This episode is about white women doing racial justice work and we talk about the pitfalls, and the courage it takes to engage in the conversation.  Dr. Darlene Snider with Racial Justice form the Heart is the Mom Courage guest who is diving in with me and sharing with us here knowledge, experience and insight!  

Dr. Darlene Snider is a mother, an educational leader, social justice advocate, scholar and a Racial Justice From the Heart certified coach.

Darlene's career has focused on cross-cultural understanding, democratic education, and leadership. She was a community college teacher for 15 years and has been an administrator, teacher, and researcher for over 20 years in higher education. She has worked collaboratively with colleagues in Canada and the United States, developing programs for youth and adults in various settings. She has served as a community college dean overseeing programs for English Language Learners, incarnated youth, and adults, and workforce education. As director of TRIO Upward Bound, she developed programming to provide academic and social support for first-generation high school students in completing high school and transitioning to college. Darlene is currently an Interim Dean of Workforce Education at Whatcom Community College in Washington State. Darlene continues to be active at the regional and state level, initiating pioneering programs fostering effective, equitable access to higher education —all related to cross-cultural understanding and social justice.

With a doctorate in Educational Leadership from Northeastern University, Darlene's research focuses on teaching and learning as lived experience, applied linguistics; issues of identity; reflexive inquiry; interpretative phenomenological inquiry or how individuals make sense of their personal experiences; and education for social justice.

Darlene grew up in a home where English was not spoken at home. While she had always recognized her Mennonite grandparents' sacrifice when they fled their homes in the Soviet Union, now Ukraine, to immigrate to Canada in the early 1930s. Darlene says that "While my parent's struggles learning a language, navigating a new culture, and making a life that afforded the opportunities I have today have been relatively visible to me, my race privilege has not. As a result, I have had to uncover how race has shaped my life." Darlene has gained deeper insight through work, study, and personal experiences that have allowed her to question how her racial identity has unintentionally socialized her to uphold inequitable and racialized systems.

Darlene was initially drawn to Dr. Amanda Kemp's work, Racial Justice from the H.E.A.R.T, because of Darlene's desire to be effective in having difficult conversations about race and racial equity. Darlene is a certified Racial Justice from the H.E.A.R.T facilitator and mentor coach. Through her work within the Racial Justice from the H.E.A.R.T community, she has been able to understand how compassion and empathy are the antidotes to guilt and shame and the place to begin when seeking to examine and dismantle systems that hold racism in place. "Now I distinguish that, I grew up in an immigrant-origin home, but my experiences would have been different had I not been white."

To learn more about Racial Justice From the Heart and access resources go to: www.dramandakemp.com 

Please note there are a few little tech issues here and there through out the episode - they only last for a moment.

I would love to hear from you!  Leave me a message via Anchor at:  https://anchor.fm/momcourage/message or send me an email at [email protected].  Check out my website to learn more about courageous conversations:  www.kariprimozic.com