For three Wednesday evenings in January 2025, seven members of Buffalo Quaker Meeting attended via videoconference a training called Creating Anti-Racist Organizations, which was presented by the Center for the Study of White American Culture (CSWAC) and sponsored by New York Yearly Meeting. Over 140 members of New York Yearly Meeting attended the training.
The training workshops were interactive and covered a wide range of ideas including defining White American cultural characteristics, types of organizational culture in terms of a span of values from white dominance to operating a fully equitable multicultural, anti-racist organization, and the impact of White American organizational culture on people of all backgrounds.
This training was very thought-provoking. The presenters introduced us to the iceberg model of culture, which refers to the idea that only 10% of cultural characteristics are visible, with most aspects of culture operating without be overtly noticed.
White American culture is sometimes referred to a “mainstream culture” and has historically been rooted in patriarchy and Christian beliefs. Some of the values that distinguish White American organizational culture include individualism, materialism, reason over emotions, prizing the written word, efficiency, professional credentialing, linear thinking, and isolating specific issues vs. looking at the whole picture.
Several Friends in New York Yearly Meeting worked to make this training available, because we have learned that although Quaker practice does not require White American organizational culture to work, we are all strongly influenced by the dominate culture, and we have learned that Friends of Color as well as some White Friends have been negatively impacted by policies and decisions that have been influenced by America’s dominant culture.
The training gave us insights and tools to step back to analyze how White American culture is influencing our Quaker Meetings.
The suggested goal is to seek to create more equitable spaces, values, and ways of relating to each other in Quaker organizations. Understandably since we did not get to our current cultural position overnight, this will take some conscious effort and time. Several Friends across our region of Farmington Scipio completed the training. We hope to bring more discussions and strategies to unpack our less than equal organizational structures. We must ask ourselves do we want to become truly multi-racial, multicultural, anti-racist communities practicing the Quaker Faith together. This may seem like an obvious ethical choice, but remember the iceberg model of culture? A great deal of what we think and do are not conscious. More experiences illuminating our current challenges across New York Yearly Meeting will be planned.