On Indigenous People’s Day this year, we welcome white folks, white-passing, and multi-racial folks who want to work on their whiteness to join us in practice together for the sake of ending white supremacy in our lifetimes. Especially if you are Jewish, queer, trans, and/or hold another marginalized identity AND you are white, this is a place for us to continue to do the learning together from the body up.
This 3 hour in-person workshop, facilitated by Dara Silverman, will be an introduction to the body-based methodology introduced in the longer “Embodying Racial Justice Courses” Dara offers. This lineage has its roots in Aikido and Eastern European practitioners. It offers interactive individual and group body-based practices that are explicitly framed within an antiracism lens. We will begin to build our capacities to notice what happens in our bodies when we experience any kind of pressure and stress and begin to imagine how to show up differently as white people working inside of liberation movements in the US at this time. This course takes us from inside our heads into the fullness of our bodies as pathways for sustainable change.
Sliding Scale Payment Options: $30 - $80
We are offering this workshop on a sliding scale to make it as accessible as possible for everyone to attend. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. We will be donating 30% of the proceeds of this workshop to a combination of the Osage Nation Foundation and to BOLD: Black Organizing for Dignity and Power. In 2022, Dara redistributed over $50,000 to BOLD and is committed to continuing that giving in 2023.
To complete your registration, please submit payment to Dara Silverman via Venmo: https://venmo.com/dara-silverman. (If you need a different way to pay, please reach out to embodyingracialjustice@gmail.com.) This program is being offered on a sliding scale of $30 - $80. We encourage folks to register at either $30, $50, or $80 depending on your access to resources. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. We will be donating 30% of the proceeds of this workshop to a combination of the Osage Nation Foundation and to BOLD: Black Organizing for Dignity and Power.
Testimonial from Liz Moore. Executive Director of the Peace & Justice Action League of Spokane WA
“I've taken several courses with Dara and other teachers and have found this somatics approach to being a white person working for racial justice to be quite potent. The somatics courses I've taken have deepened and advanced my commitment to being a relaxed and accountable leader and organizer for racial justice, total liberation, and healing.
Like every white person in America, I've been shaped by our racist conditioning -- we know that, but this goes deeper than intellectual knowing. This somatics approach is based in the concept of us as whole living beings, countering the white supremacy culture norms of disembodiment and mind/body split.
The practices I've experienced and learned through classes with Dara Silverman and other somatics practitioners are decreasing my reactivity and increasing my access to my whole self -- even when under pressure (!!) -- and increasing my access to a range of choices for my actions rather than being locked into conditioned, habitual behavior which perpetuates harm and oppression (internally and externally). White people are being called to get deeper in our work by our colleagues of color and by the conditions of our time. What could arise if we could begin accessing these practices in our community together?”
Dara Silverman is a white, queer Jewish consultant, somatic coach and trainer with 20 years working with organizations and in movements for social, racial, economic and gender justice. Dara partners with trainers of color to lead organizational change and leadership development initiatives centering racial justice, equity and liberation. When working with white organizers and leaders on dismantling white supremacy in ourselves, organizations and movements, she partners with white trainers to lead caucuses and trainings.
Previously, she was the founding Director of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) and the Executive Director of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) in New York City. She is certified through the International Coaching Federation as a Professional Certified Coach. Dara has been studying Somatics with the Strozzi Institute and Generative Somatics since 2011. In 2013, Dara became a certified Somatic Coach and has been in the Strozzi Institute Teacher Training since 2017 and teaching with them since then. She lives on Wappinger and Lenape land in Beacon, NY where she grows nine kinds of berries.
Please reach out to Nava Kantor (nava.kantor@gmail.com) with any questions. We look forward to seeing you at the workshop!