Annex is organizing a series of conversations with local race luminaries to create a dialogue about whiteness and white privilege, hoping to engage more people in this conversation. We want to invite our audience to think about and discuss the role that the arts play in provoking dialogue about race and privilege.
Following the discussion, guests will be invited next door to Annex Theatre to watch Is She Dead Yet? Vermillion Art Gallery and Bar has graciously offered each guest at the lectures a drink ticket for one well drink.
Lecture Series Schedule:
Location: Vermillion Art Gallery and Bar (right next door to Annex Theatre on 11th and East Pike)
Thursday August 6th at 7PM: Kathy Hsieh
Friday August 14th at 7PM: Robin DiAngelo
Thursday August 20th at 7PM: Laura Chrisman
Come to one, two or ALL THREE!
Lecturers:
Kathy Hsieh:
Kathy is the Cultural Partnerships and Grants Manager, overseeing the community-building, funding, and racial equity programs of the Office. A change agent in transforming the City’s arts funding program through a racial equity lens, she helped the agency earn the Seattle Management Association’s first Race & Social Justice Management Award. A leader with the City’s nationally recognized Race & Social Justice Initiative, she has presented on numerous national panels, and is an adjunct professor on Asian American Theatre for the University of Washington. Kathy is also a theatre artist and award-winning actor, playwright, director and producer with a special focus on work that creates visibility and opportunities for, and highlights the talent and contributions of, artists of color. She has been honored by the National Association of Asian American Professionals in Seattle as their Artist of the Year and as an actor by ArtsFund in 2003, featured in The Dramatist Magazine as “50 to Watch” in 2007, received A Special Award of Recognition by The Seattle Theater Writers Gypsy Awards for Excellence in Playwriting and Verizon’s Asian Pacific American Bash’s Innovator Award in 2012, and is the 2015 International Examiner Community Voice Awardee in the Arts.
Laura Chrisman: Laura is an English Professor at the University of Washington. She is interested in analyzing the cultures of imperialism and of anti-colonialist resistance, and has a particular interest in South Africa. She is also very interested in black Atlantic and black diaspora studies. Her current interdisciplinary book project is provisionally titled Nationalism, Modernity and Transnationalism in African Intellectuals. The book focuses on black South African nationalists, and their links with African-American intellectuals of the early 20th century.
Robin DiAngelo:
Academic: She received her PhD from the University of Washington in Seattle in 2004. Dr. James Banks was my dissertation Chair. She earned tenure at Westfield State University in 2014. She teaches courses in Multicultural Teaching, Inter-group Dialogue Facilitation, Cultural Diversity & Social Justice, and Anti-Racist Education. Her area of research is in Whiteness Studies and Critical Discourse Analysis, explicating how Whiteness is reproduced in everyday discourse. She is particularly concerned with the challenges of an increasingly white teaching force and an increasingly diverse student population. She is a two-time winner of the Student’s Choice Award for Educator of the Year.
Professional: She is currently serving as Director of Equity for Senior Services, Seattle/King County. She has been a consultant and trainer for over 20 years on issues of racial and social justice. She was appointed to co-design, develop and deliver the City of Seattle’s Race and Social Justice Initiative Anti-Racism training with Darlene Flynn.
Personal: “I grew up poor and white. While my class oppression has been relatively visible to me, my race privilege has not. In my efforts to uncover how race has shaped my life, I have gained deeper insight by placing race in the center of my analysis and asking how each of my other group locations have socialized me to collude with racism. In so doing, I have been able to address in greater depth my multiple locations and how they function together to hold racism in place. I now make the distinction that I grew up poor and white, for my experience of poverty would have been different had I not been white” (DiAngelo, 2006).
“I am a white woman whose academic, professional, and personal commitment is to anti-racist practice, however, I don’t call myself an “anti-racist white” because I believe that it is for people of color to decide if, in any given moment, I am behaving in anti-racist ways. These are the issues and perspectives that guide my work.” (DiAngelo)
About Vermillion: Showcasing dedicated, professional artists, Vermillion offers art, wine, beer, cocktails, and a daily seasonal menu in a unique, comforting setting. Located in the bustling Pike/Pine corridor and part of a new concept of hybrid gallery spaces, we offer the culture and appeal of an art opening every night without the crushing crowds. The space is split nearly equally to separate the two areas into distinct parts to emphasize the best of both worlds.
