Street Outreach

I am sharing this Anti-Racist Street-Outreach Model that is Easily Replicable on this resource blog, for my friends and comrades who are doing this work: 

Outreach in White Communities (OWC) is a model that white people can use when they want to do antiracist street outreach in a white or majority white community or neighborhood, at any outdoor site, such as the sidewalk in front of a store with heavy foot traffic. 

Dorchester People for Peace (DPP) developed this model over the last eight years (2015-2023), and is now (again) offering it to other antiracist activists and groups, who may want to respond, as we did, to Black leaders since at least Malcolm X, who say to white people, “Don’t ask us what you can do to help us; go work on your own people and change their heads [and their conscious or unconscious support, and inaction, that are what uphold and strengthen systemic racism].”

OWC’s purpose and methodology is to engage other white people in conversation about racism, centering care and empathy, and doing a lot more listening than talking. It means respecting them and where they’re coming from, non-judgmentally, and not from a place of moral superiority. This means there’s no place for refuting, debating, or arguing, and no need to directly challenge racist statements, no matter how shocking they may be for us to hear, other than to ask an open-ended question such as, “why do you think that is?” The goal is to hear more about where they’re coming from, and respond in a caring way, so as to give them space to examine something they hadn’t thought about or questioned before. This is what’s sometimes called a “deep canvassing” approach. See SURJ’s article on deep canvassing.

Source for above, more info, videos, documents, and logistics of how to do this here:

Anti-racist Street Outreach Model

updated 5/30/23