# 508, Workshop C: Moving from Being an Ally to Being a Co-Conspirator
Friday, January 27, 1:30-3:00 p.m.
presented by APCE’s Diversity Task Force
Often our work in anti-racism is performative. This workshop will enrich participants understanding of the work of anti-racism and empower them to become co-conspirators instead of mere allies. Co-Conspirators speak up and risk action. The workshop will look at taking an activist stance through demonstrations, protests, street level mission, freedom schools, and other similar types of actions. The group will learn from each other and connect through small group discussions and debriefing.
In addition to the descriptive paragraph included in the Annual Event registration, what excites you about the workshop you’re presenting?
I am excited to meet and share ideas with others who desire to live in a more just and equitable world. I am also eager to explore how the principles of community organizing–listening and building relationships–can give us tools for speaking and acting and risk, in the words of John Lewis “getting into good trouble.”
What do you hope people who attend your workshop will leave with?
An understanding of the distinction between individual and systemic racism. An awareness of the danger that well-intended efforts can be tokenism and/or merely performative. Strategies for moving beyond study, and social media posting, to walking alongside siblings who have borne the burden of injustice for far too long.
For those who cannot attend Annual Event, how can a person learn more about your topic/workshop? What books, articles, other resources can you point people toward?
These books offer solid information on the roots and challenges of racism as well as calls to action:
The Color of Compromise, Jamar Tisby, Zondervan; explores the roots of sustained racism and the history of the church’s complicity in unjust systems.
Jesus and the Disinherited, Howard Thurman, Beacon; a theologian’s reading of the gospel that “recovers a manual of resistance for the poor and disenfranchised.”
We Are Called to Be a Movement, William Barber, Workman; a call to collective action and the power each of us has to each of us make change.
Reflecting with Scripture on Community Organizing, Jeffrey Krehbiel, Acta; a reflection on the integration of the contemplative life and the active life and the consistency between scripture and faith-based community organizing.
The Power of Relational Action, Edward Chambers, Acta; suggests that building “relationships in public life allows us to share our values, passions, and interests.”
How to Be an Anti-Racist, Ibram X. Kendi, One World; “equal parts memoir, history, and social commentary . . . Kendi punctures the myth of post racial America, examining what racism really is and what we should do about it.”
The Person You Mean to Be, Dolly Chugh, Harper; helps those of us who consider ourselves “good people” see the log in our own eye and become more equitable and just and action-oriented.