Invisible racism Power relations
Power and candies Summary In this activity participants are invited to distribute resources (candies) and explore to what extent the power to do so can exclude groups and on what criteria.
Materials Candies (at least sixty)
Procedure Part one 1. Explain to the participants that you have a surprise for them, but only people born between April and October will get it. Emphasise that you yourself were born in this period and that is how you know that this is the period when the best people were born. Ask participants born in this period to step forward. 2. Give one candy to everyone who stepped forward. Tell the participants that you have more candies left and they can decide how they will be allocated: either for everyone, or between those born between April and October or even between those born in only one or two months (the smaller the group, the more candies each of their members will get). 3. If the group reallocates the candies in a way that some people will have two or more candies, tell them you can give them ten more candies and only people with two candies or more can participate in deciding how they are going to be distributed.
Part two 4. Ask participants with candies (or with two or more candies in case everyone has candies) to gather their candies together and form a circle between them to protect them. 5. Ask participants with no candles (or with less than two) how they would try to reach the candies in the protected circle. Encourage them to try. Everyone should observe what strategies there are. Make sure you observe the groups’ safety and stop the exercise if it becomes violent.
Constellations . A manual for working with young people on the topic of racism and invisible racism
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