Race-based identity groups, or caucuses, provide a chance for people to talk in a structured format with others from their own ethnic/racial group, an opportunity that is rare, even for those who regularly participate in multicultural dialogues. This kind of within-group talk more often than not…

By Pat Schneider, from Another River: New and Selected Poems (Amherst Writers and Artists Press, 2005). Used with permission. The self you leave behind is only a skin you have outgrown. Don’t grieve for it. Look to the wet, raw, unfinished self, the one you are becoming. The world, too, sheds its…

By Naomi Shihab Nye, from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Far Corner Books, Portland, OR, 1995). Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth….

Material excerpted from the book I Will Not Die an Unlived Life copyright (C) 2000 by Dawna Markova Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC, Newburyport, MA and San Francisco, CA www.redwheelweiser.com.

Originally written anonymously by a gay high school student and adapted for this exercise. Mattering My father asked if I am gay I asked, Does it matter? He said, No not really I said, Yes. He said get out of my life. I guess it mattered. My friend asked why I talk about race so much?…

Excerpted from Meditations of the Heart by Howard Thurman. Copyright (C) 1953, 1981 by Anne Thurman. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusetts. It is very easy to pretend to understand what one does not understand….

For your newsletter or website Building the World We Dream About for Young Adults is a Unitarian Universalist program that seeks to interrupt the workings of racism and transform how people from different racial/ethnic groups understand and relate to one another….

From The Shaking of the Foundations by Paul Tillich. Sometimes … it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later….

Read the following sentences aloud in pairs, pausing briefly between the two items in each pair, and pausing again after each pair is read. This is my best friend, Mandy. This is my best white friend, Mandy. I love green beans. I love green beans made by that white company Dole Foods….

Dear Thank you for registering for Building the World We Dream About for Young Adults. The (program/conference/first workshop) will take place (day, date, time, and place)….

By Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, author, philosopher, theologian, educator and civil rights leader. There must be always remaining in every life some place for the singing of angels, some place for that which in itself is breathlessly beautiful and—by an inherent prerogative, throwing all the rest of…

“Telling” is used with permission. For more information about Laura’s poetry and other writing, go to her website, www.laurahershey.com.

Adapted from the work of Peggy McIntosh and Emily Style. “Giving testimony” can mean bearing witness, giving evidence, speaking the truth of one’s experience and perspective, and claiming responsibility for one’s own truth. The serial testimony protocol is very simple: The facilitator poses a…

This program will: Provide participants with a better understanding of people who are different from them Deepen participants’ ability to communicate openly and clearly with those in their circle of friends and acquaintances Present the idea that racism is a social construct which can be…

This resource includes several first-person narratives from Unitarian Universalists, many of them young adults, describing experiences of being affirmed and experiences of being marginalized. Introduce these voices and experiences using a Theater of Voices technique as described Activity 4….