About
I was born in 1961 in Tacoma, WA within an environment of political and social justice action around issues of peace and racial and economic justice. Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I was always with my family at demonstrations against racism and the Vietnam War, on picket lines with striking workers and at fish camps during the famous “Fish Wars,” the latter of which eventually led to the landmark Boldt Decision, reaffirming the Medicine Creek Treaty guaranteed fishing rights of the indigenous people of Washington State.
With this background, I gravitated toward a career in education earning a Master’s in Education with an emphasis in Multicultural Education. My educational experiences have taken me from teaching in a community-based alternative high school serving high-risk, gang impacted youth to running a consortium of school district, government and community-based organizations to design a school-to-career system for 32,000 students. I finished my formal career with 2 more decades in higher education student services and adjunct teaching.
My own activism has concentrated on racial justice and for the past 10 years has been especially focused on what I call “white work.” This work has included facilitating workshops and discussion groups around white racial identity and getting educated, as white people, about the history of racial oppression and our role as white people in ending it. In 2016, I co-founded a group called WHOA* (Whites Holding Ourselves Accountable) and that work has, at its core, been about deep self-reflection and introspection done with other white people under the leadership and direction of People of Color, in particular, Black Womxn. The group works to unlearn internalized white supremacy and to engage in practices using our spheres of influence to interrupt racism as it happens. This group also implemented a local reparations project which works to redistribute white dollars to Black womxn in Tacoma.
Also in 2016, I became a Qualified Administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory and have since conducted hundreds of group and individual debriefs of IDI results and have led and/or co-led workshops and dialogues with both multiracial and white groups. As a white identified person, I am particularly focused on learning and practicing effective skills for working towards racial justice as white-identified people within multiracial coalitions. I have done this work with Public and Private K-20 Institutions, Government Agencies, Nonprofits, Corporations and Faith Communities.
Some of my workshop and individual coaching topics include:
~Introduction to the Intercultural Development Inventory and Intercultural Development Plan
~Individualized Coaching with the Intercultural Development Plan
~Exploring Our Racial Conditioning as White-Identified People
~Understanding Micro-Aggressions
~Our Actions Speak Louder... Acting in Alignment with Our Anti-Racist Values
~Moving from Ally to Accomplice to Co-Conspirator for Racial Justice
~White People Working with Integrity in People of Color-led Departments or Organizations
~Repair & Restoration of Unintended Harm
*Accountable to and led by local Black Womxn