Fun Fact: The @UMNews offered a program called "Recovering from White Conditioning" through it's Center for Practice Transformation and School of Social Work.

You can watch the free webinar on their website...or pay them to get continuing ed credit: https://practicetransformation.umn.edu/webinars/part-i-recovery-from-white-conditioning-building-anti-racist-practice-and-community/

Well I'm going to watch it, so why not live tweet it.

Webinar starts with a land acknowledgment and also honoring the life of George Floyd and all the black lives that have been taken by police.

The webinar - the goal of which is to "decenter whiteness" - is obviously presented by a white lady.

The program is based on the 12-step program used by AA....and according to the presenter, "recovery from whiteness means something different to everyone."

The presenter of the webinar calls herself a face of white supremacy. So.....why are we listening to her, exactly?

Apparently viewing herself as a white supremacist is the only way for her to "do the work" and be a healthy white person, which she uses to "combat the violent legacies of whiteness."

She quotes Robin DiAngelo talking about binary thinking, the idea that we can either be "good people and not racist or bad people and racist." Apparently, that thinking is wrong. DiAngelo thinks you can be good people and racist....which makes sense since she's a racist

"All white folks are implicated and complicit in [racism and white supremacy]. We all have work to do and no one is exempt, no matter our age, gender, political party, years in the field, etc."

There is a spectrum of recovery from whiteness:

She literally just said white folks get to spend their entire lives recovering from whiteness in a disciplined way. Whiteness is a lifelong ailment.

The person presenting this webinar is a clinical social worker.

This woman runs weekly - WEEKLY - whiteness recovery group meetings for people to work through the 12 steps of recovering from their whiteness (which is a life long process they will never truly overcome)

You can't make this stuff up.

Now she's running through like a dozen slides with quotes that are designed to make white people feel guilty for being white. She has yet to present any data or evidence to prove her point. Just quotes taken out of context.

She's actually claiming there is a spiritual element of recovering from whiteness. This fundamentally shows she knows NOTHING about the spiritual practices she's claiming to teach and frankly really pisses me off. God sees everyone as beautiful and perfect, unconditionally.

Ok, now she's about to get into her 12 step model for recovery from whiteness, which she has blatantly ripped off from AA.

Guys....this is literally brainwashing. Hold on to your hat.

Step 1: We admit that we have been socially conditioned by the ideology of white supremacy - that our minds were subject to racial biases, often unconsciously so.

"Individuals not ready to acknowledge the problem may be unable to pursue and receive the help they need"

She just showed a video of a little white girl who was given a doll test by CNN in which she was asked to pick out dolls with good attributes and bad attributes. For the good attributes, she picked out dolls that looked most like her. Which is bad because she's white.

OHHHHHHH WHITE WOMAN'S TEARS ARE VIOLENT!!!!! She literally just said this.

Now back to the doll test: This is such a false test. You've given this kid no option but to choose a doll to represent good and bad aspects based on completely arbitrary things. This is not real life, nor is it evidence to prove that all white people need a 12 step recovery.

Step 2 of recovery from whiteness: We came to believe that we could embrace our ignorance as an invitation to learn.

"I just don't understand why black lives matter has to protest on the highway" is considered a bad statement by a white person because it's made in judgment. Instead, we should consider why they are literally putting their bodies on the line.

Step 3: We develop support systems to keep us engage in this work.

I'm sure this supports her weekly recovery groups, which I'll bet she's making money off of to provide those support systems to whole white people accountable.

Step 4: We journey boldly inward, exploring, and acknowledging ways in which white supremacist teachings have been integrated into our minds and spirits.

This REALLY pisses me off - the fact that she's positioning this as a spiritual journey.

Oh there is a worksheet.

She's particularly focusing on microaggressions here, but makes the argument that we should stop calling them micro "because they hurt"

As I started watching this webinar, a friend of mine texted me and said "I'm gonna have to apologize to people for being white, aren't I?"

And YES. We have reached Step 5: We confess our mistakes and failings to ourselves and others.

Step 6: We were ready to deconstruct previous ways of knowing as they have been developed through a lens of white supremacy

SHE LITERALLY CITES THE MATRIX. Irony, anyone?

Step 7: We HUMBLY explore new ways of understanding to reconstruct a more inclusive sense of reality.

Step 6 is about letting go of knowledge you obtained from white people. Step 7 is about focusing on knowledge you only obtain from people of color.

She's making the argument that we should not learn from white people.

Step 8: We commit to ongoing study of our racial biases, conscious or unconscious, and our MALADAPTIVE patterns of white supremacist thinking.

Ok I have to take a break from this. More later.