Transcript: It takes a long time to internalize the Undoing Racism Workshop. Even as I was one of the trainers in the workshop, I was constantly, in ways conscious and unconscious, internalizing the message. The founders would always say this is about organizing. We would all nod our heads, and when they asked how many of you are organizers in the room?, some of us would raise our hand. We weren't doing any organizing! But we wanted to be one, and you just internalize the message so much over time–not one sitting or two, but many sittings–hearing the way in which people would talk about not just their history but their lives. And saying: talk about your history, talk about your life. What did you do? When did you do it? Who were your mentors? How did you learn what you were doing? That was a struggle, but organizing means that we've gone through an internal process of development. It means that each setting we’re in, the idea of bringing people together is primary. Not just educating people, not just advocating for people, but how do you organize? 

In New York, everybody was an expert it seemed when we first met. We were working in academia, people had written books, people were world-renowned in their field, there was great expertise in the room, but it wasn't organized, you know, this was just a debate. Or you would hold yourself over in one department or another. So bringing that expertise together and hammering on it, saying, we’ve got to move the expertise to action. We've got to organize within the systems we're a part of. And a lot of that is going. In New York City, social work will never be the same again [because of the frequency of Undoing Racism Workshops in that field]. I think I can say that with some assurance, and it feels good to have been a part of that. 

People are talking about racism who've never talked about it, who assume they knew about it. In academia we found this curious thing–we thought we'd be embraced by academia as being colleagues with them, but academia is set up to compete. And so people who would naturally be our allies were in fact reluctant to work with us because it might diminish their role in the academy. We can't condemn that. We have to understand why that is and why–if people think they know–why is there so little organizing? Tenure’s almost impossible for a person of color to get in this country, but we don't say, well why is that? Why is it so difficult for people of color particularly to gain tenure? What is tenure anyway? What is its intent? When did it start? These were all questions that intrigued us. We said, you've got to grapple with this. This is just as racially invested as some of the things that occurred in the 50s and 60s. 

So that discussion of Undoing Racism is happening all over New York City. People stop me on the street–not just me but others they've met–and say, I went to your workshop! Or I'll meet someone in a coffee shop–this happened just recently–a young woman said, can I sit here?, and she said, you’re that Undoing Racism guy, aren't you? I said who are you??, and she said, I go to the nursing school across the street and we're grappling with what The People's Institute teaches. It's very gratifying. You feel that you've contributed something that is greater than yourself.