Born out of the rise of racial justice activism following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the Staff of Color Roundtable (SCoR) is a program of the Virginia Civic Engagement Table (VCET) that provides a safe space for table partners’ staff of color to build & grow in community. SCoR focuses on issues unique to people of color working in the progressive nonprofit and advocacy sector. We aim to de-center whiteness and put racial equity at the heart of the work we do together.
In the spirit of roundtables, SCoR is an opportunity to gather people together in dialogue around a topic of challenge that affects us as BIPOC people in the workplace or in our communities. Each month, there’s a set topic for the room for folx to coalesce around. Roundtables will be capped at ten attendees maximum to facilitate discussion and intimacy in the room. SCoR meetings are held monthly over Zoom with ad-hoc in-person gatherings. Past meetings have revolved around topics such as work-life balance, redistricting, and taxes & the racial wealth gap. Please see topics for the remainder of 2022 below.
We’re working on our own projects and paths to build a more just & equitable Virginia. This work doesn’t have to be done in silos tho. SCoR exists as a community of support, and this idea came from last month’s SCoR meeting.
Join us for a share-out of what you’re working on and how we can plug in to support your work. Each person will have 5-7 minutes to share:
- A campaign or project that you’re working on
- Ways we can support through time, participation, skills, etc.
- (optional) A piece that you’re wrestling with that you’d like to bring to the group to brainstorm & problem-solve around
We always talk about the proverbial “table” in community work – come to the table, have a seat at the table, set the table, etc. etc. but what if we “burned the table” and considered new forms of leadership and how we come together? We will explore examples and ideas of collective action and collaboration that can lead us toward transformation in our organizations and communities.
Potential guiding questions:
- Who does the table serve? Who benefits from the table?
- What does an environment look like where collaboration and collectivism can thrive? What are the norms and practices that lift up individualism?
- What models of shared leadership exist?
- What if there was no formal leader?
In her book, “We Do This Til We Free Us”, Mariame Kaba invites us to imagine what our communities would like if we have everything we need: food, shelter, education, health, art, beauty, clean water, and more that are foundational to personal & community safety. What does it require of us to imagine and bring this society into being?
We hold abolition as an invitation to imagine & build a new society, a new way of being. What would abolitionism look like if applied to the field of civic engagement? If you’re interested in contributing to what the vision of civic abolitionism could look, feel, and sound like, please join us.
Potential guiding questions:
- What is abolition?
- What can we learn from the prison industrial complex abolitionism to apply in our own social change work?
- What would a society rooted in mutuality, that has long existed at the cost of BIPOC and other marginalized communities, require of us individually and collectively?
- What actions can we take to cultivate the conditions for imagining and creating a society where the things that are fundamental to individual and collective dignity are realized?
- What will it take for those of us in social change & community-based work at interpersonal, systemic, and cultural levels to create a new society where racial justice is sustainable and real?