Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Annelie Geissler
Categories
Self-help, personal development & practical advice

A SPACE FOR US

Michelle Cassandra Johnson

A Guide for Leading Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Affinity Groups

The first comprehensive guide for leading BIPOC affinity groups for challenging white supremacy, healing racial trauma, and taking collective action.

Meeting in racial affinity groups is a common practice in anti-racist, social justice, diversity, and similar educational endeavors. These groups provide a structured space in which participants can explore how racism personally impacts them, process specific experiences of racism, receive validation and support from their peers, heal, and strategize next steps for challenging racism, white supremacy, and internalized racial oppression. In A SPACE FOR US, Michelle Cassandra Johnson brings her over 20 years of experience leading dismantling-racism work to provide the first affinity-group guide made for BIPOC communities. This essential guide will: - provide an understanding of the racial hierarchy and how it has impacted Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color differently - define and share common manifestations of internalized racial oppression - define anti-Blackness and provide skills to interrupt and address it - share rituals, practices, and sample agendas for affinity groups - explain when it is useful to meet as one BIPOC group and when it is useful to meet based on one's specific racial identity - provide rituals and tools for healing in BIPOC affinity groups - provide information about how to come back together as BIPOC and white people to strategize and take collective action Comprehensive and accessible, A SPACE FOR US offers practical guidance for facilitating effective BIPOC racial affinity groups and will be an important resource for BIPOC communities. Michelle Cassandra Johnson has over 20 years of experience leading dismantling-racism work and working with clients as a licensed clinical social worker and has a deep understanding of how trauma impacts the mind, body, spirit, and heart. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of William and Mary and a masters degree in social work from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She published Skill in Action: Radicalizing Your Yoga Practice to Create a Just World in 2017 and Finding Refuge: Heart Work for Healing Collective Grief in 2021. Her book, We Heal Together: Rituals and Practices for Building Community and Connection, was published in April 2023.

Available products
Book Published 2023-08-08 by Beacon Press

Comments

What an incredible body of work for Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color to center healing and restoration. Important. Vital. Right on time. A SPACE FOR US is a beacon of light and love for those most directly affected by systemic racism who seek a way and place to heal, recover, and thrive. Read this book with your whole heart if you are ready for real, true liberation.

Michelle Johnson has created a wonderful offering in the form of this book, providing extremely necessary guidance for BIPOC folx on how to facilitate and navigate caucus spaces - for us and by us - with the spirit of loving-awareness and fierce, authentic compassion at its heart. A must-read for BIPOC facilitators and practitioners dedicated to furthering this type of healing work for the benefit of all sentient beings.

BIPOC affinity groups are powerful medicine, and facilitating them calls for skill, discernment, and heart. I am grateful for this compassionate, nuanced examination of how BIPOC affinity groups can blossom as breathe-easy spaces of healing and power. Michelle Johnson generously shares a wealth of practices, stories, reflections, and questions that will shine light for both new and seasoned facilitators.

A SPACE FOR US is a helpful introduction for bodies of culture seeking to facilitate affinity spaces for other bodies of culture in an inclusive, emergent, and trauma-informed way. Johnson provides tools, strategies, and practices for fostering the communal healing spaces that in turn ignite community action and liberation.