Maryland college forms 'White Accountability Group'

The group is for white and "white-passing" folks in the Loyola community.

Loyola University in Maryland formed a "White Accountability Group" for faculty, staff and administrators.

Loyola leaders released a promotional video ahead of its first session on September 4.

Loyola University in Maryland formed what it’s calling a ”White Accountability Group.” 

Its website said the community would “like to offer white and white-passing folks the opportunity to put those resources into action by engaging in deep, meaningful conversations and exercises on anti-racism.”

In a promotional video released before their first information session, which is scheduled for Friday, September 4, leaders at Loyola shared why they feel this group is necessary and have chosen to join. 

One man in the video noted that the space is for faculty, staff, and administrators in the 70 percent white Jesuit Catholic university.

“For me, it’s all about the fact that I know I’m racist. I grew up in the United States of America,” said one woman. “It’s part of who I am.”

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One man named JP said “any of my achievements, anything I have earned is inauthentic.”

Another woman said, “I really think that I have a responsibility as an individual and in community with other white people to acknowledge the ways in which I benefit from the racist structures that cause people of color not to be able to thrive in our community.”

One woman, who is Latina, pointed out that she passes as white, straight, and native-born. 

“I want to know how I can sort of use those privileges to do the work for our fellow colleagues here at Loyola,” she said.

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“I’m joining this group to really become more aware of how I, myself, and my colleagues perpetuate racist policies and white supremacist values both in my personal life and my professional life,” one man in the video said.

Another woman named Janine gave a different reason for joining.

“I want to join a group so that when I make a huge racist mistake I can talk to you guys about it, instead of trying to talk to a person of color about it,” said Janine.

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“White people, including me, need relationships and spaces that we can be authentic and freely share about our defensiveness, our fears, as well as our resistance to recognizing the pervasiveness of our white privilege in this country,” said one man.

Campus Reform reached out to Loyola’s White Accountability Group for a statement but did not hear back in time for publication.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @JezzamineWolk