GSAPS White Anti-Racism Affinity Group (Videoconference)

Presenting: GSAPS White Anti-Racism Affinity Group!
What: This group is for students and early career clinicians/researchers in the psychedelic community who are interested in working explicitly and intentionally on understanding how white dominance and privilege upholds and perpetuates racial inequality in the movement for psychedelic research, therapy, and access. While this group is geared towards providing an environment and intention for white-identified folks to do their own work, it is also open to mixed and non-white POC folks who are interested in participating.

When: We’re having our first open group meeting on Monday, July 20 from 5pm-6:30pm PT. At this meeting we will discuss the possibility of a closed group to meet regularly for a time-contained period (or maybe ongoing!).

Also: We know that we’re all coming in with different experience and levels of awareness and insight, so for this meeting (and maybe all of them), we want to make sure to ground our conversation with some framework. This meeting will have some required pre-reading, upon which we will base our conversation. Here are the articles we’ve chosen for this week: Towards an Ethos of Equity and Inclusion in the Psychedelic Movement and The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture.

Who are we: We hope to have the facilitation and container holding of this group be shared, but the three of us are going to be holding the initial meeting(s). Tessa is white person (cis-woman) of Italian and Ashkenazi descent who is a Master’s candidate at Pacifica Graduate Institute, she brings a decade of experience working in social justice and progressive movements and lots of comfort holding expansive space for explorations of race and whiteness with white socialized folks. Reba (she/her) is a person of Chinese and English/Norweigan descent who is a Master’s candidate at Columbia School of Social Work. She brings three years of experience working in narrative justice and currently supports community leaders to create spaces for connection across power-based divides at Civity. Maxx (they/them) is a nonbinary trans person of British and Irish descent, and a recent graduate of the Master’s program at UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare. They bring two years of experience organizing through Berkeley’s White Accountability and Anti-Racist Practice Group, a student organization of white socialized students challenging white supremacy in social work practice and education.

We all welcome questions, concerns, or feedback about how this space will be held. We are committed to being relational and accountable in this and welcome co-creation from folks who have wisdom to share.

RSVP by responding to this email or emailing: rbahsu@gmail.com if you’d like to join and we’ll make sure the link gets shared with you!