celebrating a month of LTAR

It’s been just over a month since I started delivering workshops for my new business Let’s Talk About Race and I thought it would be a good time to share some things I’ve learned - and to celebrate!

Over this past month, I’ve been able to work with an array of groups: various Yukon Government teams/offices, high school teachers & support staff, and Yukon University staff. For my first presentation, I learned to do the whole 3.5 hour session without my notes because the tech setup didn’t allow access to all the notes I had prepared on PowerPoint! After a few minutes of sheer panic, I just forged ahead and relied on my memory and improv skills. Overall, it went fine but it was super stressful! Now I don’t use my notes at all, since I know I can manage just fine without them... silver lining?

It has been really intimidating to get in front of a group of people and start talking about a widely contested and very personal subject - but it’s getting a bit easier every time. I’ve written out a little “inspiration sheet” that I now look at before each session and during each of our breaks which entails details about:

• Why I want to do this work (keep my compass set)

• What makes me qualified to do this work (gotta fight off that imposter syndrome)

• Anti-racism trailblazers that inspire me and inform my work

• Reminders that people will try to gaslight me or invalidate me - I will be challenging some people’s worldviews and that cannot be comfortable. I cannot take their pushback or aggression personally or let it get under my skin.

It is really nerve-wracking not to know what kind of pushback could come in each session and it’s hard to emotionally prepare for questions, comments, sentiments that might come up. Especially after hearing a lot of these things over my lifetime, it is easy to internalize this pushback and start believing it … maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill, or seeing issues where there are none. But I know racism is real, I know it is harmful and I know the material I present to be true. I have found that reading through my “inspiration sheet” helps me stay grounded and self-assured throughout the session.

Each time I present, I also find myself more comfortable sharing more of my own story. It’s extremely vulnerable to talk to (mostly white) audiences about my experiences of racism - both externalized and internalized. Again, I fear that people will say that what I experienced “wasn’t really racism”, or that it isn’t that big of a deal, or that I’m too sensitive, or some other form of invalidation. I’ve noticed in recent years that when I feel very exposed or vulnerable, my body starts shaking - like a slight tremor. Sometimes it is visible and sometimes it isn’t. I can tell you that when I’m up in front of a group presenting, I am shaking hard! I’ve learned to accept this, and work with it. I find that as the session moves along and I get to know the people in the room a little more, my body can relax. But sometimes things come up and it can put me right back in that state! When I’m feeling this, I practice deep breathing, I allow my body to do its thing (it’s a normal stress-reaction), and I just acknowledge that I don’t feel safe in that space - and I’m still choosing it.

Some things that have come up in sessions have given me a fair amount of pause. I’m grateful for challenging questions or pushback because they help me learn and grow, and overall create a stronger presentation that directly addresses things that people are thinking and feeling. I’ve learned a lot from what’s come up - a few examples:

• I’ve added slides on the concept of colourblindness and the harm it can cause, as I encountered a fair number of people who came in very strong with this concept

• I’ve learned about the renaming/rebranding of pancake and syrup company Aunt Jemima to Pearl Milling Company and about Nancy Green, who was the first face of Aunt Jemima

• I’m more prepared to talk about the concept of ‘reverse racism’ i.e. racism targeted at white people (by non-white people) in a predominately white society. I’ll admit, I still have more research to do on this topic.

It’s also taken me a lot more time to customize workshops for each group I’m working with than I thought it would! I thought I would just be delivering a standard template to each group, but I’ve actually found a lot of meaning in customizing the session so the group I’m working with will get the most out of their time with me. I think about what information would be most relevant to them and I look up resources that are most relevant to their line of work. I think about activities/reflections that would resonate the most with the group, based on the dynamics of their office and/or work. It’s been very rewarding and interesting for me to think about anti-racism with new lenses for each group.

So those are some of the major learning curves that I’ve been climbing this last month. It has been challenging, draining, and exhausting at times, as well as exhilarating, inspiring and wonderfully gratifying. I remember only a few months ago, I was extremely shy and uncomfortable telling anyone that I had a business idea. I still struggle at times to talk about LTAR out loud, to talk about myself and my endeavors, and to say that I started a business. I still have a strong case of imposter syndrome but I'm working on it. The fact that I’m being hired at all has been very, very encouraging. I want to take some time to celebrate these accomplishments! Creating a company, building a website and getting hired - these are things worth celebrating! I have hit the milestone of deliver 5 sessions to date, and I feel that each session delivered helps me dismantle my own internalized racism - to be able to speak of my experiences, to know that there are people in the room that are open to learning and growing and doing better, and to hear other BIPOC in the room share their experiences - this is all powerful medicine. I’m so proud of getting LTAR this far, and I can’t wait to see what might unfold for LTAR in the next few months.