This is Volume 4 of “The Justice We Imagine”, a special series from Social Justice Origin Stories. This series focuses on storytellers’ responses to three essential questions:
When is true social justice possible?
What shapes our approach to the work?
Why does understanding and sharing our social justice origin stories matter?
As you listen to their responses, reflect on what your answers might be.
After witnessing the racism her Black students experienced up close on a bus trip to Kentucky, Sharman Spieser’s awareness shifted from understanding how racism operates on an intellectual level to a deeper understanding gained from lived-experience.
She reflects on how segregation, isolation, and scarcity thinking operate within a white supremacist capitalist system to keep us apart, and emphasizes the power of building authentic, trusting relationships that create the conditions for honest dialogue to happen as a way of unlearning white supremacy and advancing antiracist social change.
