What Participants Say about the UNtraining

“What is unique and inspiring about the UNtraining is that we work from the inside out. We look at what's going on inside of us and how that translates into our actions. We learn about our own privilege, conditioning, racism, etc in order to change the world by accepting, loving and ultimately changing ourselves. We also cultivate a sense of our human decency. For me this is the foundation of working on myself and being an activist out in the world.”

– April Schlenk

"I appreciated Robert Horton's non-judgmental approach to helping people understand and work with their own racism. Robert is skillful and fearless in helping people explore the intense feelings that arise in understanding racism within themselves and in the our culture. The UNtraining is grounded in a respect for the basic goodness of every person and an acknowledgement of the courage it takes to work on one's own racism. It fosters self-acceptance and tolerance of other better than any book I've read, film I've seen, or workshop I've attended on racism."

-Mary Goodell

"I came to The UNtraining seeking to make visible and take responsibility for the assumptions of white privilege, and to become a more effective ally to people of color. I wanted to push past my conscious edges in the fight against racism. What I got from The UNtraining was all that and so much more! Through The UNtraining I was able to bring awareness and compassion to my own racism and my part in the perpetuation of white privilege. I learned to be more real, less judgmental, and to experience and manage many different feelings and reactions simultaneously. I am much more able to stand in your shoes, whoever you are, because I learned to stand in my own."

-Nancy Slocum

"Through my work in The UNtraining, I have gained heightened awareness of myself as a white person in a white-dominated society. I'm beginning to unravel my unconscious responses and to see the previously invisible racial component of situations. My life is more challenging now, and it's also richer and deeper."

-Sterling OGrady

"The UNtraining is about freeing up what has been suppressed with respect to racism and racial issues. It is non-judgmental and non-shaming. It is safe and powerful. I have experienced a spill-over of this freedom of exploration into my work as a counselor and Rosen Method practitioner, as well as into the rest of my life. I have more openness. I am taking on topics, situations and experiences that I have previously shied away from, around racial issues as well as other areas where people experience oppression. I am seeing where I have privilege because of the color of my skin, because I am able-bodied, because of my age, because, because, because... Through the UNtraining, I am realizing how, in my privilege, I have not been challenged to look at these issues and this has stifled my growth and my ability to connect with others."

-Paula McGuire

"I came to The UNtraining program in hopes of becoming a "good" white person, one who understood racism, fought against it and could be trusted by people of color. I was more motivated by a desire to reduce the potential for conflict with people of color than by understanding what my "whiteness" might actually mean. Fortunately, I discovered a lot more about being white than I ever expected. I learned how much my sense of identity continues to be shaped by being white in a white supremacist culture. I came to realize that a significant proportion of what has separated and alienated me from others, mainstream and minority alike, arose from the way I was enculturated as a white person. Finally, I found that my own freedom, to be myself, to connect deeply with others, depended upon my ability to recognize and counteract the currents of supremacist beliefs that move within and around me. I now know how much my freedom and the freedom of people of color are inextricably intertwined."

-David Goff