Oppression, Climate and Racial Justice

Resources

This section contains resources; courses, articles, web sites and videos that provide education and information on these themes.

These resources are largely concerned with racial and climate justice, for other information relating to diversity, disability and inclusion please see Shelf 9, Access and Inclusion.

To Read

Article on Intersectional Justice.

House of Lords Committee report on the status of Racial Equality following the killing of George Floyd and The Black Lives Matter Protests. Black people, racism and Human Rights.

Transform Harm - website containing articles on transformative justice, a resource hub for ending harm.

Indigenous Peoples Forum - Guardian article centring criticisms of Indigenous Peoples on impacts of climate and ecological crisis.

Unconscious bias - University of Edinburgh EDI (Equality, Diversity, Inclusion) Resources for students and staff.

Dismantling Green Colonialism - online book.

To Watch

Akala: Everyday Racism - Everyday racism and what we can do about it.

John Powell - Othering and belonging.

White Fragility 1 - Author Dr. Robin Di Angelo's long talk on White Fragility.

White Fragility 2 - Short very accessible explainer.

How I learned to stop worrying and love discussing race - Ted Talk by Ray Smooth, New York Hip Hop Radio Host.

Cultivating a Community of Trust

Intentions for cultivating a community of trust and inclusion, taken from The Compassionate Activist by Lucy Draper-Clarke.

Try it on

Be willing to “try on” new ideas or ways of doing things that you might not prefer or be familiar with.

Practice self focus

Attend to and speak from, your own experience and responses. Do not speak for a whole group or express assumptions about the experience of others.

Understand the difference between Intent and Impact

Try to understand and acknowledge impact. Denying the impact of something by focusing on intent is often more destructive than the initial interaction.

Practice “Both/And”

When speaking, exchange “and” for “but” . This acknowledges and honours multiple realities.

Refrain from blaming and shaming self or others

Practice giving skillful feedback.

Move up/Move back

Encourage full participation by all present. If you tend to speak often think of “moving back” and vice versa.

Practice mindful listening

Try to avoid planning what you might say when other people are talking. Be prepared to fully listen, be willing to be surprised, to learn something new.

Confidentiality

Take home learnings, but don’t identify anyone but yourself. If you want to follow up something someone said during a session, ask first and respect their wishes.

Right to pass

Everyone can choose to “pass” if they don’t wish to speak.

Oppression, Movement Building and our Relationships as Activists Workshop (OMBRA)

This workshop has been widely run throughout XR, both in the U.K. and around the world.

Overview of the workshop

The purpose of this workshop is to build a solid foundation for understanding issues of oppression and division to help to build and protect our movement.

Progressive movements have often been impeded by the divisions that arise when issues of oppression go unaddressed, or are not addressed well. These divisions may be internal or external. Internal division is when sections of a movement become so preoccupied with their difficulties with each other that they lose focus on their original mission. External division is when a movement forms, but the movement doesn’t know how to engage with or relate to the wider population, so it remains narrow and limited.

Mistreatment and oppression break trust and break relationships (between individuals and between groups) and so get in the way of us working together towards common goals.

This workshop explores the relationships between emotional hurt, mistreatment, oppression and division – and how these have come to form a self-perpetuating system. The workshop shows how we have all been co-opted into this system, and why a culture (or tone) of punishment and blame around these issues is part of what locks the system in place. The workshop shows how we can begin to create the conditions necessary to undo this confusing tangle, so we can work together to dismantle an inhuman system which serves no-one's real interests.

Please email ombraworkshop@gmail.com if you would like to find out when this workshop is running or if you are interested in being mentored to run this workshop.