Fall 2024 Offerings for Durham Culture & Arts - Invest to Restart Training Program open only to approved artists, arts & cultural nonprofits, and arts & cultural small businesses

DEI Learning Arc Session Descriptions

Session 1 – Foundations in Racial Equity
Our Foundations in Racial Equity workshop is focused on building social, political, historical, and economic context around the
construction of race and racism through an analysis of our systems, institutions, interpersonal relationships, and internalized norms.
Participants begin to define racial equity and begin developing tangible mindsets and behaviors that interrupt the quiet manifestations
of racism and lead to more equitable outcomes.

Session 2 – Foundations in Internalized Racism
Our Foundations in Internalized Racism workshop pushes participants to examine their own socialization and the unconscious norms,
assumptions and biases that have been ingrained in us, that perpetuate racism and uphold the system as it was designed. We will
interrogate our own lived experiences and identities, build community and devise strategies for deconstructing Internalized Racial
Superiority and Internalized Racial Oppression through racial identity caucusing, all while building our capacity to work towards racial
equity in the spaces we occupy.

Session 3 – Understanding and Decentering White Supremacy Culture
Our Decentering White Supremacy Culture workshop focuses on naming, interrogating, and challenging white supremacy as a sociopolitical system of domination that, while rendered invisible, controls all facets of what is deemed “normal” and “correct” in our society
and in our workplaces, more specifically. Using a racial equity lens developed in sessions 1 & 2, we will define the attributes of white
supremacy culture, identify our roles as perpetrators/co-conspirators in upholding white supremacy culture as the “norm” within the
institution, and begin developing strategies for decentering white supremacy culture and creating space for more pluralistic and
multicultural ways of being and operating.

Session 4 – Navigating Change, Power, and Equitable Decision Making
During this session, participants define power and disempowerment; reflect on their individually held relationships with and proximity
to power, and interrogate how that power has been conferred, what its unintended consequences are, and begin developing tools for
engaging in decision-making practices that are conscious of power and lead to more equitable outcomes and experiences. Participants
may reconvene in racial identity caucuses (established in session 2) to reflect on common power dynamics experienced by dominant
and non-dominant groups.

 
Session 5 & 6 – DEI Strategic Planning I & II
These two sessions are focused on translating all the awareness and analysis developed in sessions 1-4 into action and accountability
by developing a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion strategic plan. During session 5, we will define the core characteristics and practices of
equitable, anti-racist institutions and conduct a high-level DEI SWOT analysis of the organization to gauge priority areas to address
through strategic planning. In Session 6, we will begin to develop a DEI vision, set goals, objectives, key activities, and timelines for
advancing DEI and racial equity across the organization.

Session 7 – Activating your DEI Strategic Plan
In this culminating session of our learning arc, participants understand best practices for completing and implementing the DEI Strategic
Plan that was started in sessions 5 and 6 and effectively sustain their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We will interrogate
common pitfalls organizations experience when seeking to institutionalize their commitment to DEI and explore strategies for
mitigating these pitfalls and creating the necessary organizational structures and practices to ensure the DEI strategic plan yields
transformational impact on the organization.