Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible
Following the second event in DNDA’s Let’s Talk Race Series, The Creation of Whiteness, West Seattle Meaningful Movies held a film screening of Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible to continue the conversation about whiteness.
Along with the movie, West Seattle Meaningful Movies showed a video called “The Creation of Whiteness: How Race Was Used to Hide Class,” featuring anti-racism educator Tim Wise. Of the 43 people who attended this follow-up screening, there were at least eight who were also present at The Creation of Whiteness event.
After watching Mirrors of Privilege and the Tim Wise video, about 30 people stayed to partake in a wider post-film discussion about how Mirrors of Privilege relates to our individual and collective lives. After seeing how valuable race-based caucus breakouts were at The Creation of Whiteness event, the discussion was broken into smaller groups between white people and people of color. White people were encouraged to share with other white people, discussing thoughts, what they’ve learned and personal stories. As mentioned in Mirrors of Privilege, educating each other is an important way for white people to actively work against racism in our communities. To keep the momentum of conversation rolling, everyone was encouraged to attend the future Let’s Talk Race Series events, which there are still six more coming up this year.
Wrapping up the event, the larger group came back together to share their biggest takeaway from this event. Most of the people of color mentioned that they were glad to have met with just each other; some said that they rarely got that kind of opportunity. The white people had useful discussions, as well, as they talked about steps they could take in dismantling race-based oppression in their daily lives.
Interested in seeing Mirrors of Privilege or the Time Wise video? You can find links for these videos here: Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible and Tim Wise’s The Creation of Whiteness: How Race was Used to Hide Class.
Stay tuned for more events from DNDA’s Let’s Talk Race Series! The third event of the series, Understanding Islam, will be hosted at High Point Community Center on Saturday, April 28, from 1:00pm – 6:00pm. Thank you to Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and our community partners for making this series possible!