Online, Monday 27 July 2020, 6.30-8pm

Aims:

• Share Tom’s story demo based on bystander images
• Start a conversation about oppression, resistance and justice.
• Continue building the ethos of co-collaboration
• Define our terms; justice, oppression, resistance and prejudice

Brainwriting Activity

Open up a document on your computer or grab a notebook, whichever you prefer.

I’m going to ask you some questions and give you two minutes to silently write a response to each question. There’ll be a break in between. At the end, I’d like you to save that document or keep those notes in a safe place – they’ll form the basis of a task for later.

We’re going to ask people to engage with experiences of oppression and/or prejudice. If it feels uncomfortable or difficult, please do stop writing and take a break. We’re going to start off with some negatives, and hope to move towards the positives.

1. Can you write about a time when you’ve felt on the receiving end of prejudice or oppression? (2 minutes)
2. Can you write about a time when you’ve behaved in a prejudiced way towards someone else, or a time when you’ve oppressed someone else? (2 minutes)
3. Can you tell us about a time when you’ve taken action to resist prejudice or oppression? (2 minutes)
4. During your own lifetime, what positive changes have you seen in relation to prejudice or oppression? (2 minutes)
5. When you think about prejudice and oppression, what are your hopes for the future? (2 minutes)

Task 5: What do you see?

From the point of view of:

• Looking at the photo as you?
• The young woman?
• The EDL guy?
• The cop?
• The man in the high-vis jacket?

Think about the approaches you’ve taken during the observer/protagonist/antagonist exercise – the sense of place, the experiences of all the people involved.

Freestyle it! Write a monologue (or a set of monologues), do a piece of description, make a poem – it’s totally up to you.