This week, I chose to answer both prompts because my experiences towards both of them played well hand-in-hand. I participated in youth work for most, if not all, of my professional career. Beginning with AmeriCorps in 2016 and "ending" with something more grassroots and community led in 2023, I feel like I've seen whitness and white supremacy culture's impact on all ends of the spectrum.
2016: I joined City Year, an AmeriCorps program, shortly after I completed my undergrad. Though I heard tons of horror stories about folks' experiences with the program, I felt like it was my only ticket into the world of nonprofits and community work considering I had no experience prior to this. I immediately understood and experienced whiteness for what it was, before we even began service. There were rules and regulations that prohibited AmeriCorps Members from simply living as young professionals; this is when I realized we were in some sort of cult, or so it seemed.
When we were assigned schools, I was placed furthest out South of Los Angeles. Though it seemed scary to most folks, it reminded me of... well, home. Whiteness showed up in the most obvious ways: our uniforms, our choice of language, our approach to lesson planning, and our views on the youth.
As the school year went on, authenticity was the key word and affirmation I shared with myself every single day. I also began to see how white supremacy culture showed up in subconscious ways. Some of my peers would assume what our youth were going through rather than finding out for themselves. The WASP Savior began to also become a norm. These were signs of white supremacy that made even myself begin to feel less than. I felt like these conditions made it almost impossible for us to serve our youth any justice as we were viewed as another adult that didn't believe in them.
Despite my eye opening experience in Los Angeles, I completed my service and continued with the same program back in Rhode Island; I had hopes things were different. Shortly after, I left the AmeriCorps system due to feeling restricted in the work I was doing, my approach to youth development, and not feeling like I could even be myself in the spaces we were in.
2018: I joined a local nonprofit known as College Visions located in Downtown Providence. I heard of this organization through friends and peers who went through the programs as youth. I began my time with them as a College Access Advisor, helping low-income, first generation youth through their college application process. It was almost immediate relief that I realized how different this organization was from the AmeriCorps programs I had completed.
This organization, thought not youth-led, truly valued the voices of the community they served. We were truly grounded in values that were outside of whiteness and definitely even challenged it. Some of the small things that had a big impact was creating a space were our youth felt valued and seen. It didn't matter where you were coming from, what you were wearing, how you looked, our space created a sense of security (almost as if it was home away from home). We didn't monitor or censor the way our students (or even our staff) spoke; this made our space more open for communication.
As I reflect, representation was also a huge factor that played into the fight against white supremacy culture. Almost 90% of our staff, at all times, represented the communities we worked with. I think this impacted the work we did in huge ways. The oppressive cultures we were protecting our youth from were the very same cultures we fought against as young people too. It felt good to be in community, and in work, with such powerful people (especially people of color), who valued the futures of our young Black and brown leaders.
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