

Human: I've heard in the past, when it comes to making gender and race more equitable culturally, there was a movement called consciousness raising groups, in the 1960s and '70s. Can you explain what those were, and what they did?


Assistant: Consciousness raising groups were a form of gathering together like a conversation, and taking some time to figure out how the people worked together.  These groups helped establish a strong sense of purpose and the sense of empathy that helped people understand how they could be racist or racist.  They organized for members to talk to people, often in person or in a group conversation, in a conversation.  But in the case of racism, in an ethical or moral perspective, a particular form of racism emerged.  In the 1960s, in a group conversation about racism, we discussed the idea that racism is caused by people, and that it is in part responsible for the development of racial discrimination and racism.  The concept of racism was often associated with the idea that people are racist or racist because of their skin and skin color.  In this way, that concept is an underlying assumption about what racial discrimination is all about.  In the same way, we discussed social justice, and talked about social justice to many people, in a group talk about racism and poverty.  There were people who understood racism as an economic system, and believed in community and social justice and racial justice. 

One of the groups that the groups who talked about was a man named Ernest Hemingway.  In the 1960s he wrote a book called Get in the Garden from Hemingway.  On one side of the Atlantic story, a man named Victoriana argued that it is racequand, meaning a combination of white and black or Asian-Pacific Island culture.  At the time, Hemingway felt strongly about it, and he wrote a book about the idea of racial discrimination and racism.  Some people were also uncomfortable with it, and some people didn’t understand other people’s struggles.  So each person felt different and different, and their experiences and beliefs differed from one another.  So the group talked about why racism is different, and what they would say about racial discrimination, and the sense of racism that accompanied the transformation of American society.  In a series of social justice works, a man named James said that he and his friends at the Chicagoceryclove.com community service programs work to promote racial diversity.  There’s a website that talks about community service programs, and people can volunteer to help with whatever community serves their community. 
One of the groups who got together was a group of people who helped define their sense of racial justice.  Some people wrote in a white paper entitled “When Weird,” They thought that the practice of raccoons as ‘white trash’ might be racist and that racism would ‘discredit white trash’ in a practical sense.  That’ is what we call the “white trash” thing, and it is something people say in practical ways, that has a root origin.  That’ is different from white racism, and is rooted in the idea of racial discrimination and racism as a concept of racial integration. I think it is fair to say that it is not racist, but we can call that “the white trash”.  Even more, in the same type of writing about racism, the groups discussed whiteness and racism, and talked about the notion that white racism can be racist and was just as racist and white about human rights, as a person can be racist.


Assistant: It turned out to be very effective. There were a number of great movements on the local level: gender equality, race equality, gender equity and queerness. Some of them involved groups like the Gay Liberation Front, a non-governmental organization that's been trying to make a name in the local press of various cultures and how we talk about things and how to talk about something in the world.

Now it is quite challenging that we're supposed to talk about things just like we are supposed to talk about it with our friends. To them, when you get a job and they have a spouse, you should just talk about the family things. There are some people who have been married for more than 20 years who have had children, but I think that's going to have to do with the issues that were raised in society around the idea of having children and having a spouse. It's a long, long time to have children, and there is not exactly a lot of research to do about it but there is certainly research. And there is also research on how many people are going through this. So, I think when you talk with people that have kids, they want a family. People have grandparents whom you can ask them who is having kids. It's a time period. There's a time and a long period to work on. There's no time where you have to do it alone and say, "Wow! I got children." Or "Wow, I just got kids!"

