Anti-Racism and Allyship 7 Day Journey

Margaret Neale
Sarah Soule
Hannah Yanow

STANFORD Graduate School of Business

Welcome to this journey! We are so glad you are joining. There might be a number of reasons why you decided to join us. We believe you are here because you are well-intentioned, and you want to begin your journey to learn more about Anti-Racism and Allyship. You are here because you are curious, courageous, and open to learning. You are here because you care about racial equity and racial justice.

We are three, white female educators who, over the course of our lives and careers, have been on a journey to understand, research, and fight against discrimination. We share your curiosity and your commitment to racial equity and racial justice. We have spent our careers teaching about topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as topics related to gender, race, and ethnicity. We acknowledge that these topics are complex and thus require more than just one reading. We created this as a journey to help move you from understanding, to reflection, to taking new actions. While this journey is geared toward understanding race, racism and anti-Black racism in the US context, much of the material (and certainly the overarching principle of “learn, reflect, act”) is applicable to many other contexts.

After the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery in 2020 (and countless other Black Americans before these), and the massive protests against anti-Black racism that filled several of our cities’ streets, many people felt called to action. They felt called to learn more about how racial inequality and racial injustice are rooted in systemic racism and white supremacy. White supremacy is the belief that white people, and their accompanying beliefs and values, are superior and should benefit from all privileges within our societies, systems, and policies and should, therefore, suppress all other racial groups. From these learnings and the broadening of awareness of systemic racism and the white supremacy that is at the root of U.S.’ foundation and history, people felt called to action to end police violence, to affirm the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement, and to make our communities more inclusive.

We also felt called to action. As educators, we watched as many of our Black colleagues were asked to write about, and teach about, systemic racism and racial injustice. We were humbled to see so many of them answer this call. But the burden should not rest solely on their shoulders. As allies, we felt the need to act as accomplices in the fight against racism and to take a small step in helping in this educational endeavor.

What you have here is the product of our act of allyship. It isn’t perfect, and it is not everything you need to know or to do. It is meant to help you on your journey of Anti-Racism and Allyship, so that together, we can craft a future free of systemic racism and racial injustice.

How to Engage with This Resource

We have designed this journey to be self-paced, and to take about 45 minutes a day.  We provide many additional resources should you want to dig deeper. You may decide to complete this all in one week, or you may decide to complete this over several weeks. It is up to you.

The journey is set up as a series of readings, exercises, opportunities for reflections, and Anti-Racist actions you can take. We hope you commit to completing it all. As educators, we believe that change starts with learning. We also know that it is important to internalize these learnings with reflection. As concerned citizens, we also believe that education and reflection are just the first steps; to begin to tackle the effects of centuries of systemic racism in the United States, we need action. To quote our colleague, Professor Brian Lowery, “The time for talk has passed. Now is time for work.”

For each day of the journey, we provide you with materials to read, listen to, or watch, along with prompts to guide your reflection. We also ask you to think about actions you might take, given that day’s learnings. On the final day of this journey, we ask you to reflect on all you have learned in the previous days and to state clear intentions for specific actions you will take. Throughout this journey, we also provide curated lists of additional resources, so that you can dig deeper and craft your further study on Anti-Racism and Allyship.  We believe that by learning, reflecting, and acting, we can collectively work toward a better future.

We have also curated a glossary of terms for you so, as you travel through this seven day journey with us, you can reference the glossary (and access other resources) in order to gain clarity on terms that may be unfamiliar to you. We find that the definition of terms is paramount to gaining clarity and awareness on this journey toward Anti-Racism and Allyship (and we continually learn new concepts ourselves), so that we can engage from a place of knowledge and critical consciousness.

While we designed this journey to be self-paced, we know that you may be more likely to complete this journey if you work with others to help keep you accountable. We also know that discussing material with others can help to solidify the learnings. Thus, while we know some of you will decide to complete this work by yourself, we wholeheartedly encourage you to find some friends, family members, or colleagues to work with on this. For example, each person might complete the activities on a given day asynchronously, but then meet up with others in the group later in the week for a discussion session, much like how book clubs are typically run. Or, you can all work together on an activity synchronously and discuss while you are working. As more join together as allies, we have a better chance to move the conversation forward.

The Workbook

We have created a workbook for you to use throughout this journey, as the place for your reflections and for you to complete activities. You can complete it electronically as a Google doc or download it as a PDF.

Google Doc

(For Gmail Users)

  1. Log into your Google account
  2. Click here to make a copy of the workbook in google doc form. Then you can rename it and save it to your personal Google Drive in order to use it throughout this seven day journey. (If you are routed to a page that prompts you to ‘request access’ that means you are not signed into your Google account)
  3. To create a PDF from this Google doc: go to ‘File’ → ‘select Download’ → select ‘PDF Document (.pdf)’

1. Click here to download as a PDF: Select the three vertical dots in the upper right-hand corner of the screen → select ‘Download’ 

Three-dot Menu

2. To print the PDF: select the printer icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen → follow your computer’s prompts from there

Printer Icon

Explore some tips about how to facilitate a group of people who are going through the Anti-Racism and Allyship 7 Day Journey together with this helpful guide!

And, one final thing:

We developed this journey to make positive change in the world. So, please share this with others!

In Solidarity,

Maggie Neale
Sarah Soule
Hannah Yanow