How to Build Friendships & a Field of Peace Between White Women & Black Women

Friendship. It’s one of the most important ingredients of a well-lived life. And yet, real friendship in which we can show up as and share care for our full, authentic selves, can be so hard to find—and so hard to maintain—in these times. Especially interracially, especially between white women and black women.
That’s why I was so excited that my guests this week, Tanisha Arena and JAC Patrissi agreed to get real with me and share their real-life story of growing a deep, abiding friendship.
About Tanisha & JAC:
Tanisha Arena is a Black woman in community leadership as the Executive Director of Arise for Social Justice in Springfield, Ma. She holds a Masters in Non-Profit Management and is an educator at Growing A New Heart, where she trains regularly on Holding Space: holding affinity, anti-racism, self-education and support groups and Dialogues Across Differences of social location, including race and ethnicity. Tanisha has deep roots in the field of anti-violence work, specializing in community advocacy and responses to intimate partner violence within the LGBTQ community.
JAC Patrissi is white woman engaged in kinship minded anti-racist work within a loving multi-racial transformative collective at Growing a New Heart. JAC was tutored in Popular Education by Paolo Freire and is a trained body-centered trauma clinician. She is co-founder of A Call For Change, a non-carceral helpline for people who cause harm in intimate relationships and community. Since 1989, she has been and anti-violence advocate working with survivors while learning and practicing non-carceral accountability practices for people using violence and control and other tools of dominance.
Learn More from Tanisha & JAC’s Work:
Growing a New Heart
Learn More from Katherine:
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Katherine’s LinkedIn page
Center for Callings & Courage