Education? A Descriptive Survey of Three Recent Anthologies
- “Sometimes You Feel Invisible”: Performing Queer/Disabled in the University Classroom, Ryan A Miller
If you haven’t yet had a chance, we also still highly recommend this short video from Kimberlé Crenshaw on the Urgency of Intersectionality as a complement to any of these other pieces we are discussing. Note: there is potentially traumatic information shared in this video pertaining to police brutality.
Thank you for good work at UP and for joining us in these dialogues. Please email oiedi@up.edu with questions, accommodation requests, or other feedback.
Past Conversations
Summer 2021
Conversation One Focused on a documentary, Divided We Fall “Told through the stories of Sikh Americans, the film offers vital historical context to the current crisis of hate and nationalism in the U.S. — and how we can change it through the ethic of Revolutionary Love.” and an interview segment of Dr. Maya Angelou
Conversation Two featured a UNESCO –style Story Circle
Spring 2021
This spring our conversations focused on the ReadUP selection, How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, and episodes of the University of Portland's Black Student Union original podcast, Black on the Bluff.
Fall 2020
- How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi or Video Overview
- Paired with this short video The Urgency of Intersectionality from Kimberlé Crenshaw
- Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper or Video Overview
- Paired with this short video The Urgency of Intersectionality from Kimberlé Crenshaw
