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Student Action Network Home Page Information about: |
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Sponsors: Ethnic Cultural Center and Theatre Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs President's Advisory Committee on Diversity Endorsed by: |
Wednesday Oct. 25 * 6 - 9 pm * Ethnic Cultural Theatre
3940 Brooklyn Ave NE
If you need help with access to the Theatre, driving directions, parking,
or maps, the Visitor Information
page has a lot of links.
Join us in welcoming Shakti Butler, director of The Way Home, for a rare opportunity to engage in an open dialogue about how race, gender, class and sexuality shape our lives.
The Way Home is a film about race, gender and class in the United States. Over the course of eight months, sixty-four women, representing a cross-section of cultures in the U.S., met in councils separated by ethnicity - African-American, Arab, Asian, European-American, Indigenous, Jewish, Latina, and Multi-Racial.
With uncommon courage, the women share their minds and hearts and tell their stories about resistance, love, assimilation, standards of beauty, power, school experiences and more. Their candid conversations offer rare access into multi-dimensional cultural worlds invisible to outsiders. The result is an unpredictable collection of stories that reveal the far-reaching effects of social oppression and present an inspiring picture of women moving beyond the duality of black and white. The stories are strands that weave together perspectives of how we are the same and how we are unique.
Woven throughout are collages of visual symbols of the women's diverse cultures and individual lives - all of which expand the impact of the women's words.
"Dares to speak the unspeakable about the politics of oppression and race in the United States. The women's voices fill the emotional and dangerous void of what is often left unspoken between us."--Fabienne McPhail, Director, Women's Center, Stanford University
Some topics of conversation:
- Controlling the Land - Indigenous women talk about land, power and race.
- The Power of Silence and Privilege - Euro-American women talk about racism: how it works, how the system of racism is kept alive and some effects of being unconscious about it.
- Am I This or Am I That? - Multiracial women tell stories and ask questions about the complex nature of choosing identity.
- Becoming American - Asian-American women talk about the immigrant experience and the price paid to become "American".
- Finding Identity - This section challenges assumptions of what it means to find identity. The multiracial council looks at the process of claiming identity and the difficulty of making conscious choices.
- Individual Reality vs. Cultural Reality - Arab-American women talk about the ability to fit into a white society while being women of color as welt as addressing social responsibility and justice.
- Oppression Internalized - Jewish women divulge the depth and toll of internalized oppression upon the psyche and the body.
- School Stories - Many women's voices share their school experiences and the messages that contribute to perpetuating a stratified society.
- Standards of Beauty - Mirror, mirror on the wall, what happens to me if I don't look like the standard of beauty. This age-old issue is addressed by several of the councils.
- Experiences from Light to Dark - Multiple councils talk about how life experiences and attitudes are shaped and influenced by skin color.
- Oppression Institutionalized - African-American women talk about the church, religion and homophobia.
- Relationships - A collage of humorous, painful, resilient stories of the heart impacted by race, class and gender.
- Consciousness and Heating - A dramatic summation of the women's voices issues, illustrating the heating power that comes from being willing to talk about complex ideas, ask new questions and be direct towards consciousness and healing.
Ms. Shakti Butler is an African-American woman of West Indian and
Russian-Jewish heritage whose work as a creative and visionary bridge
builder has challenged and inspired learning for over twenty-one years. As
the Executive Director of World Trust, Shakti initiated Heart to Heart
Conversations, a national program of public dialogue that speaks to
critical social issues of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation.
Ms. Butler is the producer and director of the groundbreaking documentary The Way Home. She has intentionally designed this powerful video tool as a catalyst for transformative learning, conversation, healing and change. The video serves as a model for dialogue that sets the context for constructive conversations on oppression through the lens of race. Her work moves conversations beyond black and white and speaks to the interconnectedness of racism, classism, sexism and homophobia.
Shakti is also an inspirational facilitator, trainer and lecturer whose consulting writing and lecturing style support her use of mind, body and Spirit or Consciousness as an approach to challenging deeply embedded beliefs and generating new questions. Her work emerges from years of self-exploration as well as her experience lecturing, speaking, designing workshops, teaching and training in colleges, universities, organizations and religious institutions. A warm and compassionate person, she uses her exceptional ability to listen and ask pertinent questions along with her intuitive capacity to support self-directed learning. She enriches people's ability to move toward an expanded understanding of their own capacity for greatness.
Shakti's speaking style incorporates group participation through dialogue, critical self-inquiry, reflection and whole body learning. Shakti's presentation of The Way Home is greatly enriched because she ties the stories and ideas presented in the film to the personal stories and challenges of the people watching it. In this way, attention is paid to building community amongst audience participants. In 1994 Ms. Butler, on behalf of World Trust, designed and launched Heart-to-Heart Conversations, a national program of public dialogue designed to help people share deep feelings about race and culture. This program has gained recognition and been reviewed on both local and national television.
Shakti and World Trust also recognize that the Heart-to-Heart Conversations Program, no matter how powerful, must be carefully framed and contextualized. Quality diversity work and reflective educational awareness must link the concerns of participants to the larger objectives and challenges of their related institutions or organizations. This allows them to maximize their potential for learning and growing. For this reason Shakti actively partners with organizations in order to support established visions, goals and objectives.
Ms. Butler graduated Magna Cum Laude from City College of New York, holds an MA in Guidance and Counseling from Bank Street College of New York, and is an ABD doctoral candidate at the California Institute of Integral Studies in the School of Transformative Learning and Change. She is also a contributing author to The New Entrepreneurs, an anthology on new paradigm business practices and learning
WHO IS WORLD TRUST?
Founded in 1987, World Trust is a non-profit educational organization. World Trust's initial years were spent holding community dialogues and gathering information from over 200 business leaders, educators and government officials. World Trust's dialogues and workshops use a variety of processes to invite transformative learning for the purpose of deep change. This transformation uplifts the human spirit at the intersection of self, communities and organizations.
In 1994 World Trust created a national program of dialogue called Heart-to-Heart Conversations. World Trust uses the video, The Way Home, as a powerful tool for creating a common experience that acts as a catalyst for conversations among a broad network of people. Through both private and public conversations, thousands of people are exploring their deeply embedded assumptions, many which may not have been previously investigated. Environments that support authentic dialogue encourage people to ask new questions of themselves and others. These questions open minds and hearts toward new perspectives, connections, healing and action.