For over 10 years I ran a retreat to bring together members of the Global Majority* and white people. The intention was to help people from both groups learn ways they could show up and come together to combat racism.

In one session, my co-trainer - a Latino man - shared a story about his experience of the police when he was a teenager. He and his brother had been stopped while driving home. The police took his brother out of the car and beat him up – they didn’t like the way he’d questioned them about the reason for the stop.

A white woman in the group spoke up, “That’s not how the police are!” The story my colleague shared was not in line with her experience.

When another person from the Global Majority spoke up with anger about this white woman’s invalidation of the Latino man’s experience - the white woman burst into tears. Almost all of the white folks in the room gathered around her to try and help her feel better — further removing the focus from my colleague’s experience and the very real pain the other Global Majority participant was trying to express.

I faced a number of facilitation challenges at that moment. I don’t recall if I knew what to do then, but this is one approach I would take now.

First, I would briefly acknowledge the white woman. I would gain clarity on what was under her distress - perhaps she was shocked to realize she’d just done something that wasn’t in line with her values around race and equality.

Through reflecting back her unmet needs behind her distress, I would let her know I still saw her humanity while inviting her and other participants into awareness of a common dynamic in interracial interactions.

The pain of white people is often given precedence over the pain of people from the Global Majority.

I would ask the white woman and all the people who were supporting her to practice self-empathy, reconnect to their intention to disrupt these patterns and ensure that the people from the Global Majority were getting the support they needed.

Then, I’d check with both my co-facilitator and the person from the Global Majority who spoke out — offering them the opportunity to share more about their experience and make any requests of the group. This would bring the focus back to supporting healing and raising awareness about these challenging interpersonal interactions.

This is just one of a number of approaches I might now take as a facilitator in a similar situation. A facilitator is often faced with potentially challenging situations — they need a toolkit to support them. I’ve learned these skills over the past 20 years. And I’m thankful to have the opportunity to share them with you.

*The term Global Majority, coined by Rosemary Campbell-Stephens, includes people who identify as Black, African, Asian, Brown, Arab, and mixed heritage, are indigenous to the Americas and the global south, and/or have been racialized as ‘ethnic minorities’.

• BIPOC
• Global Majority
• remarginalization
• facilitation
• group
• leadership
• equity
• race
• Interracial
• empathy
• white pain
• oppression
• privilege
• conflict
• Roxy Manning