What a year of unlearning has taught us
For the past year, the Arts Education Exchange team has met monthly to look at how white supremacy culture shows up in our work. We used Tema Okun’s characteristics of white supremacy culture as our starting point, taking two or three at a time and asking where each one lives in us as individuals, in AEE as an organisation, in our work with young people, and across the wider sector.
It hasn’t always been easy. Some mornings asked a lot of us, and some characteristics landed harder for some people than for others.
What we noticed
The characteristics rarely show up alone. Over time we saw how they layer up and intersect, and how they act as barriers to justice in ordinary places: how we plan, how we make decisions, whose knowledge counts. We found ourselves making connections at every scale, from a moment in a team meeting to the UK abstaining from a UN vote that named the transatlantic slave trade “the gravest crime against humanity.”
What helped
The antidotes. Connection, listening, being in our bodies, remembering we’re human. Unlearning and letting go made room for real movement.
What we hold
Anti-racism is something we do, not something we are.
Racism shows up structurally, not just personally.
This work belongs to all of us. It is never the job of racially minoritised colleagues, artists or young people to carry it, explain it, or prove it.
Accountability starts with leadership.
Discomfort is expected. What matters is what we do with it.
Where this leads
Our anti-racism policy came out of this learning, not the other way round. A document can’t replicate the deep work, so we’re treating this post, and the one-page guide that goes with it, as an invitation into the conversation rather than a summary of it.
We came away with some real moments of clarity, and with more areas for curiosity and more work. Not the end, just what’s next.
Read more
White Dominant Culture worksheet (CoCo, Centre for Community Organizations)
White Supremacy Culture in Organizations (CoCo, adapted from Dismantling Racism Works)
Thanks to Dr Cecilia Wee for sharing these materials with us.