Saira Rao and Regina Jackson, Co-founders of Race 2 Dinner
Photo by Rebecca Stumpf/The Guardian
“Shift power, redistribute wealth. Invest in Black, Indigenous and women of color, then every woman rises to the top” — Saira Rao
You’re invited to dinner. On the menu is a full serving of addressing racism with a side of systemic education. And when I say “you’re,” I’m talking to white women. (Yes, all white women.)
And the sweet dessert? White women disrupting and dismantling the hate.
Saira Rao and Regina Jackson, the co-founders of Race 2 Dinner, facilitate conversations with white women about systemic racism against Black, Indigenous and women of color (BIPOC). Their goal is to reveal what BIPOC women have always seen: white privilege and white women’s complicity with being part of — and benefitting from — a racist system. The question is, are white women willing to use their power and privilege to dismantle the hate rather than to uphold it?
In Rao’s words, “The revolution is not going to happen on Facebook.” Or Instagram and Twitter for that matter. The revolution has to be served in reality, as a raw and hopefully refreshing conversation over dinner.
We met with Rao and Jackson to learn more about what inspired the Race 2 Dinner series and how they’re dismantling racism one white woman at a time.
Photo by Rebecca Stumpf/The Guardian
How did both of you meet?
Rao: I was running for Congress in 2018, and Regina joined my team as a volunteer for my campaign. We quickly became friends.
Jackson: We became good friends over courting voters and taking white women to cocktails, lunch, dinners to talk about race.
Tell me about Race 2 Dinner’s origin story.
Jackson: What I love about Saira is she says what everyone is thinking (as shown on her Twitter feed). Saira posted on her social feed about race — and a friend of mine, a white woman, didn’t like it at all and asked if I could set up a lunch with her to meet Saira.
Rao: I had done many of these meet-ups and had a queue of white women who had made the same request. So, we set up a dinner at one of my friend’s houses, a white woman, and Regina came with me. It was one for the books. Regina’s friend was crying, and 6-7 other white women were there. It was out of control. After dinner, I went home, and I was angry and beside myself. I spent $300 on that dinner, for what? So I posted about it on Facebook, and other white women said they wanted to host a dinner.
Jackson: Thus, Race 2 Dinner was born at the beginning of 2019.
What topics or questions typically come up during dinners?
Jackson: Everything comes up.
Rao: White women always want to know what they can do. The big thing is that we want these women to sincerely see how racism shows up and to say out loud racist thoughts and behaviors that they have committed in the last six months, year and years. Every second of every day, we are conditioned to be racist. When you start seeing how small and big behaviors each day are racist, it becomes a lot easier to stop them.
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
What are some of the most shocking things you’ve heard or experienced at dinner?
Rao: At this point, nothing is shocking. Imagine if you and eight of your white women friends had dinner with eight white men to get them to speak about their own sexism. We’ve seen it all at this point. The more shocking thing is when we see change. Crying and getting defensive is not shocking.