Sometimes life interrupts. Day 2 only allowed me time to attend one afternoon session, but that’s better than none!

Tomorrow will be the conference closing, and I’ll be hosting an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on the conference platform where folks can post questions about website accessibility and I’ll answer them! I hope to see you there!

Facilitating Towards Racial Justice: Micropractices to Transform Your Meetings, Workshops, and Events

Mike Beebe, Aminta Steinbach, Eva Jo Meyers

Breakout Room Warmup

Why am I here? I am often working with small groups of 1-4 people (my clients) to learn from them and try to help make a decisions. I bring so many forms of power with me (white, male, consultant, etc.) and so need to be extra careful about

What is a practice I have experienced or used that was specifically gears towards creating a racially-just environment? What is a practices you have experienced or used that may have created an environment that was NOT racially-just?

Me: I see agendas as a practice that can be used for justice or not. They are most often tools for controlling who speaks and about what, but they can also be used to make space, build relationships, and provide a structure

Person 1: Be silent after asking a question! Be comfortable with silence.

Person 2: Give people the opportunity to reply and the opportunity to communicate afterwards. Ability for anonymity.

Things People Shared

• Acknowledging discussions are going to be difficult up front
• WAIT: Why Am I Talking? (And also asking, why aren’t I talking, especially for folks who are not white.)
• Calling out White Fragility
• Keeping the Characteristic of White Supremacy culture in mind
• Making time for checking in and building relationships
• Leaving room for silence
• Be intentional about asking when and where you ask for feedback (what are power dynamics impacting who responds and how)
• Acknowledge race and ethnic identity of participants
• “Progressive Stacking” aka speaking order
• Recognizing and discussing current events at start of meeting
• Asking for name pronunciations (and working hard to do it right!)
• Acknowledge we can’t be articulate all the time
• The Fist to Five method

Micropractices

Micropractices are small things you can do to make a greater change. We broke out into groups of 4 to look at a variety of facilitation techniques and share what has worked, hasn’t worked, and what we want to try.

Where and when might I integrate these practices into my work?

The more I help clients make website decisions, the more acutely I feel the absence of the people who are not in the room. As a small consultancy working with small organizations, it can be challenging to find the time/budget to spend sufficient time with the people who are directly impacted by the websites I build. There’s a lot I can still do to get better at making sure the right people are in the room.