White Identity Groups Forming in the Division

The Office of Admissions and Recruitment and the Office of the Vice Provost have both formed groups that talk about and explore our own white identity and white privilege.  OAR White Identity Exploration Group OAR is creating a white identity exploration group as a space for folks to talk about and explore white identity, whiteness, white privilege, white supremacy, and anti-racist work. The group’s goal is to help further each other as we learn and talk more about whiteness. All levels of experience around white identity are welcome. Those interested in joining or who would like to learn more can contact Jane or Kayla via email at jane.duffstein@wisc.edu, kayla.jensen@wisc.edu, and/or via Teams message. The white identity exploration group is soliciting feedback from all team members regarding their interest in participating and what they’ll want to explore further. The group plans on using the Witnessing Whiteness curriculum that Wendy Crabb and others have shared to guide their conversations. While forming the group, founding members have emailed team members with activities for white identity exploration and have hosted some optional moments for all OAR team members to participate in. Please feel free to explore what has been shared related to the white identity exploration group, including the list of emails and events in this document.   OVP White Affinity Exploration Group The Office of the Vice Provost team has started our own White Affinity Exploration Group. In our biweekly meetings we are striving to better understand our own white identity and white privilege so that we can help build momentum for creating a more welcoming campus. Our group is facilitated by Paula Gates and Todd Reck and we have now met three times. In our first meeting we discussed the documentary film Milwaukee 53206 and discussed the impact of systemic racism on the black residents of Milwaukee. In our second meeting we listened to Getting White People to Talk about Racism and talked the prevalence of white privilege in our society. Last week, we discussed the importance of developing a better understanding of the history of white privilege in America with the first part of the podcast Seeing White. Moving forward our group plans to continue to trace the emergence of white privilege in America and talk about how this understanding can make us more aware of systemic racism today and how we can act to dismantle centuries of oppression. We are continuing to look at our own identity and to find ways we can use our spheres of influence to de-center whiteness and white supremacy culture. Some of us will be attending the virtual lecture “Patriotism and the Cost of Apathy,” by UW–Madison Associate Professor Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara on Monday, July 27 from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. If you are still interested in attending please reach out to Paula ASAP (paula.gates@wisc.edu). If you would like to learn more about what we are doing, please feel free to reach out to Paula or Todd. We would also welcome any suggestions you have for materials to watch, listen to, or read.