It all began with a conversation. Twenty-six co-researchers from the U.S. and Europe - ages 21 to 73, white people and people of color - came together for a conversation. Whiteness has not always been around. We hope it won’t always be around. How do we go from worlds where whiteness has taken deep root to glimmers of worlds without whiteness? From our conversations emerged a possible five-stage path. What is that path?

An important step in this reimagining work is seeing whiteness. What is whiteness? How do we define it? How do we see it? Whiteness itself is not an ancestor. Whiteness is not that old. It started as a seed. As an idea in someone else’s imagination. In less than 600 years that seed has sprouted and grown and proliferated across the globe like an invasive weed. How has it taken root in our lives?

Another important step in this work is uprooting whiteness. Internalized whiteness can be likened to an invasive weed that has taken root inside many of us - in the way we think, and act, and feel. And like invasive weeds do, it displaces aspects of ourselves. We see the ways that whiteness is harming us, as white people and as people of color. What are ways that we’ve been able to uproot whiteness in our worlds?

The concept of composting whiteness comes from the work of fellow researcher, JJ Fiore. It was inspired by the compost politics work of our professor and posthumanist philosopher, Báyò Akómoláfé. Composting whiteness has an alchemical and transformative quality to it. What does composting whiteness mean? How are we composting whiteness in our lives?

Many anti-racism trainings focus on seeing and uprooting whiteness. Here, we’re looking at what’s next. Once whiteness has been seen, uprooted, and composted, what are we planting? What’s next? According to one co-researcher, “Sometimes it’s hard for us to imagine what something could look like if we don’t have an example of it.” What’s next requires imagination. How are we reimagining worlds without whiteness?

Join us in future episodes as we share our conversations with you. Conversations that we hope will spark conversations of your own. Our understanding and imaginings continue to evolve and unfold even as we speak. As people of color, we share stories of reimagining therapy, reimagining through art, and reimagining multi-racial identities. As white people, we share stories of reimagining through roots deeper than whiteness, reimagining through animist roots, reimagining ancestral roots as anti-racist practice. And so much more!