Consciousness Raising for Multicultural Awareness
THEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS
1. Consciousness of multicultural oppression/privilege begins with personal awareness.
2. Personal awareness is never an end in itself but a means to increasing social and political consciousness.
3. Personal awareness involves experiences, observations, feelings, attitudes, decisions to change, etc.
4. Expressing the personal varies according to race, class, ethnicity, age, education, sense of safety.
5. Consciousness raising may be personally liberating or healing, but these are not goals of CR.
GOALS
 Increase individual awareness of the dynamics of privilege and oppression through remembering how you formed opinions,
ideas, and values of yourself in relation to others.
 Validate your feelings and experiences by having other people listen without contradicting you.
 Learn how to listen to other people's experiences, feelings, attitudes, etc.
 Understand differences between experiences as individuals and collective memories based on experiences of members of
privileged or oppressed groups.
 Recognize how systems of oppression are maintained in order to benefit the privileged and create barriers for non-privileged
others.
 Analyze interconnections of systems of oppression such as racism, heterosexism, ageism, classism, etc.
PROCESS
 Form a circle with 3-8 people.
 Choose a facilitator to read each question and lead discussion.
 Choose a timer to make sure nobody speaks more than three minutes on any one question.
 Facilitator
o Keep discussion on track and encourage/invite quieter people to speak.
o Begin with Strokes--ie. Ask the group to share one good thing that they have accomplished recently that makes them
feel empowered.
o Ask questions in order, giving each a chance to speak in turn before going on to the next.
 Participants
o Speak out of personal experience. (Nobody can contradict you.)
o At anytime you can pass on a question.
o Listen attentively and respect what other people say, even if you disagree. Don't criticize, confront, or give advice.
o Vow to confidentiality – what’s said in the group stays in the group – this establishes trust
**Consciousness Raising for Multicultural Awareness created in part by Dr. Rosemary Keefe
Race and Racism
Follow the process outlined:
Form a circle. Choose a facilitator. Start with strokes.
 Introduce yourself by describing your ethnic background and your earliest memories of family cultural/ethnic traditions,
songs, recipes, celebrations, stories about ancestors. State something that makes you feel proud about your ethnic
background.
 When were you first aware of race and racial difference? What contact did you have as a child with people of different
races? What did you learn at home about people of different races?
 As you were growing up, what messages did you get from peers, school, family, mass media about interracial heterosexual
relationships? How did you feel about the racial and sexual dynamics of such relationships?
 How did you learn what values people of different races have about family, children, sexuality, money, food, clothes, upward
or downward mobility? What class assumptions have you made about people of other races? If you have a close friend of
another race, how has this affected your earlier assumptions?
 How did you first witness/experience racism? What did you learn? How did you feel?
 What is the difference between racism and racial prejudice? How has racism or prejudice affected your attitudes and
behavior toward people from other countries or people who don't speak English?
 Have you ever confronted someone about racist behavior, statements, assumptions? What are your fears? How does it feel
to challenge racism or prejudice? What attitudes and behaviors regarding race and ethnicity are you trying to change?
Describe your struggles.
 How does racism affect your daily life? Who suffers or benefits from racism? Imagine a world free of racism. How would
your life and the world be different?
 What can you do to confront racism in the next week? How can you increase your awareness of race and racism in the near
future?
Some ideas for the consciousness raising exercise on Racism come from "Unlearning Racism" in All of the Women are White, All of the Blacks are Men, But Some of Us are Brave (Feminist
Pres) by Gloria T. Hull.