Opening the Door: A Forum for Personal Exploration
A deeper introduction to anti-racist principles for non-BIPOC (white and white-perceiving) leaders in tech who desire to look inward and understand deeply held, yet often unconscious racial biases.
Wednesday October 26
3pm-4:30pm
“When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.” — Toni Morrison
If this speaks to you, please use this workshop as a welcoming entryway.
Two years ago, my spiritual community held a panel where people of color discussed their experience as members within the predominantly white community. The panelists revealed how consistently unwelcome they felt, by turns invisible and singled out.
I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. These were people I’d known for decades. I felt deeply connected to them. Over the years we had sat side-by-side in silent meditation retreats, eaten together, and shared our lives.
I felt embarrassed by my own blindness. I had no idea the extent to which their experience of our religious community differed from mine—not just differed, but negatively impacted them. This was the first time I was able to understand how white culture can have a detrimental impact on people I love and respect.
To hear that my “safe place” caused harm to others disoriented, confused, and totally destabilized me.
That’s when I started reading and researching. A year later, I finally hired an anti-racist coach to help me understand the complexity of racism and how it lives within me.
Two years later, working with my anti-racism coach continues to be humbling.
It has made me look at my belief systems on a cultural level.
It has made me challenge assumptions I’ve made implicitly about the “right” or “professional” way to do things.
I’ve learned how my whiteness shows up in my everyday interactions.
I went from wanting to be perceived better to fundamentally questioning beliefs that I took as fact for my entire life.
My anti-racism work has profoundly transformed my experience as a business owner, leader of my team, and coach to my clients.
Given my experience, I feel so strongly that this work is critically important—so much so that I wanted to make it available to my community of tech leaders: a rare opportunity to personally explore, and have a conversation that goes far beyond most trainings.
I bring this anti-racism workshop to you not as a coach, but as a co-host to an expert, Makeda Pennycooke. She is my anti-racism coach and will be the facilitator of this vital conversation.
Who You Are
You are a senior leader ready, and willing, and curious to look at how your actions impact those around you.
You yearn to get answers to questions like:
“I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. How do I talk about that?”
“Oh, I know I just stepped in it… What did I do wrong? And what do I do next?”
“How do I perpetuate racism in my day-to-day life without realizing it?”
“How do I start to realize that I am perpetuating it so I can stop the cycle?”
If you, like me, want to examine yourself more deeply, please join us:
The goal and what you can expect
This workshop is the beginning of a deeper conversation. It is an opportunity to step into a space where you can begin to examine belief systems and unhelpful behaviors you may not have been able to see before. It is an invitation for you to begin doing your own deeper work, which is what MettaWorks is all about. If you want to experience true transformation—the kind of transformation we work with our clients to achieve—anti-racism work is a critical piece.
Here at MettaWorks, we are not anti-racism experts and thus don’t offer it as an explicit part of the curriculum. This is why I’m partnering with Makeda to make this workshop available to my community of tech leaders.Consider this a starting point for a deeper exploration of limitations you may have as a non-BIPOC leader, due to deep cultural conditioning. If this speaks to you, please use this workshop as a welcoming entryway.
If this speaks to you, please use this workshop as a welcoming entryway.
Makeda Pennycooke
Makeda is a teacher, facilitator, and Certified Life Coach and Change Strategist with over two decades of experience in leadership and personal development.
Her genius is holding space as people navigate change, specifically the space between what was and what is not yet. Change is hard and it is in that in-between where most people get stuck, overwhelmed, and/or retreat back to what is familiar, even if it is something they no longer desire. She supports people as they move through that in-between space so they can achieve what it is they truly want.
Her ability to hold space for the in-between has proved beneficial for white leaders who want to step into the work of unlearning and seeing with new eyes, on their way to becoming anti-racist. She is convinced that until all of us are free, none of us are free and will gladly walk with anyone who is committed to the freedom of all.
You can find her at www.makedapennycooke.com or on Instagram @makedapennycooke
All proceeds will be donated to the Wildseed Society.
The Wildseed Society brings opportunity for BIPOC-led spiritual, social and economic communities – building and growing what they need in order to face a multitude of spiritual, social and economic crises in the US.