Module 8 Prompts

1) The costs of racism to white people

  • How have white supremacy & racism (also) hurt you as a white person or white presenting person? 

  • What surprised you most in the listings of types of costs to white people? (Kivel & Goodman)

  • ”No one is free until we are all free” - what does this mean to you?

2) The dukkha of whiteness

  • Do any of the contradictions for white people in anti-racism work speak to you ? Do you see others?

  • What does the dukkha of whiteness mean to you? What are the causes of this dukkha?

3) Stages of insight in white awakening and positive white (non)identity

  • Where are you on the map(s)? (Note: if you don’t relate to any of the maps offered, how would you draw your own and situate yourself?)

  • What is needed to break through to the next stage?

4) Re-imagining what it is to be white: the Fourth Sight…

  • What struck or surprised you in researching the lives of white people in resistance to white supremacy?

  • What does it mean to you as a Buddhist to contend with social identities, especially your own?

  • Is your approach to deny your racial social identity ? hold it at arm's length? change it? embrace it? use it? re-imagine it? something else?