This training will address utilizing an anti-oppression framework to explore the intersections between sexual violence prevention and racial justice activism. Black Women's Blueprint has developed the Bystander Mixtape's curriculum that reshapes how Bystander Intervention in communities is done. Using a storytelling narrative, this training will describe how peer-to-peer learning, intervention, and accountability are necessary to address the catastrophe of white supremacy and to prevent sexual violence.

Using an active bystander perspective, session one will include a historical overview illuminating the importance of culturally specific strategies to intervene in both systemic and intercommunal violence. These strategies seek to balance the responsibility to intervene with one’s own need for safety and self-care, the impact of which extends to a broader group that will in turn change community norms. The interactive second session of this training will place a heavy emphasis on skill building for community safety and grounding the work of Bystander Intervention in both empathy and reconciliation.

Objectives:

• List strategies (or actions) that shift the culture around “codes of loyalty” and “protection of the community” so that these codes also include loyalty to Black women, girls, and others who may be targets of sexual violence.
• Identify existing barriers to traditional bystander intervention and techniques to overcome these barriers.
• Demonstrate the ability to utilize culturally specific active bystander strategies to disrupt problematic social norms and engage communities in the work to prevent sexual violence.