BIPOC Discussion Circle Community Guideposts & Guiding Questions

Community Guideposts:

Because we’re coming together for the first time, we have created guideposts that will encourage community care and trust during the Discussion Circle.  They are as follows:

  1. Notice your level of comfort or discomfort. Practice asking for what you need while being mindful how your request may land on others;
  2. Confidentiality—Hold each other’s stories sacred and do not share them outside this space;
  3. Bring your voice in and make room for those who are speaking less or not at all;
  4. Seek permission to ask follow-up questions and think deeply about what’s behind your question before asking it;
  5. Think about supporting others and engaging for understanding—rather than debating, negatively challenging, and or silencing someone;
  6. Notice the ways white supremacy culture may be entering the space via the way you are showing up (ex: the need to take over, over-intellectualizing, interrupting/silencing, valuing some voices over others, judging others, judging the process, etc.)

Prior to joining the BIPOC Discussion Circle, please consider the following Guiding Questions.  You may wish to use your responses to these questions as a way to enter the Circle on Wednesday; however, they are, by no means, meant to be the sole focus of your conversations.

  1. What have been your emotional and physical responses to the numerous acts of violence and terrorism targeting BIPOC communities? (Have you given yourself permission to feel?)
  2. How have those responses impacted the way you show up in your personal and/or professional life?
  3. Has anything in your personal and/or professional life shifted to acknowledge and accommodate what you are currently experiencing?
  4. What have you done to acknowledge your current state-of-mind?
  5. The road to justice and equity still lies far ahead of us. How will you stay health and whole in the meantime?  (If someone asked you what you need right now, are you able to name it?)

If you have determined that this space is for you, we hope you will register:

https://uwmadison.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJckf-mpqzwtGNGBIxegXLm-avm629BPhG4Q