Services & Workshops
Our Services typically begin with scheduling an REI Workshop or Groundwater Presentation. Before scheduling, please read the below host guide to understand the responsibilities and logistics associated with hosting a workshop. Thank you!
Racial Equity Workshop
The Racial Equity Institute’s two-day workshop is designed to develop the capacity of participants to better understand racism in its institutional and structural forms. Moving away from a focus on personal bigotry and bias, this workshop presents a historical, cultural, and structural analysis of racism. Topics covered include our fish/lake/groundwater analysis of structural racism; understanding and controlling implicit bias; race, poverty, and place; markedness theory; institutional power arrangements and power brokers; importance of definitions of race and racism; history and legacy of race in American economic and policy development; racial identity and its interaction with institutional culture. With shared language and a clearer understanding of how institutions and systems are producing unjust and inequitable outcomes, participants should leave the training better equipped to begin to work for change.
Groundwater Presentation
A typical Groundwater Presentation is a three-hour introduction to Racial Equity, and we can adjust to accommodate a shorter time slot or to dive deeper if you are able to allocate up to a full day.
In this lively and participatory presentation, our trainers and organizers will use stories and data to present a perspective that racism is fundamentally structural in nature. By examining characteristics of modern-day racial inequity, the presentation introduces participants to an analysis that most find immediately helpful and relevant.
The Groundwater Presentation dovetails with our two-day workshop and is recommended as an introduction or follow-up session to a full two-day workshop. It may also be tailored to focus on a particular content area as needed for an individual client.
Groundwater Presentation: Asian Americans
A standard REI Groundwater Presentation is recommended before attending a Groundwater Presentation: Asian Americans. The Groundwater Presentation: Asian Americans is a three-hour introduction to racial inequities experienced by Asian Americans, and we can adjust to accommodate a shorter time slot if needed.
In this presentation, our trainers will use data and research that builds on the analysis of structural racism put forth by the standard Groundwater Presentation to examine the outcomes of Asian Americans. While a surface look at these outcomes may appear to favor Asian Americans, a closer examination using specific approaches to data for this community reveals a more complex understanding of inequities experienced by Asian Americans.
The Groundwater Presentation: Asians Americans is recommended to follow the completion of the standard REI Groundwater Presentation and serves as a complement to both the Groundwater Presentation and the 2-day Phase I workshop. The Groundwater Presentation: Asian Americans is led by Reiney Lin, an organizer, and trainer with the Racial Equity Institute, a consultant with the Groundwater Institute, and a co-director, community lab leader, and instructor for the Asian American Justice and Innovation Lab. She has been training with REI since 2016, and she continues to bring Asian American perspectives to REI’s analysis of historical and structural racism.
Latino Challenges Workshop
Latino Challenges is a two-day workshop for people who live in or work with Latino communities and are interested in ending racial disparities in our institutions and working together for social justice. Participants engage in a critical analysis of how racism dis-empowers Latinos, hindering both individual well-being and community development. We examine how Latinos have been racialized in the US, as well as the cultural backdrop of race and racism in Latin America that shapes our layered identity today. At the same time, we explore how our particular cultures, identities and histories of struggle are vital sources of strength for individuals and families of Latin American origin in the United States. Further, we directly address how racism is used as a wedge between Latinos and African Americans and undermines the anti-racism movement.
The Latino Challenges Workshop is lead by Dr. Raúl Quiñones-Rosado and María I. Reinat-Pumarejo, Latino community educators and antiracism organizers for over 25 years. In their work throughout the United States, in Puerto Rico, and internationally, they apply the principles and practices of consciousness-in-action, antiracism organizing, and integral transformative leadership. María is Founder, Director and Senior Organizer of Colectivo Ilé, and is a Core Trainer with The People’s Institute for Survival & Beyond. Raúl, Trainer-Consultant and Director of Latino Affairs for the Racial Equity Institute, is a liberation psychologist and author of Consciousness-in-Action: Toward an Integral Psychology of Liberation & Transformation.
Racial Equity Leadership Institute for Youth
The Racial Equity Institute provides a two-day Racial Equity Leadership Institute for Youth for high school students to raise awareness of the role of young people in a movement for systems transformation and social justice. This workshop parallels the REI adult workshop but includes more videos and interactive exercises designed to educate about how racialized history, institutions and bias impact contemporary culture and experience and, most importantly, how young people can organize to create an equitable world.
Racial/Ethnic Affinity Group Development Process Consultation & Technical Assistance
Our process is designed to offer people of similar cultural/racial and ethnic backgrounds an opportunity to discuss the issues experienced as a member of that particular entity. These discussions are offered as a guide to practicing dialogue about the unique realities of our collectives. These shared experiences are to be used as the beginning of a process that will progress into cross cultural/racial/ethnic dialogue. The affinity group process offers participants the opportunity to engage in planning and the creation of strategy. This dialogue presents a powerful environment for honesty, understanding and cooperative learning.
Ongoing Racial Equity Collaboration & Consulting
Racial equity collaboration and consulting work is where an institution, organization, or network puts the analysis and tools developed in the workshop into practice. We work shoulder-to-shoulder with clients to develop a concrete plan for deeper analysis and change, including specific goals and action plans to reach them. We support organizations in ongoing reflection to deepen understanding of fundamental concepts, evaluate progress, document lessons, and adjust go-forward strategy accordingly. We incorporate additional training and research as needed given unique challenges and opportunities, and pay specific attention to identifying and questioning the utility of white organizational culture that may be dominating transactions, policy, and practice. Racial equity collaboration and consulting is about that trial, error, and learning that is grounded in analysis.
