Rooted in Practice: Our Frameworks & Invitations
Intersectional Racial Justice
The Racial Justice Summit is grounded in a framework of intersectional racial justice. At YWCA Madison, we recognize that all systems of oppression are interconnected and mutually reinforcing. To truly dismantle racism and build a liberated world, our collective approach must be multifaceted, nuanced, and rooted in solidarity. This means addressing the ways racism intersects with other forms of inequality, such as sexism, classism, settler colonialism, ableism, transphobia, and homophobia, while also working across movements to advance justice for all.
Holistic Learning and Unlearning for Transformative Action
The magic of the Summit lives in the moments, connections, and insights that arise from the abundant sharing of wisdom, knowledge, and practice. We strive to cultivate a community of practice that nurtures broader, more complex, and holistic understandings of ourselves, each other, and our collective journeys toward liberation.
Throughout your Summit experience, you’ll be invited to share the life-giving gift of your full presence. Together, we’ll co-create space and stillness, allowing our hearts, minds, and bodies to be present, honest, and open. This spaciousness is the fertile ground from which our abolitionist practices can take root and grow.
We invite you to bring your whole self to the Summit and engage with all ways of knowing—mind, body, heart, and spirit—as we work to make visible, disrupt, and transform the ongoing violence of colonial ideologies, racial hierarchy, and white supremacy. This work happens at every level: within systems and structures, in our communities and organizations, in our relationships, and within ourselves.
Two Loop Model of System Change
Building on the holistic approach woven throughout the Summit, curated experiences are designed to support attendees in engaging with two interconnected practices:
Unlearning, interrupting, and dismantling the beliefs, behaviors, and systems within ourselves, our communities, organizations, and institutions that perpetuate the violent impact of racial inequity.
Learning, nurturing, and co-creating the conditions—within ourselves and our collective spaces—that give rise to beliefs, behaviors, practices, and structures rooted in racial justice and collective liberation.
In this practice, we invite you to be deliberately curious and attentive to the transgenerational and ongoing nature of both these cycles. Throughout the Summit, you’ll be guided to explore not only what must come to an end, but also what must be nurtured into being. Together, these practices form the heart of our collective journey, inviting reflection, transformation, and the courageous reimagining of a world grounded in the lived realities and systems we are working to disrupt and transform.