Jen Fry is a social justice educator who trains organizations, institutions, and businesses through an antiracist lens on issues of race, inclusion, intersectionality, diversity, and equity. She runs JenFryTalks, a social justice education firm that uses conversation to educate and empower those within athletics through an anti-racist lens on issues of race, inclusion, intersectionality, diversity, and equity.
Jen shares with us today how to go beyond allyship and how to be a co-conspirator to people of color in our homes, our work, and even on social media.
Definitions of Race with Sources: Courtesy of Jen Fry, jenfrytalks.com
- Race: A socially constructed system to classify humans based off of phenotypical characteristics, like skin color, hair texture, and bone texture. Source: Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education (Multicultural Education Series)
- Racism: Racism is a system in which one race maintains supremacy over another race through a set of attitudes, behaviors, social structures, and institutional power. Source: Barbara Love, 1994. Understanding Internalized Oppression
- Whiteness: The academic term used to capture the all-encompassing dimensions of White privilege, dominance, and assumed superiority in society. These dimensions include: ideological, institutional, social, cultural, historical, political, and interpersonal. Source: Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education (Multicultural Education Series)
- Anti-Racism: Anti-racism is the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably. Source: NAC International Perspective: Women and Global Solidarity
Recommended resources for further learning:
Books:
- I’m Still Here by Austin Channing Brown
- White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
- Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad
- How to be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
- The Very Good Gospel by Lisa Sharon Harper
- So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
- Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Tears We Cannot Stop by Michael Eric Dyson
- Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
- Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper
- The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
- Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Renni Eddo-Lodge
Websites/Articles:
To learn more about Jen’s work or to hire her, please visit her on Instagram, Twitter, her website, or text DISRUPT to 55-444 that will sign you up for Victoria’s updates.