Roundtable on Community Change

Racial Equity and Society Seminars

The Roundtable on Community Change created the Racial Equity and Society and Racial Equity and Youth Development seminar series in order to build and/or strengthen cadres of racial equity champions in communities across the country. Seminar participants are selected based on two main criteria: 1) the likelihood that they will become “champions” of the work of dismantling structural racism and 2) their access to and influence over those levers of change with the most potential for promoting equity.

The seminar format is a highly effective method for imparting an understanding of structural racism to strategically selected leaders with influence and decision-making power over the elements that maintain structural racism. The intensive curriculum and discussions equip participants with a sophisticated understanding of the institutions, systems, practices, and cultural representations that produce racial disparities and link class with race. The curriculum for the Racial Equity and Youth Development Seminar is available here (pdf), and the curriculum for the Racial Equity and Society Seminar is available here (pdf). Seminar topics include:

• The historical and legal foundations of racism
• The contemporary dynamics of racism
• The ideological and political debates that surround race-related issues
• The changing demographics of the country and implications for re-thinking our understanding of race-related dynamics in America
• The ways in which race, power and well-being intersect in America
• How public policies and social processes work to promote or limit racial equity among young people
• social and cultural influences on popular perceptions of race and ethnicity

With this background, participants go on to apply the structural racism analysis to their own work through the Roundtable’s Racial Equity Theory of Change (RETOC). The RETOC takes participants through a series of questions and allows them to identify a short-term outcome that will guide their efforts to promote racial equity when they leave the seminar. Participants share these preliminary products with the others in the group for comment and feedback, and receive support in implementing them upon their return home through the Racial Equity and Society Peer Learning Forum.

The Peer Learning Forum provides continued support to seminar alumni and provides a venue for them to share knowledge and insights as they pursue their racial equity agenda. The specific goals of the Racial Equity and Society Peer Learning Forum are as follows:

• To increase the capacities of seminar alumni to develop strategies that promote racial equity in their communities
• To assist this cadre of leaders in their efforts to extend their reach locally by communicating effectively to additional leaders in their communities an understanding of the structural racism analysis and ways in which they can work to address this challenge, thus furthering the work of creating a critical mass of leaders promoting racial equity
• To use the activities of the Peer Learning Forum as a source for building knowledge about the most effective formats and methods for helping leaders understand the structural racism framework, its application, its relevance in different settings, and how to best communicate these complex issues to various audiences and to implement change strategies

To achieve these goals, Roundtable staff offers technical assistance to Peer Learning Forum members; assists in the development of communication strategies; creates communication and convening opportunities; provides information on relevant research, case studies, and best practices; establishes connections with advisors and consultants; and uses the convening power of the Aspen Institute to develop location-specific racial equity seminars that involve representatives from the range of relevant sectors. The Roundtable staff then prepares lessons-learned for dissemination both to members of the Peer Learning Forum and to the field more broadly. Further detail on each of these components follows:

• Technical Assistance: The Roundtable maintains regular communication with alumni and assists them as they work to achieve the outcomes that they identify at the seminar and in identifying and addressing other areas on which to focus their racial equity efforts. We also help them develop strategies for communicating about structural racism and racial equity with their boards, colleagues, networks, and other leaders in their communities.
• Research Assistance: The Roundtable provides seminar alumni with information about particular problems and issues they face as racial equity practitioners. For example, Roundtable staff has recently investigated potential strategies and successful strategies of black-Hispanic coalitions in community activism.
• Internet Communication and Resources: The Peer Learning Forum website enables seminar alumni to continue to learn from the Roundtable and from one another’s work as they pursue racial equity projects. The website offers multiple resources including information on alumni’s racial equity work, recent research on emerging practices in the racial equity field, readings from the seminar curriculum, research on structural racism in various policy domains, and a list of organizations working towards racial equity.
• On-Site Seminars: The Roundtable helps alumni develop on-site seminars designed to introduce the structural racism analysis and the racial equity theory of change to a wider group of leaders and decision makers. This involves, among other activities, developing custom curricula, identifying the most relevant readings, developing tools to facilitate dialogue, creating exercises to help participants apply the analysis to their respective endeavors, and identifying guest speakers where appropriate.
• Cross-Sector Dialogues: Alumni have reported that there are times in which having a national organization like the Aspen Institute Roundtable involved in a cross-sector convening moves their work forward. Where opportunities for such convenings coincide with alumni interest, the Roundtable assists with organizing cross-sector dialogues. We facilitate these dialogues where appropriate or make arrangements to bring in outside facilitators.
• Case Studies: Roundtable staff culls lessons learned from seminars and from the ongoing experience of seminar alumni in order to communicate insights to the field more broadly.

Dismantling structural racism requires innovative and effective communication strategies if the work of Peer Learning Forum members is to receive the level of attention, involvement, and energy required to effectively move the needle on structural racism. The Peer Learning Forum is designed, therefore, to provide support in devising a variety of strategies to help seminar alumni and their associates to communicate the structural racism framework clearly, and to communicate with the “communications industry” effectively and with maximum impact. Together, the Racial Equity Seminars and the Peer Learning Forum facilitate leaders across the nation in coming to terms with structural racism and pursuing new and innovative strategies to promote racial equity.

For more information about the Racial Equity & Society Seminars, please contact Gretchen Susi at gretchens@aspenrountable.org.